Off Road Explorer Enews #3
October 08 Edition
 Welcome to the Off Road Explorer Enews #3. Before we get started thanks to everybody for being patient. The ORE Enews is meant to be monthly to fill the gap between bimonthly issues of Trail Zone. But I've found it a little harder to maintain (as with the ORE site) as you have to do the things to pay the bills. Well we've moved the ORE office to a bigger premises and we going to bend to the pressure from advertisers and publish ORE Enews once a month. This way we can afford to publish the Enews and regularly update the web site and keep the landlord happy. This will happen over the next month so if you're keen to advertise in this newsletter or the ORE web site please contact us. So the web site will be updated once a week and the Enews will be published the second Wednesday of each month.
The next issue of Trail Zone gets the scoop again with the news that the Yamaha Tenere XT660Z is confirmed for Australia. Those of you at last weekends Moto GP would have seen the new Tenere on the Yamaha stand. A Tenere is with Yamahas ADR compliance division in Melbourne and is undergoing a 10,000km test. Once that's done and the bike passes ADR then Yamaha will be placing their order. Unfortunately this is a necessary process and as a result we estimate that the Tenere won't land here until February/March 2009.
In the meantime Clubby is at INTERMOT Cologne the worlds biggest motorcycle show and the much rumoured Yamaha 1200 Tenere was a no show. I guess we can't have everything. Maybe we might see it in 2009.
Honda Transalp Project Bike
 Off Road Explorers second project bike is the Honda XLV700 Transalp. We knew that the Transalp would be a little more road orientated than the KLR but we thought the challenge of taking it back to its roots, the Africa Twin, would be a great project. The Transalp handled the ride out to the Flinders Ranges with ease with just a pair of Pivot Pegz and Continental TCK80's courstesy of Carlisle Tyres and Accessories plus the Honda factory accessories. The graded roads suited the Transalp but the trip did highlight its vulnerabilities. We've got some protection on order from Motorrad Garage in Western Australia including crash bars, bash plate and driving lights. Check out the details in Trail Zone #20. Details will be available soon on ORE.
Adventure Bike News
 BMW 800 GS Release
After the agony of having to wait longer the the release of the BMW F 800 GS the much talked about twin was released to the media. As fate would have it BMW combined it with the release of the their F 450 X enduro bike and before I had a chance to plead my case Clubby was on the plane to Melbourne. You can read the full test in Trail Zone #20 out now!
BMW Safari DVD
 As we mentioned in the last Enews we were filming the 2008 BMW GS Safari. It turned out to be 5 days of awesome riding and if you're a BMW GS owner I reccommend that you book you're place in the next Safari to be held in Tasmania.
So if you're up to the challenge checkout the BMW Safari Web Site and if you want to get a taste of the GS Safari experience you can order the DVD Free Call 1800 813 299.
Adventure Gear
Mr Swagman Winner
 Our winner is Craig Buchan from Queensland. His kit includes an Outer Limits 2 man Backpacker tent, an old inflatable lylow and the sleeping bag is a Jumbo -10 First Light Glazier bag plus cooking gear and clothes that bundles up on the rear of his DR650. Craig receives a Mr Swagman bike swag valued at $250. For more info on the Mr Swagman biker swag and the their whole range of swags go to mrswagman.com.au or phone Mark on 0410 467 757
Travel Updates
Hattah Desert Ride VIC/SA
Clubby and I took off to the Hattah Desert on the KLR650 and a V-Strom DL650. It was dry and hot as which is OK if you're in a sauna with a beautiful and not if you're laying face down in the hot sand in the desert. You can read about it in Trail Zone #17 and check out the route in our Travel section.
Barrington Tops NSW
From hot to absolutely dripping wet the Trail Zone team of Clubby, Popgun and Lance head for a two day dual sports ride through the scenic Barrington Tops. Well they say its scenic but we were flat out getting better than 50metres of visibilty. We compare the Kawasaki KLR650, Suzuki DRZ400 and the Yamaha WR250R. The complete shambles appears in Trail Zone #18 and the route can be found here.
Bring on the Gympie SEQ
We didn't make it to Alice Springs but we did make it to South east Queensland. Gympie to be exact west of the Sunshine Coast with good mates Mick, Scott and Andrew. The first part appears in Trail Zone #19 around the west of Gympie and the second part which will appear in a later issue will take us out to Rainbow Beach. If your ever up in Gympie say g'day to Mick. He's always keen to talk adventure and he's quite the hoticulturalist. The Gympie ride appears in Trail Zone #19 and check out the route here.
 Flinders Ranges SA
Our first excursion out on the Transalp took us west of Broken Hill out to the Flinders Ranges. If you're thinking about doing a ride like this then make sure you have your fuel calculations double checked. If you're well prepared this is a great ride for just about every skill level. The full report is in Trail Zone #20 and the route will be on ORE Travel next week.
Adventure Bike Accessories
Barkbuster Storm Handguard
 Rideworx have released a new handguard design specifically for adventure bikes and road bikes. It's their largest handguard yet. It will fit the standard Barkbuster backbone so if you already have Barkbusters you can instantly upgrade to the new Storm handguards. Go to www.barkbusters.net or phone Rideworx 02 4271 8244.
Rider Email
Hi Lance,
I have just received my subscription and I always read and await your travel reviews with great interest. I find the articles informative and they inspire me to go have a look for myself at the places you covered. To date I haven’t done so as I feel something is missing, GPS data routes and waypoints. Is that information from your rides available please?
Regards,
Terry Dickens
Hi Terry,
 Glad you're enjoying the adventure travel stories. I've always maintained that we've always wanted our readers to experience the same rides we do and the actual core of that idea is to provide you with GPS data. We're no GPS experts by any stretch but we've been getting closer to doing that with each adventure.
The guys at GPS OZ had provided us with a long term test of a Garmin Zumo (pictured) and we've downloaded all our routes to a PC. However as easy as that has been we now have to edit those routes. The reason being is that we'll ride up and down a particular stretch of road to get photos and video so we need to go through the files and edited out those points. Plus the ones where we've sometimes taken the wrong turn.
So even though you can see the route on Google Maps through our travel pages you'll eventually be able to download the GPS data. We've got a little testing to do yet but it's always been an important part of our masterplan.
We are also planning some other new innovations for the future so we'll keep you posted.
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