About

This blog describes the trips and travels from Joop de Wit and Francisca Bonsel in Europe on a FJR1300. We are both born in Holland, but since 1995 living in Australia. We love making trips on our motorbike, a Yamaha FJR1300AS, so much, that we decided to “do” Europe. So we bought a second FJR1300AS in the UK and rented an apartment in Lyon (Fr) as a base. We also added a mono-trail trailer to make it easier to transport our camping gear. So now we are fully equipped to explore Europe. Well, explore, we know most countries quite well, but we never did the Stelvio pass on a bike 🙂

About the bike.
Buying a motorbike requires careful consideration, meticulous research and time. So it took me at least a whole 2 hours to decide to buy this bike
Why buy a bike when you have on in australia you might ask. Well, I looked into the option to ship the bike to Europe. That is a can of worms.First you have to find an agent who can do it for you. Then it has to arrive at the right time in the right port. Then the bike has to pass an inspection before it is allowed on the roads. And when you want to ship it back you have the same circus: find a dispatcher who can crate and ship it, and when it arrives in Australia you need to have the paperwork to get it on the road again. Nah, buying one in the UK is a lot easier.
And buying the same bike has a big advantage that I know how it rides. And I know what farkles it needs 🙂 But the question is: what do I take with me and what do I have to buy new. In the end it is a bit of a mix: new exhausts and radiator protector and tank cover. I take my sheep wool seat covers, the tank bag and the Zumo 660. For the GPS I ordered another mount and I added a GoPro Hero2 camera mount as well. So let’s see how it all looks when it is all installed.
It is a Yamaha FJR1300AS. which has a 4 cylinder 1,298 cc engine delivering 105 kW (141 hp). The AS indicates that it has a semi-automatic transmission: it does not have a clutch lever instead the shifting is done either using a switch at the left handlebar or via the standard gear shift lever. It has two 39L side panniers and a topbox as storage.
This is enough for short trips in a country with a steady climate like Western Australia,but if you go for a longer period you need to have more space. Here is our bike in Australia loaded for a short camping trip
This is OK for a long weekend, but not if you want to ride and camp from sea level to high into the Alps. So we bought the mono-trail for that. It gives you just that extra space to store the tent, sleeping bags, chairs, cooking gear (not too much, the food is apparently not too bad in France and Italy 🙂 )