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Murphy’s Law of adventure motorcycling

roadkill cattle

If you haven’t seen Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding across the world on their big adventure bikes and wanted to do the same, then where is your pulse?

Adventure riding is exactly that – an adventure. And that means things are going to go wrong. Otherwise, there would be no adventure and therefore no excitement or fun.

While Murphy’s Law applies to many riding situations, it is probably at its most cruel when applied to adventure riding.

Water crossings
Just testing boot waterproofing

10 Murphy’s Laws for adventure riding:

  1. When something goes wrong that sidelines your bike it will be as far from civilisation and a phone signal as you can possibly get.
  2. You’ve packed everything but the kitchen sink in your massive luggage, but forgotten the one thing you need right now: puncture repair kit, or toilet paper, or gaffer tape, or matches.
  3. Your GPS starts playing up and needs a computer reset when you are a long way from home … and you’ve just found that the paper map you stowed as back-up was for the last trip you did, not this one!
  4. The petrol station marked on your GPS is just at the outer edge of your range, yet you somehow manage to limp there only to find the pump is broken.
  5. Your bike stalls in the middle of a creek crossing and then you find out your waterproof boots aren’t … waterproof, that is!
  6. You’ve paid a fortune for the latest tool kit, but all you ever use and need are cable ties and gaffer tape.
  7. You conquer a steep slope, pull a 1km wheelie and cross a deep creek with no witnesses, but you drop your bike in the carpark when everyone is watching.
  8. The day you plan to leave on that well deserved cross-country break is the same day the house hot water system fails.
  9. You thought you’d get at least one more trip out of that clutch cable.
  10. In the middle of the polar vortex you find out why that sleeping bag and tent combination was on special.

Water crossings