GEAR DECISIONS: BIKE, ARMOUR AND THE EXPEDITION KIT

The Technique

1. **Enduro or adventure: the route decides, not the marketing.** A competition enduro bike is light enough for one person to lift, turns inside tight timber and forgives a bad line. It also carries little fuel, has a seat you will resent by mid afternoon, no wind protection, short service intervals and a gearbox that runs out of legs on a long dirt highway. A full size adventure bike weighs roughly double, holds far more fuel and covers a day of formed road in comfort, but in deep sand or a rutted creek exit it punishes you, and lifting it alone in the heat is its own event. Write down the split of your trip: hours on formed road between fuel, hours in technical going. A Cape York style run is mostly transport with hard sections in the middle, so a midweight bike with a bigger tank beats both extremes.
2. **Capacity: buy the bike you can still ride when tired.** A 250 four stroke is forgiving, cheap to run and needs revs to move. A 300 two stroke is light, torquey and simple to work on in the bush, but drinks more and needs oil carried. A 450 is quick and tiring, and in tight going it will wear you out before lunch. A big single dual sport gives real range and road manners at the cost of weight in sand. Twins are for road and formed track. The honest advice is that most riders on remote trips are better on less bike, because fatigue causes the crash and a crash a long way from help is the whole problem.
3. **Head: moto helmet with goggles, or adventure helmet with a visor.** A moto helmet is light, has a huge eye port and the best airflow at low speed, which matters when you are grinding through sand at walking pace in the heat. It has no weather protection, it is noisy at road speed, and the peak pulls on your neck in a headwind. An adventure helmet with a visor is quieter, keeps rain and cold off, and lets you ride to the trail without goggles, but it fogs the moment you slow down, weighs more, and the eye port is smaller. Choose by where you sweat: mostly slow and hot, take the moto lid and goggles; mostly road and formed track with weather, take the adventure lid, but buy one that also fits goggles with the visor removed. Whatever you buy needs a current approval mark that is legal for road use where you ride, and it needs to be fitted properly. A helmet that rocks on your head when you push it is the wrong helmet at any price. Whichever way you go, sort out eye protection at the same time, because dust is not mud and the gear that solves mud does not solve dust. Tear offs and roll offs exist to clear roost and clay; in fine bulldust they mostly give you an extra layer to fog and to trap grit against the lens. What works in dust is triple layer face foam that seals to your face, a wide strap with silicone beading that does not creep on the helmet, a clean lens with no scratches, and riding spacing so you are not eating the rider in front. Carry a spare lens or a second pair of goggles in a soft bag, not loose in a pannier. Never wipe a dusty lens with a dry glove, because that is how a lens gets ruined in one movement. In glare, a light tint reads ruts better than a dark one.
4. **Boots: protection against walkability.** A motocross boot is a rigid hinged shell that resists twist and crush, which is the injury that ends trips and gets people flown out. It is hot, and you walk in it like a scuba diver. An adventure boot has a lugged sole you can hike and stand on pegs in all day, some certified protection, and much less resistance to twist. The middle ground is a stiff enduro boot with a grippy sole, and for most remote riding that is the right answer. The rule is simple: if there is any chance of the bike landing on your leg, or of a foot catching in a rut, wear a real boot. Hiking boots and work boots on a dirt bike are how ankles get broken in places with no ambulance.
5. **Body armour, and the neck brace question answered fairly.** There are three honest options. A full pressure suit gives back, chest, shoulder and elbow cover in one garment and is the hottest thing you will ever wear north of the tropic. An armoured jacket with removable certified inserts lets you drop the chest plate and keep the back protector, and vents better. A minimal chest protector stops roost and does very little else. Look for inserts marked to the European impact standard and note the level, because a level two back protector absorbs meaningfully more than a level one. The best armour is the armour you are still wearing at four in the afternoon, so pick for the climate you will actually ride in. On neck braces: the design intent is to limit extreme neck movement and pass load into the chest and back rather than the spine. Riders and researchers do not agree that this is a net gain in every crash, and there is a case that some loads move to the collarbone. What is not disputed is that a badly fitted brace, or one that fouls your helmet or armour, is worse than none. If you wear one, fit it with the helmet and armour you actually ride in, and accept that the evidence is unsettled rather than pretending it is not.
6. **Gloves: feel against abrasion.** A thin vented glove gives the best lever feel and keeps your hands cooler, which reduces the grip fatigue that causes arm pump. It gives you almost nothing in a slide. An armoured glove with knuckle and palm protection saves skin and knuckles but dulls the clutch and cooks your hands. On a long trip carry both: thin gloves for hot technical days and a tougher pair for fast formed road where a get off happens at speed. Check the palm before you buy. One layer of leather, no seam across the ball of the hand, and a snug fit, because a loose glove moves and a moving glove makes blisters.
7. **Hydration and what rides on your back.** Water is not optional in remote Australia, and the fastest way to ruin a ride is to carry the whole toolkit on your shoulders. Weight high on your back changes how you move on the bike, wears you out, and lands on your spine when you crash. Put water and the light, must-reach items on you: bladder, a snack, a tyre plug kit if you run tubeless, a small first aid pouch. Everything heavy goes on the bike, low and centred. A hip pack works for shorter days and keeps your shoulders free. If you want a back protector inside the pack, buy the version with a certified insert rather than a foam pad that only stops the bladder poking you.
8. **Tyres and what goes inside them.** Tyre choice is a straight trade between grip in the soft stuff and life on hard formed road, and on a long trip the road wins more hours than you expect, so a hard compound rear with widely spaced knobs usually lasts the trip where a soft enduro tyre will be square by the halfway point. What goes inside matters more. A heavy duty tube is the cheapest, is repairable anywhere, and can be replaced with parts you can carry, but it punctures and pinches. A mousse never goes flat and is the right answer for a race or a short technical trip near support, but it is heavy, it degrades with heat and distance, it drags at road speed, and it is a fight to fit on the side of a track. Tubeless on spoked rims plugs in minutes and runs low pressures well, but a hard rock strike can dent a rim and unseat the bead, and reseating a bead in the bush needs a compressor and luck. For remote riding with no support, heavy duty tubes plus disciplined pressures plus the tools and the skill to change one is the pragmatic answer, and that is what most experienced remote riders end up back on.
9. **The expedition additions.** These are the items that turn a good day ride into a trip you come home from. Tools chosen for your bike specifically, not a generic roll: the axle sizes, a spoke key, real tyre levers, a plug kit and a pump or small compressor. Spares that fail: tube, levers, clutch and throttle cable, master link and a length of chain, fuses, a spare key taped somewhere on the bike, zip ties, tie wire, tape and a small tube of two part epoxy. Communication that does not need phone coverage, because there is none: a two way satellite messenger lets you call for a mechanic instead of a helicopter, while a beacon is one way, needs no subscription and is only for a life threatening emergency. Carry a trauma kit with a pressure bandage and a tourniquet, and get the training, because the kit is useless in untrained hands. In a group, spread the load and agree who carries what so you are not all carrying the same spare and none of the one that broke.

