THE GOOD SHIP WUNDERLICH (ET AL)

ONE OF THE SWEETEST sounds you can hear while barreling down a rough Outback gravel track is a loud, metallic ‘clang’. It means that you did the right thing by fitting that aluminium sump guard, which in turn suggests you selected your other accessories properly as well. Which is important when you’re out on the other side of the Mundi Mundi Plain and you have just realized that you will theoretically only have six kilometres of fuel left when you reach the next pump… provided you are riding in the right direction. Nothing like a little reassurance about the quality of your judgement.

Let’s look back to when this all started, a year or so ago when I bought a BMW F 750 GS and began to plan the process of kitting it out as an ‘around-the-world’ adventure bike. One of the few truly sensible things I have ever done while customizing a bike was the decision to go with a single supplier, as much as possible. Since I was, and am, an admirer of the equipment that the German firm Wunderlich produces for BMW motorcycles of all descriptions, they were a logical first step. When I spoke to them about the project they were enthusiastic enough to offer me the items I needed, free of charge.

“Let us know how it all performs,” said Wunderlich’s Arno Gabel. “This will be interesting.” Australian riding conditions are tough enough to be a bit of a byword in German BMW Motorrad circles, ever since Munich realized that they should have done pre-production testing of the K Series in Australia all those years ago, not South America. I’ll tell you the story one day.

So the list went to Germany, the parts arrived at the Australian Wunderlich distributor, Procycles. I had them fitted at their St Peters shop in Sydney. I learned a long time ago that fitting accessories to a bike is best done by the supplier. Not that I make many mistakes, but I like to be sure that it’s done properly.

ON AND OFF THE ROAD

The initial impulse to build up this bike might have been to create an