Time for final testing. Past experience has taught us 3 things:

1. There are countries where some obvious goods, such as Octenisept or Poxilina, do not exist. Instead of Octenisept, there is iodine, and instead of Poxiline – an undefined substance with adhesive properties – titled with letters from another alphabet.
2. Any problems can be solved with the resources available on the spot. However, it takes longer, the durability of the solution is difficult to assess and sometimes it seems troublesome.  Although you can meet helpful people and regain faith in the cooperation of the human species.
3. We don’t want to spend time finding solutions on the go. We want it to be easy, smooth and pleasant.

So we decided that we would pack absolutely everything we want to take with us on a trip to India and ride from Katowice to the Baltic Sea coast. In Gdańsk, near Poznań and near Zielona Góra, we would visit friends with whom we have not seen for a very long time. And in fact, this is the best way to start expedition.

For a route, we chose side paved roads and pieces of Polish Western TET.

What did we want to check?

The convenience

The original Yamaha Tenere T7 and Honda CRF300Rally models have been adapted to long term travelling through the smallest possible number of modifications:

• Sprocket ratio change
• Honda suspension change
• Replacing bash plate of Tenere with accessory
• Installation of sockets, additional lighting and heated grips
• Assembly of navigation holders
• Reinforcements of plastic elements under the luggage

We wanted to check if everything works, if the assembly is durable and if it is comfortable to ride in a sitting and standing position.

Luggage system

I’ve been looking for a long time for a luggage system that will stick to the sides of the motorcycle and widen it to a minimum extent. It shouldn’t significantly raise the center of gravity and at the same time accommodate everything we take with us, that is:

• Travel shelter (tent, sleeping mats and bags)
• Cooking stuff (stove, dishes, food)
• Elecrtronics (laptops, cameras, accessories)
• Clothes & cosmetics
• Tools & Protective stuff
• Additional gas and water

We chose soft panniers system, rackless (therefore lighter by several dozen centimeters of steel piping), which can be flexibly enlarged with other bags and sacks attached to the basic loops preprepared in the pannier’s system.

Clothes & protective gear

Based on previous experience of riding in various terrain and weather conditions, we wanted to fit motorcycle clothes so that they would be suitable for:

• 3 season riding – but mostly in heat> 30 degrees
• Riding mostly on side and gravel roads, sometimes on mountain roads and off-road.

Regular touring clothes – such as 3 layer riding suits that make you look and feel like Michelin man we ruled out right away. It is difficult to adjust them so that they do not restrict movement, they take up a lot of space and are quite heavy. Moreover, even with a large number of air vents, they do not work well in heat.

We decided to mix&match our own set consisting of lightweight touring motorcycle jackets without linings, urban tactical pants and hard but comfortable knee pads underneath them. Instead of lining and insulation – thermal underwear, windshields and down jackets – clothes that can also be used for trekking or just for city trips. Plus light enduro gloves and enduro shoes in which you can also walk.

Equipped with all this, we set off to the north – towards Gdańsk. And we arrived on schedule…. the next day. All the stuff arrived successfully, and we set comfortable Honda cruising speed on the side roads – 100-120 km / h.

Tricity

We haven’t seen Paweł – our host from Gdańsk for a long time.  We met him many years ago through Couchsurfing and… salsa. Paweł is the founder of the famous Salsa Club dance school in Tricity, the creator and organizer of the cult Mega Biba salsa festival, and a travel lover. Passions connect, so from that first meeting, even though we don’t see each other often, we think of ourselves as lifetime friends.

After a short good morning – Paweł sent us to the beach, where we spent a lazy afternoon and also the next day. In the evening, Ola – a summer vacationer from Warsaw, who recently returned from Ladakh, joined in and … wine and stories were flowing freely.

Time passed by and we headed back south. Pomerania, Kujawy and Wielkopolska abound in forest roads, so again it took us half a day to reach Lake Powidzkie.  We headed to Olga and Jacek – who have just bought a plot here and started developing settlement.

Lake Powidzkie surprised us with its cleanliness and peace. This area is not yet exploited for tourism, the lake serene, and silence around soothe the city’s excited minds.

