Your First £500 of Adventure Bike Mods — Spend It RIGHT

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]You've just bought your adventure bike.

[00:00:02]You've done your checks. If you haven't, go and watch episode 36 first. Links up there. Now, you've got some money to spend on modifications and upgrades.

[00:00:12]But where do you start? Everyone on Facebook has an opinion. Forums are full of conflicting advice, and the internet will happily sell you anything. If you're planning to do green lanes, the Trans Euro Trail, or any off-road adventure riding, and on this channel, we assume you are, then this list could save your bike, and possibly you.

[00:00:34]Before we get into the list, let's set the scene. You bought an older adventure bike. Maybe it's a BMW F650, an XT 660, a Transprom, something with a bit of age and character.

[00:00:49]You've gone through the post-purchase checks we covered in episode 36. You trust the bike mechanically as much as you can. Now you've got up to £500 to spend and you want to make the most of it.

[00:01:03]Here's the thing about £500 on an adventure bike. It sounds like a lot and it goes faster than you think. So every pound needs to work hard.

[00:01:14]The list I'm about to give you is based on real mods on a real bike. My 1997 BMW F650 Strder.

[00:01:24]Everything you're going to see has been tested on UK roads, green lanes, and trail routes. This isn't theory. This is what actually makes a difference.

[00:01:33]One more thing, some of you watching will have already ticked some of these off. That's fine. Skip these items and move further down the list.

[00:01:43]The ranking is there to guide your priorities, not to prescribe exactly what to buy.

[00:01:49]Number one on the list, and it's not even close, is tires.

[00:01:54]Nothing else on this list matters if your tires can't be trusted. Not your brakes, not your suspension, not your crash bars. Tires are the only thing between you and the road or the trail.

[00:02:06]And on an older bike, the rubber that came with it could be years old, even if it looks fine. For adventure riding, you want a proper dual sport tire.

[00:02:16]My choice on the F-650 is the H Highenau K60 Scout, and I rate them highly for mixed road and trail use, but I want to be honest with you, tire choice is a huge subject, and what works on one bike in one riding style won't necessarily be right for yours. Do your research. Owner groups on Facebook are brilliant for this. Find the group for your specific model and ask. You'll get real world opinions from riders who've been exactly where you are.

[00:02:46]Budget around £250 for a pair fitted.

[00:02:51]If your bike already has good dual sport rubber with plenty of life left, skip this one and move on. But if you're not sure, change them. It's the single best investment you can make. Number two, stainless steel braided brake lines front and rear, including a full fluid chain. On an older bike, the original rubber brake lines degrade from the inside out. You can't see it happening.

[00:03:15]The first time you know about it could be the moment you really need your brakes on a steep descent, on a loose surface, in an emergency stop. Stainless lines give you a firmer, more progressive feel at the lever, and they don't degrade the same way. Budget around £110, including new fluid. It's not a glamorous upgrade, but it's one of the most important things you can do on an older bike. Number three, crash bars.

[00:03:42]Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Plenty of enduro and dual sport riders don't bother with crash bars. So, why are they so high up this list? Well, here's the difference. An enduro bike is light. If you drop it, you pick it up, dust yourself off, and ride on. Parts are widely available, and the bikes are designed to take no. An older adventure bike is a different animal entirely. We're talking about a heavy machine, often 180 to 200 kilos or more. When it goes down, it goes down hard.

[00:04:15]And you may be riding it solo on a remote green lane or trail miles from help.

[00:04:22]Without crash bars, your engine casings and lower frame are going straight into the ground. On an older bike, those parts aren't always easy to find. A cracked engine casing in the middle of nowhere isn't just an inconvenience. It could mean an expensive recovery and a long wait for parts.

[00:04:42]Crash bars change that. A low-speed drop becomes a non-event instead of a recovery mission.

[00:04:50]I run Heed crash bars on the F650.

[00:04:53]Solid, wellmade, good value at around £140.

[00:04:58]And there we are. That's our £500 budget. Now, we've spent £500 if we've had to buy new tires as well. And uh that's our budget used up, but in my opinion, we're still missing one absolutely critical modification to make sure that you can really take your bike out off-road uh with a level of confidence that the bike's going to survive. And the item that's missing is an aluminum bash plate. Number four on my list. Now, some older adventure bikes, including the F-650, came from the factory with a plastic bash plate already fitted. And if yours has one, you might be thinking you can skip this item. But don't.

[00:05:41]Plastic bash plates are essentially decorative.

[00:05:45]They'll deflect the odd bit of road debris, but put them up against a sharp rock on a green lane, and they'll crack or shatter. They are not protecting your sump in any meaningful way. You want aluminum. It's heavier, but it will take a serious hit and keep your engine safe.

