Getting ready to travel

I realise that I haven't really kept this Blog up to date - I tend to post new stuff when something occurs to me, rather than in any chronological order, and I haven't worked out how to/whether I can organise the posts, so it is a bit higgledy-piggeldy.
Back in 2014 I bought a new motorbike in Peru - which I posted about at the time - the intention was to use it to visit out of the way beaches here for fishing, but I soon realised that it was better than I anticipated, and decided I would try some touring on it. The engine - 250cc - was powerful enough to maintain decent speeds on good roads, but one concern I had was fuel capacity. It only had a 12 litre tank, which would take me around 300kms, and I was unsure about frequency of petrol stations in the remoter areas, so felt I needed to carry spare fuel with me - the problem being how to do this.

Ronco Demolition 250

Being what they call a Todo Terreno (all-terrain) bike it wasn't really designed for touring, and accessories like panniers almost impossible to come by here, so I decided to see if I could have a custom-made carrier built so I could securely carry a jerry can of petrol. I found a local welder and drew some scale plans, and took along the jerry can when I met him for the first time. I wanted the carriers to be detachable, so for town use I wasn't hampered by the wider boxes attached, nor the additional weight, and explained all this, as well as it being written in my design spec. He wanted me to leave the bike for a few days and return later.
When I went back work was well under way, but it was obvious that he intended to weld the twin boxes directly to the rear carrier, which I didn't want - so eventually he agreed to make a detachable bracket so they would be bolted into place when needed, though when I saw what he had done had serious doubts about the strength of this. He had spot-welded the mount to the bike's carrier, which was made of metal tubing, and, although I am no engineer, I had concerns about this, but he assured me he was an expert and it would all hold together. It was not quite "square" - on one side the mounts were a centimetre or so shorter than the other - but it felt solid, and looked as though it would serve its purpose. The idea was to have the jerry can one side, and some essential tools the other, with my bags strapped to the seat behind me.

Fully loaded and on the road with carriers!

I did a test run locally to get the feel of things and then started planning my first adventure!