Here we had the opportunity to set up our new 3-person tent for the first time. We were happy to pull in all our belongings and found that there was still plenty of sleeping space and it was also quite comfortable to sit in.

We spent a lazy day by the water, swimming and talking, and then – we packed our tent and headed towards Zielona Góra.

Pajęczno

My long time not seen, but dear friend got married, got a PhD, gave birth to 2 children, and together with her husband bought a farm in the forest from a retired professor of photography. And she became a certified Soul Couch.

I don’t know when we will be back to Poland, so I couldn’t help but visit her and her place on earth just before we leave.

And this place turned out to be unusual. Although Agata and the children, unfortunately were not there we were shown around the farm by Sławek, the dog Saszka and the cat Vadim. The extensive buildings are in a very neglected condition yet, but they still make a great impression. There is a lot of equipment everywhere – from copiers and enlargers, to tools for working with wood, metal and the unknown, unidentified objects :). There is even a tractor, although it is not certain that it was used as intended. Everywhere, more or less finished “creations”. We are absolutely sure that an excellent creative space will soon be manifested here – a space for study, work and personal development.

In the evening, I served rum with coffee – a shot brought from a bar in Krakow, which frees from fatigue and lengthens all night conversations. Sławek did not know that the Western Polish TET goes 3 km from their farm. Stay tuned, we sowed the seeds and maybe a motorcyclist shelter or a real Moto Camp will be built soon here?

That would be awesome, especially because there is no accommodation in the area.

The next day we hit the road again. The surroundings of this property abound in forest sandy paths, so we had the opportunity to practice riding with heavy luggage through deep sand. A fully loaded motorcycle is quite a challenge under these conditions, and it wasn’t smooth at all at first. Only after a long time we did find the balance and it was much better, although sand with luggage is probably always going to be a challenge.

Riding further, we came across a camel 🙂

We crossed abandoned airport….

We swam in the nearby lakes and watched the beautiful sunset…..

and passing the villages we watched the preparations for the Harvest Festival celebrations.

We got back home, enriched with the knowledge of how our motorbikes and our luggage get through while traveling. This test was very much needed. There is not much room for improvement, but still:

• The accessory lamp stopped working – the installation has been damaged somewhere
• The toolbox twisted off and one of its fasteners got broken
• There must be additional thermal insulation in one place, as the inner part of the base of the panniers overheated and melted slightly.

We also changed the equipment we took a bit. Well, we’ll write more about it some other time.

The post Baltic Sea – final tests before expedition to India first appeared on ONE MORE ADV.

The bikes’s modifications seems never ending story, although the progress is clearly visible. We put more points of interests on our route and modify the list of countries through which we can eventually get to the Southeast end of our journey.

We prepare the bikes

Preparing the bike for a holiday trip is very different from packing a house on 2 wheels. The installment that will stand for home for many months and will supposingly move mainly along side and gravel roads.

Contrary to our former trips, now we have 2 different motorcycles. Previously we both rode the same Tenere XT 660Z, and the solutions we implemented there were tested in shorter trips. We replaced only some standard parts with improved ones and we carried with us only one repair kit, one set of tools, one inner tube, etc..

Now we ride different bikes and we have to think carefully about each piece of equipment -separately and twice, because the same solution cannot be applied to the other bike. With such long routes away from the services, it even matters how we attach the luggage straps to hard bike parts –  not to allow the accidental damage of luggage system, cause it will be difficult to fix.

Each motorcycle is equipped with a set of soft panniers and we plan to arrange the luggage in such a way that Hanna’s motorcycle is less loaded. However, both bikes should carry the real minimum to everyday life.  Add navigation mounts, raised handlebars, additional electric system expansion, extra lights, gears, tires. And, of course, the suspension setup, which in the case of QnDelK (Honda) ended up with suspension exchange.

Some of these equipment works you can watch in One More ADV Youtube – we want you to take advantage of our experience. We will add more films over time, the material is already available, and new recordings are also being made. A detailed list of the final improvements to the new Yamaha Tenere T7 and Honda CRF300 Rally models will be available in separate post. Stay tuned …

Routes planning

We gave up planning daily routes and even planning specific routes through individual countries. Instead, we have points of interest on our map and a rough idea of ​​how easy or not it is to get to them. So we adopted a plan that there is no plan and we will go wherever it’s beautiful and interesting.

