After the trip to Tunisia earlier this year, I called into a mates place near Portsmouth on the way home. Vague plans were talked about to visit Albania with dirt bikes. The main reason was Gareth wanted to go house hunting and also wanted to play in the mountains there. At the time, this was just a chat and I came home, got back into work/life mode and generally forgot about it.
In April, Gareth & I were talking again and the Albania trip came back up, so a plan was set in place for the last couple of weeks of June. Various options were thrown into the pot, 1. Ride two 690's there and back, 2. Put 690's into Gareth's van, drive there and then ride around. At about the same time, a 2013 KTM 450 Six Days came up for sale not too far from me and at a reasonable price. So I decided to go check it out.
Why? I have been asking myself the question again as to how I should travel around the world. The options in my head are; KTM 690, KTM 500, Land Rover Defender, Sail boat. All very random and each with their own issues, challenges and pleasures. As part of my options tick box process, I decided to buy the 450, (which has the almost the same engine design as a 500, but there is more of them), and ride it for a bit on a longer trip. This also saved me having to strip down the nav tower off the 690 as it won't fit into Gareth's van with it on.
So further discussion with Gareth, we eventually settled on taking my 450 & his 300 two stroke to tour around Albania for two weeks in his van, he can then go house hunting and we have some spares to hand and a back up if anything untoward happens.
Once that was decided, we started looking at Albania itself. I re-read all my blog posts about the trip Lucy & I did back in 2017. This provided a good backdrop and so route planning went into action. Loads of GPX files were downloaded from Wikiloc, online research showed a lot of beautiful places and a vague plan started to come together. We downloaded the latest Trans Euro Trail file and cobbled together a route plan to tour the country. Further discussion outlined Gareth's house hunting criteria and the plan was sorted as much as it can be.
We booked the ferry to France and got to servicing the bikes and sourcing spares, tyres etc for the trip. As always, the main costs are the transport to the country and the spares for the bikes. Once there, food is cheap, fuel is about the same as the UK and as we plan to wild camp for the most part, so accommodation will be cheap. But it's cheap enough anyway there.
Our final plan is for me to drive to Gareth's place with my 450, we load both bikes into his van, drive to the France ferry. then share the 24hr driving to Albania. We'll get into the country, find somewhere to park up, sleep, eat, then go biking/house hunting for two weeks, before returning to the UK.
Whilst we will have access to the van, and thus some riding without the luggage etc. I'd like to trial the idea of living on the 450. I've written another post about the actual bike itself and where things have got to so far. If things don't work out, I've learned something and I can sell on the 450 without too much hassle, especially now it is fully serviced and set up correctly again.
At this stage though, I'm only doing the things needed for the Albania trip. So additional items like a powered Garmin GPS cradle, 5v USB charge point, luggage attachments and some under bar mirrors have been added. For a longer trip though, it'll need a better saddle, the suspension serviced, the headlight replaced, a bigger fuel tank and a small screen/nav set up. All things which have already been done to the 690!
The main reason for considering a 450 is the weight and ability of these bikes over the 690. Simply put, for the hassle of changing the oil more regularly, I get to travel through more wilder places on the smaller bike because of its set up, durability, weight and its capability.
These bikes are more rugged than the 690 and less complicated in terms of electrical components. They are also so much easier to pick up and recover. The engine is well proven with several people riding them around the world. Although to be fair, it will require a rebuild at some point which is a significant cost. But now, the 690 is at that stage too with its high mileage and history.
Hey ho, we'll see. There is still a whole summer to go of distractions, contracts and commitments before I'm forced to make a decision either way.
