Keep your cool

It might be freezing here in Japan at the moment but it is summer in other parts of the world where I will soon be heading to and so I find myself examining my hot weather riding gear. Some of the things I find help me stay cool are as follows: Good helmet venting. I use a Nolan N43 helmet which has a lot more air venting than most helmets and in summer it makes a huge difference to how I feel

Australia’s Best Motorcycle Roads – East Coast

It has been a long time since I first started writing about where the best riding was in Australia (way back to 1995) and I have not had the chance to revisit all these roads so some of the articles below are looking dated and just plain lack content compared to my more modern posts.They remain some of the best rides, that has not changed and is unlikely to since infrastructure away from cities

Japan South 10 day motorcycle tour

A window of fine weather appeared in early November before winter. It was already very cold to ride North however the southern temperatures remained mild so I decided to seize the chance to try a more ambitious tour here before winter ends the riding for this year. One of the challenges touring here is securing hotels. They seem to book out a few days in advance and weekends often a couple weeks

Japan Autumn leaves motorcycle tour

I have read often that October is the best month for riding Japan. So I made sure I was here, even shelving other travel only for there to be a two typhoons! I was beginning to wish I had made other arrangements but eventually the rain eased so I decided to try a shortened Autumn leaf viewing ride. Heading north I wanted to skirt around Tokyo as I don’t trust the Garmin to navigate me through the

Nice rides in NSW Australia

Came across an excellent site by the New South Wales government promoting safety that also has a nice section about the best roads to enjoy riding in the state of NSW. So refreshing to see compared to the strong anti motorcycle government across the border in Queensland.

Do take a look at it here

RS Taichi Summer Gloves

They say our hands are often the least well protected body part when riding. Not sure where they get their data from. I suppose that is referring to summer and riders with light weight gloves or no gloves, winter you would imagine that does not apply. Used to be difficult to find good summer gloves but really so many choices these days.  That said many are quite flimsy and would offer little to

Shoe Shift Guard review

If you have ever done some riding in street shoes then you will know they will soon be marked by the gear shifter when you shift up. Ok not the best footwear for riding however there are times when you are not going to have your boots and riding gear at hand such as travelling light and rent a small bike to explore the area or maybe even just riding short distance at home to shop in afternoon. I

Indonesia Motorcycle Tour

I had an idea to do a ride in Indonesia for a while now but have been side tracked a couple of times before getting there. Mentioning I will ride Indonesia and everybody seems to say ‘oh Bali’ but IMO that is almost a different country within Indonesia. Focused on money with expensive resorts for those who seek to be whisked from airport to luxury hotel room. Phuket, Boracay and Bali are just not

Mini Japan motorcycle tour

Well time to pack the bike and move to Kanagawa region but I am taking a couple of days to get there so I can detour to Nagano and the high mountains. I will miss seeing all the beautiful mountain streams in the Aichi and Gifu area. Leaving via Gifu I take one more go at seeing Mt Norikura via route 84 on the western side but am blocked about half way up. I already tried the Norikura skyline

Leaving Nagoya

Last ride from Nagoya but certainly not my last ride in this part of Japan which I like very much and will return to in the future. Just a quick post of a few photos I wanted to add to my set of the area on the bog. I chose to revisit the roads nearby which I first road the afternoon I picked up the FJR. I perhaps only had the chance to ride 1/4 of the good roads in this part of Japan so rich is

Motorcycling in Mie

Trust me to be the last to find Mie, the district that is. I often find myself drawn to something afar and overlook what is right in front of me and so I have been off riding the roads in Fukui and Nagano and left my first visit to Mie until the last week I have living in Nagoya. I started this ride by revisiting the Suzuka skyline which was closed the last time I tried to ride it. This is an

Adventures in Aichi

Or perhaps I can call this post adventures in GPS navigation in Japan. To the East of Nagoya lies Toyota City and the prefecture of Aichi. I was not expecting too much in the way of good riding roads however yet again it was excellent. Once you leave Nagoya there is mountain after mountain with roads crossing most if not all in some form or another. I am getting used to being able to whisk my

Nearly Nagano

I’ve been doing a few rides north from Nagoya towards Nagano. The high alps in Nagano are a bit too far for one day but there is still plenty of great roads to enjoy along the way. Getting out of Nagoya is still a challenge but I now know the expressway system well enough on a couple of the routes I use to be able to ignore the hopelessly inaccurate navigation provided by my Garmin. I have been

Top 50 Motorcycle Rides in the World.