We train the skills

Jacek is excellent in off-road driving – his experience in hard enduro and extreme 4×4 challenges (NO LIMIT class) makes him effortlessly overcome the wilderness’s conditions. In addition, he is great at transfering his knowledge and explaining how to get through a specific terrain obstacle, breaking it down into levels of advancement.

Hania’s dirt roads experience is restricted to holiday travels. In some countries like Albania or Vietnam, asphalt on side roads is an exception and you have to ride gravel road anyway. Sometimes you shorten the route by some  mountain dirt road – but it was not comfortable or effortless, and in fact it was sometimes very stressful.

That is why we are now training  new ways of riding off the beaten path – technically correct and ensuring maximum safety when traveling by motorcycle. We train in controlled conditions. The keywords and exercises of these days are: slow ride, clutch operations, legs on pegs, and balance. We’re setting reliable basics and developing stable habits.

Some of Jack’s unique ways to overcome obstacles can be found in the YT One More ADV Academy playlist.

That’s it for today. If you would like to learn more about the specific issues – contact us here, on FB or by e-mail. Stay with us, and … live every day!

The post When are we actually leaving? first appeared on ONE MORE ADV.

Our Teneres has never let us down. They traveled the Balkans with us several times, they took us and our luggage to the farthest reaches, coping with the same vigor as on the highway. They are ultra-comfortable and unbreakable. They forgave the mistakes of rider’s fatigue and even if something undesirable “happened” on the road – they could be easily repaired in any country.

We rode exactly the same models in order to take one set of parts with us and, if necessary, have “diagnostic parts” from the other motorcycle. Great idea, however there was never a need for it.

Due to the lack of time, our routes included fast paved roads, scenic minor side roads and only a small extent dirt mountain roads. Teneres without abs, extensive displays, and with high suspension and allterain tires are an excellent motorcycles for such a journey.

And now? Now we are actually going without clearly drawn routes. The journey will be many times longer and more spontaneous, and the countries will be more and more exotic. We decided to adopt a much more off-road concept and select motorcycles in such a way as to distribute the forces also in proportion to the strength of the riders and their experience.

For me, Tenere’s problem is weight. While on asphalt and good paved roads it does not matter too much, on more difficult terrain the weight and height of the saddle become difficult to manage. In addition, I know light motorcycles from previous journeys and I know that it is much easier for me to maneuver them. Therefore, after a short review of the available models, I was very happy to discover that the Honda CRF300 Rally model is now available in Poland.

I had the opportunity to travel with Honda CRF250 in Vietnam and I know that it is an excellent choice for poor roads and barely-visible roads, and the Rally is presented as its travel equivalent.

Jacek actually did not want to change the motorcycle, but I persuaded him to test drive the new Tenere – T7. He had some fun with it, you can check it out here…. In the end, he was convinced by a slightly more powerful, flexible engine, good suspension and excellent Japanese geometry.

It has not been 2 weeks since the idea for this change and 2 additional horses have appeared in our stable. So now we have 4 of them!

The post Why we own 4 ADV motorbikes now? first appeared on ONE MORE ADV.

Baltic Sea – Himalayas ..
There are people who complain about the lack of adventures There are also those who always have an excess of them. We have been the former for years and envied the latter. Until we finally decided to change it.

Do you know these stories about overworked entrepreneurs? This is what our life has been like for the last 6 years. All we had time for – in the area of ​​travel, relaxation and adventure were dreams. We did not let our dreams go and one thing that we resonated with the most was to ride the entire silk road on motorbikes. 

We have sold our company. We decided to abandon financial security and start One More ADV – an adventure with a capital A.

We waited out the last months of the pandemic and… we did not anticipate the Russian-Ukrainian war. So we revised the list of countries we want to get through and chose the start and end points. And from here came a rough plan:

Baltic Sea – Himalayas

There is no other sea as charming as the Baltic Sea and no mountains as majestic as the Himalayas.

So now we gather practical information, put points on maps, check the necessary documents, prepare luggage and equipment. We are working on the route and will show the full plan here soon.

We invite you on this journey with us.

The post Let’s begin! first appeared on ONE MORE ADV.