Ten thousand dollars later.
Every modification on Hunter, what each one earned, and the rally brake hose I had to source from the UK.
Hunter is in the corner of a car park near the Spirit of Tasmania terminal, fully kitted, the morning before the shakedown ride. The panniers are loaded. The top box is loaded. The tank bag is on, and the front rail bags are clipped, and the bike is sitting a little lower on its suspension than it usually does. From a certain angle, in a certain light, it looks almost too loaded. From another angle it looks exactly right.
Ten thousand dollars buys two different things, depending which you’re chasing. The Lego-set mindset says: collect every part that exists for this bike, bolt it on, post the photo. The kit mindset says: each part has to earn the space and the weight it takes. I chased the kit. Some things still snuck through that shouldn’t have.
Luggage
The SW Motech Sysbag panniers (27 and 40 litres, 1559 dollars the pair with the side carriers) are the foundation. Genuinely waterproof, properly mounted, and they come off in about thirty seconds for a campsite or a hotel. The Royal Enfield top box (895) is the workhorse — helmet, groceries, a wet jacket. The RE tank-rail bags carry the small stuff. The Givi 30-litre tank bag with the BF92 ring is the one that hasn’t earned itself: it’s tall enough that it pushes my knees out when I stand on the pegs, and it has been quietly ruining my off-road posture for two months. It might come off. I keep telling myself I’ll decide next ride.
Protection
Royal Enfield rally crash protection — the proper one, not the accessory afterthought. Radiator guard. Barkbusters Storm handguards, which earned themselves the first time I dropped the bike in a sand wash and the levers came up unbent. Protection is the category where the cost is invisible until the moment it isn’t.
Tyres and filter
Mitas Enduro Trail XT Dakar front and rear, 560 dollars the pair. I rode the CEATs to three thousand and then went straight to the Mitas, and the bike became a different animal on wet clay — the kind of difference where you stop noticing the tyres because they stop asking you questions. The DNA stage-2 air filter changed the engine note as much as it changed the power. The bike sounds like it means it now.
Tech and navigation
The Garmin Zumo XT2 (999) replaced the phone as primary nav and I haven’t touched the phone for routing since. The Garmin InReach Mini 2 (675, a thank-you gift from my sister-in-law that I would not have had the discipline to buy myself) is the satellite messenger that buys reach into a void. The Veridian cruise control (506) is the difference between a five-hundred-kilometre highway transit and a five-hundred-kilometre forearm cramp. Quad Lock for the phone. Oxford heated grips for the southern winter. The RE adventure screen. Baja Squadron Sport fog lights for the predawn starts and the dusk arrivals.
Each part bought one specific kind of confidence. The brake hose bought a future.
The brake hose mod
Christmas Eve, last summer. Flat tyre on a back road, plugged it roadside, got back on. Twenty kilometres later, at about a hundred kilometres an hour on a slight crest, the front end started shaking — a proper speed wobble, the kind where your hands stop being yours for a long second. I got it stopped. I sat by the bike. And then I worked out what had happened: the panniers, fully loaded on rough ground, had compressed enough on a previous hit that the front brake hose, which the factory routes alarmingly close to the fender bracket, had been pushed into a place it shouldn’t live. The hose hadn’t failed. It was on its way to.
The fix is the Unit Garage Homologated Rally brake hose kit. It re-routes the hose properly and uses a higher-grade braided line. I could not source it in Australia — not from a dealer, not from a workshop, not from an importer. I ordered it from the UK. It took two weeks. It cost more in shipping than I’d like to admit. It was worth every cent. There is a version of that Christmas Eve ride that ended differently, and the brake hose is the difference.
The reflection
Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. It’s also less than a year of running a car in this country, once you add up rego, fuel, insurance, and the small slow leak of a service every six months. Each part on this bike bought one specific kind of confidence. The InReach buys reach into a void. The Mitas buy traction in clay. The cruise buys a wrist that still works at the end of the day. The brake hose buys a future.
The slow turn here is that the upgrades are not the bike. The bike is the relationship with the upgrades — which ones I’ve learned to trust, which ones I’m still arguing with, which ones earned themselves on a specific bad day on a specific road.
The list is finished. The bike is loaded. The ferry leaves at seven.
A written companion to I spent ten thousand on Hunter for round-the-world on the Motorcycle Seat Wisdom YouTube channel.
The morning before. Helmet on the seat, the rego still Australian, the ten-thousand quietly part of him now.
Get the next one.
Twice a month. Photographs, a reflection, where I’m headed next.