Common Mistakes

Buying the bike that looks right in photos instead of the bike that matches the route. Fix: work out the longest fuel gap and the ratio of transport to technical riding first, then shortlist bikes that clear both.

• Cheap goggles with thin foam in dust country. Fix: spend on the seal and the strap, keep the lens clean, and carry a spare lens in a soft bag.
• Full pressure suit bought for a cool weekend, then left in the swag on a hot trip. Fix: buy the armour you will still be wearing at the end of a hot day, even if it covers less.
• Carrying tools that do not fit your bike. Fix: do the whole rear tube change in the driveway with only what you plan to carry, then delete anything you did not touch and add anything you missed.
• Loading the pack until it is a rucksack. Fix: water and light items on you, everything heavy strapped low on the bike.
• Assuming phone coverage. Fix: a satellite messenger or beacon on every remote trip, plus a written route and check in time with someone at home.

The Drill

Lay every item out on the shed floor and score each one against your last three rides: used it, needed it and did not have it, or carried it and never touched it. Bin the third pile. Then set a timer, put your riding gloves on, and change the rear tube using only the tools you plan to carry, on the ground, with the bike loaded as it will be on the trip. If it takes longer than it should or you need something from the bench, your kit is wrong and you have just found out in the driveway instead of on a river crossing.

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