Time to go....
 

Dear All, as some of you may already know, my wife has been working with the UN in South Sudan for the past 18-months and in August this year, her tour of duty ends and she returns full-time to Blighty.
As a reward for working in a less than smart place and living in a converted shipping container in 43 degrees of heat, the UN have given her 6-weeks leave.

Her idea is that we go on an extended motorcycle tour from the UK, down to the foot of Italy, cross the Adriatic (in the opposite direction to most) to Greece and ride north via Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia to Estonia and catch the ferry to Finland and then continue onwards to the Arctic Circle, before swinging left and home via Sweden, Norway, Denmark etc.... I've detailed all these countries, so that you will agree with me, when I say that this is too far by XT, two-up!

As a consequence I've stuck with the Yamaha brand and bought ab FJR1300AE and bloody hell it's big! But with 146-bhp and 50-mpg, I am sure you can see my reasoning?

Now, contrary to making promises to my wife to sell the XT, I had secretly planned on over-looking the sale for as long as possible.... Then fate took a turn; Two guys are doing a ride for charity from London to Vietnam www.visorhead.com and were looking via Facebook for a low mileage, ready to tour XT... You can guess the rest! My XT will shortly be on it's one-way journey to Vietnam and I wish the guys all the best.

And so, it is with a heavy heart that I must leave you off-road types and fight my way on the autoroute and A-road networks against the GS types of this world! It's been a blast and the XT.... I loved it.

Cheers
CD

Good luck on what promises to be a tour of a life time. Enjoy

Sounds like a great trip...enjoy! I reckon you will have another XT one day......Steve

I did a very similar sort of trip back in 2008 and thoroughly enjoyed it. We didn't do Italy, we headed for Bulgaria, travelled round the north coast of the Black Sea via Odessa and then up to St. Petersburg, crossed into Finland an on up to the Nordkapp and back through Norway, Sweden and Denmark. I'm sure you will also have a very enjoyable time on the road - it's a great route.

Good luck with the trip, ride safely and keep us posted with your progress. You might not have an XT anymore, but that really doesn't matter - we'll still be interested to see/hear what you get up to.

Cool, thanks for all the feedback. I'll keep in touch!

Safe journey and may you never get as wet as our ride up to Wales last year.

Man, I seriously hope not! KLIM gear seems to have fixed that... (other brands are available)

Moved up a notch then. No more wrapped in plastic. But then you will be moving quite a bit faster. Enjoy the big adventure both of you