[00:06:03]Budget up to £140 for a decent plate for your model of bike. Mine uses one from Hospice Engineering in Holland, and that cost me €115 plus shipping. Number five, an aluminium radiator guard. If your bike is water cooled, this one is simple. A stone through your radiator on a green lane or on the trail is an instant ride ender and a very costly repair. A radiator guard costs between4 and £100 and makes that scenario almost impossible. If you're on an aircooled bike, you can skip this one and move further down the list.

[00:06:42]Now, we get to a group of items that are either very cheap or very quick to explain. But don't let these low prices fool you. These all make a real difference.

[00:06:52]Six fork gators. These cost me £40 for my bike. Now, this one depends on your forks. If you have conventional rightway up forks, gators like these are the answer. But if your bike has upside down forks, you need fork protectors instead.

[00:07:08]Either way, protect them. Unprotected stansions on the trail or on a green lane will wear faster than you'd expect.

[00:07:19]Item number seven on the list, a wide foot for your side stand. £5 this one cost me from Teimu.

[00:07:27]It's possibly the best £5 I've ever spent on my bike. A standard side stand will sink into soft ground and your bike will fall over. A wide foot spreads the load. It's simple, it's cheap, and trust me, if you go off-road, it's essential.

[00:07:43]eight closed handguards from 40 to 100 pounds depending on the brand.

[00:07:51]On the trail, your hands need protection from branches and debris. And when you drop the bike, and we've already established that you will, your levers need protection, too. Handguards do both jobs. Fit them.

[00:08:07]Now, item nine is a little bit contentious, but I think it's worth having on the list, and that is a simple tire pressure monitoring system. This one I got from AliExpress, and if I remember correctly, it cost me about £10.

[00:08:23]Now, if you get a puncture on a remote green lane, that's a potentially serious situation. A TPMS gives you early warning when your tire pressures drop unexpectedly.

[00:08:34]Um, and basic systems start really, really cheap. You can pay an awful lot of money for a TPMS, and some really complex modern bikes have the built-in, but we're not talking about complex modern bikes, are we? We're working to a budget. Now, talking about budget, we need to consider navigation.

[00:08:52]I want to offer you a budget solution here because you don't need to spend a fortune to navigate effectively, especially when you first get started.

[00:09:01]In fact, you probably already own most of this.

[00:09:06]Now, you need a robust phone mount on bars, about maybe £25.

[00:09:11]You want a right angle USB cable from the mount to a power bank in a small tank bag.

[00:09:20]Now, the tank bag, the small tank bag I use, again, it's a copy of a GI one, which I got again from Teemo, I think, for a less than a tenner.

[00:09:29]If you haven't already got a decent power bank, that's probably 20 and the cable maybe another fiverr. Now once you add a free or lowcost mapping app, uh you can use the T app. This guy GPS, Osman, uh OS maps have fantastic app. You have a navigation system for around £70 that will handle green lanes, T routes and everything in between. Don't forget Nory itchy boots. She's navigating around the world just with her mobile phone mounted to her handlebars.

[00:10:04]Now, my own setup has evolved further than this. I run a Samsung active tablet on a rally bracket with a range of mapping and roadbook apps, but that came later. Start here. It works.

[00:10:19]Now, that full priority list will cost you maybe about £800 870 if you buy everything. But remember, skip what you've already got and spend where you actually need to.

[00:10:33]So, that's your first priority list sorted.

[00:10:36]Once you've got the protection and safety fundamentals in place, the second £500 is where you start to feel like the bike is truly yours. And that's where we'd start to look at things like suspension, uh, ergonomics, handlebars, saddle comfort, security, and more.

[00:10:57]So, one final thought before I go. The temptation when you've just bought a bike is to spend money on the things you can see, an exhaust, some lights, maybe some soft luggage, things that look good in photos. But I really suggest you resist that temptation. Spend your first few hundred pounds where it really counts on protection, safety, reliability. Get those right and everything else you add later will be built on a solid foundation.

[00:11:27]Your bike is meant to be used. Get it ready for the adventure first.

[00:11:32]This video is aimed at the people that really want to go and have adventures, not ride an adventure bike that looks like you and McGregor's, but they only go to the coffee shop. That's not what my videos are about. Anyway, if it has been useful, please give the video a thumbs up. It genuinely helps the channel. And obviously, if you haven't already subscribed and you'd like to see more of my content, don't forget to subscribe.

[00:11:57]I'll see you in the next episode. I've got a challenge planned. It could be quite interesting to see whether I actually managed to do it with me and the donkey at a combined age of 97. It would take my manifesto of older, simpler adventure bikes for ordinary blo put it to the test.