Super Tenere Farkles (accessories) for the Alaska Trip

During the heat of preparation for a big trip, you can lose track of what you have done and possibly how much you have spent.  I’m glad to have lost track of how much I spent.  This post contains a list of the accessories (farkles in cool internet terms) I added to the bike. Not all are permanently attached.  Many deserve complete reviews.  The internet has taught us that we are rarely original.  My combination of farkles might be unique, but I’m not the only one to have any one of the items.  Most of my research was done on motorcycle forums.  Most notably, http://www.yamahasupertenere.com/ and http://advrider.com/forums/  and the wonderful links, trip reports, reviews that are shared on these sites.  Note that I have never posted on the forums.  I’m a lurker.  The reviews on Revzilla and Anthony’s videos are pretty helpful too.

I had a great spreadsheet that listed everything I was bringing, why and where it was stored.  I lost that spreadsheet in the great “iCloud is full so remove the account from one of my iDevices and all of my content disappeared” human error incident of 2013.

I have included links to some items and where I bought them.  I try to buy locally (or at least in Canada) but sometimes can’t resist the huge savings that you can sometimes get shopping in the US of A.  One exception is the tires.  I bought those at Revzilla and got a good price.  Price in Canada from certain online retailers would have been very close, however, the tires were not available in Canada when I needed them.

I also found that talking to some of the staff at local stores and most notably the guys at Dual Sport Plus was really beneficial.  It’s really nice when you can get advice that results in spending ZERO dollars.

There are a few things that I would change:

• The Wolfman dry duffel was great.  But I didn’t need it.  All of the contents were in dry bags so I could have gone with a durable cordura duffel for significantly less money.
• I used a regular 1 gallon gas can for auxiliary fuel.  I did not need it.  I was going to go with a rotopak, but that was a lot of money for something I did not really need.  The problem was that the gas can moved around on my pristine AltRider luggage rack marring the surface permanently.  Not their fault.  If I had a do-over, I’d buy the rotopax and mount, it would not have moved around.
• Small hard top case.  Dendog had a “KLR Style” hard case and it was really handy for just dropping things in.  I wish I had a small one of those for gloves, snacks and other frequently accessed items.
• Single versus dual duffel.  We followed a guy through parts of Minnesota (I think) and he had a nice setup on his BWM K series.  Side bags, a small top case and small duffel bags on the top of each top case. I assumed he knew what he was doing since he had a lot of state /province stickers on the back of his side bags. I liked that setup as it would allow me access to the side bags without removing the large duffel bag that straddled the side bags.
• Protect the top of the Side bags.  The duffel did move around on top of the side bags marring the surface of the side bags.  If I did it again, I’d have added some kind of thin nylon to the top of the side bags to take the abrasion.
• Get a fenda-extenda (I did not make up that name).  Would help protect the front of the engine from crap thrown by the front wheel.

I didn’t mention it below, I bought my Super Tenere at Motor Sports World.  Great people. Dendog’s Versys came from Ottawa Goodtime Centre.  Also really great to deal with.

Remember, I’m not compensated by anyone for any of this content.  Links are provided as a courtesy.  I am happy to do business with all of these entities.

Oh, one last thing.  It’s not really a farkle, but we used a Polar Bear cooler the entire way. It was awesome.  It spent the entire trip strapped to something.  I just wish they made an 8 pack model.  We used the 6 pack (not for beer) and it was just a bit cramped some days.

I still don’t want to eat at Smitty’s.