We are on a motorcycle road trip to travel around the World. When we where preparing our motorcycle long distance trip we had a few questions in our mind one of them was what spare parts to carry with us during such a long road trip for our motorcycle.
When you decide to go on a road trip by motorcycle in Europe, USA or Australia you don’t need to think so much about what spare parts to carry on motorcycle to repair or for your routine control. But if you are in the nature and your motorcycle breaks down there is an option your phone is not working. At those moments small spare parts or tools can make your life very easy.
Also it can be more difficult to find spare parts of motorcycles in some countries. Believe us we have a lot of experience about it on our Africa trip, which was travel around Africa by motorcycle for two years, 50.000 km and 33 countries. Yes it was a long distance motorcycle road trip to Africa.
After all our experience on the road we can tell a lot about it so our advice will be to carry some parts with you on the road. We made a list what we carried or learned to carry (the hard way) with us.
What spare parts to carry with you on motorcycle for long distance trip?
- Inner tube
- Fork seals
- Wheel bearings
- Valve (extra for your inner tube)
- Oil filter
- Chain
- Set of sprockets
- Clutch cable
- Spark plug
- Fuses
- Break pads
- Clutch pedal
- Fuel pump
Motorcycle spare part oil filter change
These are mostly small parts and easy to carry, of course it depends on how long your trip will be. For example you can only carry a front inner tube as they can fit (for a while) in your rear wheel as well.
If you are visiting our website first time you don’t know which kind of motorcycle we choose for word trip and why? Both of us have been riding Honda CRF 250 L. When we started our motorcycle world trip I had no experience to ride motorcycle. She had a little motorcycle experience from 10 years ago but only how to ride motorcycle on a tar road.
Not many people travel long distance trip with 250 cc motorcycle therefore it wasn’t easy to learn what spare parts to carry with us specific for our Honda CRF 250L. After write some blogs and friends who travel some part of Africa by motorcycle we learned and decided what to do.
Doing maintenance on our motorcycle in Tanzania
What spare parts to carry for a Honda CRF 250L on a motorcycle road trip?
We wanted to travel around Africa. (West, South and East) So, we checked how many km we were going to ride in Africa. After a rough calculation we came to 40.000 km. We checked the technical book of Honda CRF 250L what is the routine maintenance. After that we took spare parts what is writing on the list.
- Two extra chains and a pair of chain sprockets for each motorcycles.
- Two rear break pads.
- Six oil filters.
- Two air filters.
- Two spark plugs (iridium).
- Extra two front lamp (not necessary to carry).
- Extra fuses
- One pair extra inner tube.
Motorcycle spare parts air filter change on the road
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough what spare parts we carried for our Honda CRF 250L. Because in Nigeria, we didn’t know that a truck pushed me from the road and I entered a deep pothole. After that I had a problem with one of the fork seals, we ended waiting for it two weeks in Lagos, Nigeria it needed to come from South Africa.
Also, we didn’t know that we could have fuel quality problem in Sudan and our motorcycles could stop after buy petrol because of a fuel pump problem. We didn’t have a new fuel pump, luckily we could just clean it but it didn’t work well we changed them as soon as we had one. Fuel pump was okay but we stuck a while in Khartoum, Sudan.
You might think you are able to find most parts somewhere and sure you can for some of them in bigger cities, but do you want to wait 2 days in the middle of nowhere for a inner tube while you can carry 1 with you as well? We don’t want to either, I broke my valve in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) in the middle of a village believe me I was very happy I could just put in a new one.
Flat tire in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC)
This crew surrounded us in just a few minutes of time, in 20 minutes we had a hundred people around us (all very friendly).
Broken valve Ultra heavy duty inner tube in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC)
Another story is about our clutch pad problem. When we arrived in South Africa our Honda CRF 250L motorcycles were already 48.000 km. So, we knew that it can be problem with our clutch pad soon because we already ride 50.000 km on our motorcycle road trip. They have a Honda motorcycle service in South Africa but spare parts were really expensive, much more than in Turkey, nearly 50% more. Now we got lucky as her father was going to visit us in South Africa therefore he carried 2 sets clutch pads for us. 🙂 Her Honda CRF 250L’ s clutch pad we changed in Tanzania at 58.000 km, mine we changed in Ethiopia when my motorcycle made 65.000 km. We really don’t like to change parts when it’s not necessary so we just carry them with us if that’s possible.
Changing clutch pads Honda CRF 250L in Ethiopia
You can also check what spare part to change and which kind of maintenance we did in 70.000 km for our Honda CRF 250cc.
What we have been learning on the road we always like to share. You can find playlist to watch from our maintenance here :
FS
