Benka Pulko - one amazing lady!

[nigelphoto]

Since I own one, I recently I bought a book called 'BMW F650 single' by Jesse Russell and Ronald Cohn and it is the biggest con trick on the shelf - a straight cut and paste from Wikipedia printed on toilet roll, with only 5 pages about the singles and 107 more about the rest of the BMW range - and all of it complete, total garbage. So the first thing I did was to go on Wikipedia and correct the plethora of lies, falsehoods, mistakes, etc etc (as one does) about the F650 but thats not really the point of this post; I also stumbled across a reference to Benka Pulko, and what a truly amazing lady she is. She was born in Slovenia in 1967 and is a world traveller, author and photographer but her main claim to fame is that in June 1997 she started off from her hometown of Ptuj, on a BMW F650 Funduro and returned there 2000 days later on December 10th. 2002, having established a Guinness World Record for the longest solo motorcycle ride ever undertaken by a woman, 111,856 miles visiting seven continents including being the first biker to reach Antarctica, and the first woman to ride solo across Saudi Arabia.

The second point of this post is that I have read so many ill-informed and just plain wrong posts on other Forums whingeing on about BMW F650 water pumps, head bearings, etc etc. I think just under 112,000 miles in 5 years on some of the worst roads on the planet settles it - the F650 is reliable. So, its hats off to BMW singles and that incredible lady, Benka. Go girl!


Benka Pulko and her BMW Funduro on her round the world trip (Unknown copyright)

 

[Boris]

I also stumbled across a reference to Benka Pulko, and what a truly amazing lady she is.o ride solo across Saudi Arabia......

The second point of this post is that I have read so many ill-informed and just plain wrong posts on other Forums whingeing on about BMW F650 water pumps, head bearings, etc etc. I think just under 112,000 miles in 5 years on some of the worst roads on the planet settles it - the F650 is reliable. So, its hats off to BMW singles and that incredible lady, Benka. Go girl!

Her journey sounds fantastic.

On the F650GS front my lad has one and while we have been through two sets of waterpump shaft and seals and one set of head bearings none has been tricky to do and the bike has never let him down. I'm actually thinking about a G650GS Sertao as an offroad bike that has enough legs to make it to the trails by main road.