Since NcDan's excellent post asking for advise about the V-Strom has veered off the rails, rather than cludging up his thread with more ADV stuff, I'd just like to add this inspirational note.
Walter Muna (my personal hero) was 'doing ADV' long before some of us started to think we were adventurous. He is also the author of the most useful web sites on the James Bay Road, North Road, Trans-Taiga etc. etc. and had explored them before the rest of us started to realise that they existed.
Here is his trip report on his 1978 trip 3-month 11,500-mile (18,660 km) to the Yukon, Alaska and Inuvik on a 50cc MOPED
http://mopedtrip.com/index.htmlNick