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Round the World on a Fireblade


Roxyy
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Hello!


I'm Roxy, 24 years old girl. I moved to Scotland (from Poland) in 2011. When I was 19 I wanted to go and visit my family. I had my A2 licence by then and didn't want to leave my bike behind, so I decided to ride. 1200 miles each way, no problems at all.


After that I wanted more and over the following 3 years I got my full cat A licence and rode to almost every European country on my bikes (2 trips on GSX 650f and 3 trips on 98 Fireblade 900rr).


Eventually I started running out of countries to go in Europe... Where do I go next? Himalayas maybe?


If I'm going to go that far, I may as well ride all the way around the world.


But to save up, it would take me 3 maybe 5 years. I didn't want to wait that long.


I found a job closer to home (saves money on commute) and a bit better paid. But one job wasn't enough. On top of my full-time job as software developer I started doing fast-food deliveries in the evenings and at the weekends, working every spare minute of my time. I sold my old bikes (not really worth much but always something), and after 8 months I had enough to start my round the world trip.


My previous bike was 1998 Fireblade (also had 2008 1000cc Fireblade but that just wasn't comfortable for this kind of trip). 900RR was comfortable for me, and cheap - so if something goes seriously wrong it's not a lot of money to waste. Plus it's simple to work on, I can strip it all down to the engine on the side of the road.


I found 1999 Fireblade for £1300 which I bought for my trip (I abused my previous one A LOT, so it was better so sell it and buy another one in better state).


In July 2019 I was ready to set off.


I rode through Europe, Asia (Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia) and to Australia.


 

route.PNG.80418cabadac380645208f4f6c4a2164.PNG

 


Through the deserts, mountains, through some of the highest roads in the world, by the ocean, on tarmac, on gravel, sand, mud, knee deep river crossings, in -17 temperatures to some 43 plus.


In 10 months I covered 30,000 miles.


When I got to Australia, my trip was paused by Covid19 and I decided to fly back to Scotland and go back to work for few months.


Planning to resume my trip early next year, continue riding around Australia, then South and North America (from Ushuaia to Alaska or other way round), maybe Africa too. I also want to ride across Russia to Mongolia and Japan.


While I'm home I'm trying to catch up on my YouTube channel.


Below is my latest video from one of the most dangerous roads in the world - Shimshal Valley in Pakistan. Rough roads, gravel, loose rocks, knee deep river crossing. Add dead battery, fried stator and burnt clutch plates. Luckily this time I wasn't alone (it was supposed to be a solo trip, but in the end I ended up meeting so many people along the way!).


https://youtu.be/BslAbIQ8X8o

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Welcome! Watched 2 episodes already, superb stuff.


Love the fact you were doing it on an older sportsbike, proving that you can indeed tour on anything.


Great stuff 8-)

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What a great trip! 8-) I'd love to know how you figured out what route to take?

 

Before the trip I needed to get an idea what countries I want to go through as some countries require you to get a visa in your home country (Pakistan and China) and I had to organise crossing through China with a guide in a group - not allowed to cross Xinjiang region on your own with your own vehicle.


Apart from that most other visas are possible to get online (evisa) or at the border. I'm trying to just "wing it" as much as I can. So I didn't have any specific route in advance. There were countries/places I really wanted to see (Pamir Highway, northern Pakistan - KKH, Himalayas, Nepal, south east Asia) and before I set off I scribbled some random route on the map that would include these places.


Most the time I don't know much about the countries that I enter and only start researching places to visit and routes to take as I enter each country, otherwise I would have to spend years just planning the route if I wanted to do it in advance. When I hear about some place that I think I may want to see I add a marker on Google maps (currently got 263 places marked as "want to see").

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What a great trip! 8-) I'd love to know how you figured out what route to take?

 

Before the trip I needed to get an idea what countries I want to go through as some countries require you to get a visa in your home country (Pakistan and China) and I had to organise crossing through China with a guide in a group - not allowed to cross Xinjiang region on your own with your own vehicle.


Apart from that most other visas are possible to get online (evisa) or at the border. I'm trying to just "wing it" as much as I can. So I didn't have any specific route in advance. There were countries/places I really wanted to see (Pamir Highway, northern Pakistan - KKH, Himalayas, Nepal, south east Asia) and before I set off I scribbled some random route on the map that would include these places.


Most the time I don't know much about the countries that I enter and only start researching places to visit and routes to take as I enter each country, otherwise I would have to spend years just planning the route if I wanted to do it in advance. When I hear about some place that I think I may want to see I add a marker on Google maps (currently got 263 places marked as "want to see").

 

That's awesome. Great to see someone living out their dreams. Good luck on the rest of your trip :thumb:

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Turkey looks amazing :shock:


Why did you go so long without fixing the stator though? Didn't you order (or accept?) the bits quite a while before it finally gave up?

 

I had a stator and rectifier sent to me to Kyrgyzstan, but I had to leave for China (as I had to enter China on a specific date - organised crossing with a group and a guide, not allowed to cross that region on my own) and I missed the package by 2 days. The person who sent them to me wouldn't accept any money from me, not even for the postage. But then I had to get it shipped from Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan somehow (Pakistan was after China) and there didn't seem to be any direct postage link. In the end postage cost me some $207 if I remember right plus around $70 import tax, when I was tracking it it went back to Europe through at least 3 or 4 different countries before it was eventually shipped to Pakistan, and it took 3 weeks.

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Sublime. I'm at a fork in my life and I think you may have pushed me down the 'you only live once' route - I may look to do something similar in the next year myself. Thanks.

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Ah, the old Honda stator and regulator/rectifier dance. At least when I was caught out I was only 10miles from home :D

Still, it scared me into fitting a volt meter and carrying a spare rectifier.

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Sublime. I'm at a fork in my life and I think you may have pushed me down the 'you only live once' route - I may look to do something similar in the next year myself. Thanks.

 

I will do the same in my next life if I’m lucky :D

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Guest Richzx6r

Sublime. I'm at a fork in my life and I think you may have pushed me down the 'you only live once' route - I may look to do something similar in the next year myself. Thanks.

 

You and me both but for me I will have to wait for the afterlife I'll never do it in this one

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