50 rides to do before you die. Do you have a ride bucket list? You may well start one after reading this. In no  particular order let me present … 1. The Grande Strada delle Dolomiti, Dolomite mountains, Italy. There are many mountain passes and interconnecting riding options in this area so this is merely one of many great roads. The Grande Strada delle Dolomiti links Bolzano and Cortina as a

Fantastic Fukui

Starting to know a few of the roads around Nagoya now but it would take years to explore them all. I set off to revisit route 157 in Gifu. I previously started down this road but turned back at what appeared to be road closed ahead type signage which I later found out to be no large vehicles permitted ahead. Well the road turned into a narrow goat track and was more suiting a off road bike not a

Trip to Toyama

It is rainy season here in Japan now but when the weather permits I am loading up the bike and heading out to explore. Most recently I went about as far north as possible in one day to Toyama district and enjoyed one of the best rides I have completed so far. I am beginning to know a few of the better riding roads around Nagoya now. One is the 156 route from Gifu district to Toyama district that

2014 Yamaha FJR1300 long term review (updated 2015 and 2016)

Possibly the most in depth review of the current series Yamaha FJR1300 which covers 2013 up to 2016 with only minor changes. I have now completed a few tours and (30,000km as of June 2016) on a 2014 FJR1300 and feel able to give a detailed review of the bike and talk about some its strengths and weaknesses. I feel the bikes character has never really been fully explored in the other brief

Renting a big bike in Malaysia

Seems my rides in Malaysia are popular and people continue to ask where to rent a big bike in Kuala Lumpur. One answer is The Big Bike Shop in Puchong. I have rented there and they are good guys. They have a variety of rentals, helmets and jackets too. I took a Kawasaki ER6N pictured here. Unfortunately their web site still seems to be offline. Jump on Facebook where you can find them and send

Coast to Coast

How often can you say you went from one side of the country to the other in a day. How about back again same day. Welcome to Japan. I did not set out to purposely to see two different oceans on the same day however leaving Nagoya bound west I entering the elevated expressway system and was faced with a fork in the road. Being somewhat stubborn I have been persisting with my existing out-dated

Two wheels in Japan

  I am back on two wheels in Japan. After I sold my Honda CB1100 I had no vehicle in Australia. I had long since sold my car having decided to never own another but I missed my bike almost immediately. Soon I began to think what I might buy in the future, I like naked classic bikes the best but I had been wondering if I should perhaps try a bike designed for the type of riding I enjoy rather than

Philippines Motorcycle tour

What’s that line about the best laid plans? … well I enjoyed touring the Philippines but nothing went how I thought it might. After my recent ride in northern Thailand I flew to Philippines to meet an old friend. My plan was to rent bikes from Nice Bike in Angeles city which is more or less the only significant Philippines bike rental shop as of writing and then ride around Luzon before heading

Thailand Motorcycle Tour

I returned to Thailand in February to ride some of the northern mountain roads and it turned into a bit of an adventure. Arriving at Chiang Mai airport after an overnight flight via Kuala Lumpur I was feeling pretty good having grabbed some decent sleep on board the plane and was ready to start the ride that morning so when the luggage belt was switched off and my bag had not arrived my heart

Tour time – How to pack light for a riding holiday

Seems a long time since I have been for a ride but that ends in a couple of days when I touch down in Northern Thailand to ride the superb roads there. I will be renting one of my favourite bikes again, the Kawasaki ER6N. Nimble and all day comfortable with more than enough power from it’s 650 twin. Nan district, Northern Thailand Hopefully the air will be mostly clear unlike the last time I