Servus,

Great Work, Respect 

Amazing job. Yours may be my favorite GS500 build I have ever seen. Any plans for hand guard or skid plate?

Thanks guys, very kind of you both.
Handgaurds were painted this afternoon and are on the drying rack (actually hanging on a piece of wire from the 'bars of my Hayabusa). I haven't put a lot of thought into a bash plate as yet. It may be a good idea to protect the engine/exhausts from stones, but I'm not planning on jumping logs etc. I spent this afternoon taking the GPS off the Beemer and fitting it to the GS. I'm hoping I won't need it for the Scrapheap ride, but who knows?! Like horsepower, it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it!

Took it on the dirt today for the first time. I was actually surprised by how well it went. I was expecting it to be a bit vague in the way it rode, but it felt really smooth and solid. The road surface was good gravel with no built up loose stones, so it may be a different story in loose gravel or sand. It does feel a bit top heavy at take off, but its fine once underway.


Did a river crossing too. Didn't drown.

Looks awesome and its cool to see you actually riding it the way an ADV bike should. Nice work mate.

All loaded up and ready to roll. We're leaving in the morning on this years Scrapheap Adventure Ride. This is the whole reason That I bought this bike and turned it into what it is. Fingers crossed for a fun ride.


I won't be back for a week so updates then I guess.

PS If anyone is in a position to throw a couple of dollars in for a good cause it would be greatly appreciated. All donations over $2 are tax deductible (If you're an Aust tax payer) and every cent goes directly to Down syndrome NSW.
Just click here https://www.mycause.com.au/page/172240/oldslow

Well Scrapheap 2018 is done and dusted. We got home yesterday after a week and 2,500klms on the bikes. We saw some awesome scenery and had a blast with a great bunch of people. My appreciation of this little GS has grown immeasurably. It ran perfectly the whole time and never skipped a beat. It developed a slight oil leak but other than that there's absolutely nothing wrong with it!



This was taken on the road into Lake Mungo National Park. The road was being graded ahead of us after a bit of rain damage a few days before (lucky for us!). As well as my bike, there is my brother's XF 650 Freewind (a little known DR650 variant) and a friends XT600. Each of them were bought for $500 and have had various amounts of work done to get them roadworthy.

Never heard of the DR650 variant. I guess it never made it to the USA.  Looks like a Honda Dominator NX650.

What's your plan for the bike now that the event is over? I must admit I'm still drooling over many of the parts on your bike.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it now. I don't need another adventure bike (I've already got an R1200GS) but if I keep it, I might end up building a sidecar for it just for shits and giggles. If anyone can steer me towards some information about fitting a sidecar to a GS it just might happen!