This list is not for your memory. It is for the evening before, when you are tired, have ten things in your head and are convinced you have done them all.

Go through it with the bike in front of you, not from an armchair.

The motorcycle

Tyre pressure, cold, with the luggage you are actually carrying.
Tyre tread: enough to get you home, not just to the halfway point.
Chain: tension and lubrication. If it is at the limit, change it now.
Oil and coolant, at level.
Brake pads, front and rear. Brake fluid, level and colour.
Lights: dipped, main, brake, indicators, number plate.
Battery: if it starts reluctantly in the garage, it will not heal on the road.
Bolts on the luggage racks and the screen, tight.

The luggage

Luggage on the bike, not next to it, and strapped down as for 130 km/h.
Nothing heavy high up or at the back: it raises the centre of gravity and makes the bike nervous.
Puncture kit and compressor within reach, not under everything else.
Rain gear on top, not at the bottom of the bag.
Anything that must not get wet, in dry bags.

Papers and money

Licence, registration, insurance, ID card or passport.
Copies of all of them, on paper and on the phone, kept apart from the originals.
Vignettes and road tolls for the countries on the route.
Cash in local currency for the first day, and a backup card kept somewhere else.
Health insurance and roadside assistance details, written on paper too.

Phone and navigation

Offline maps for the countries on the route, downloaded over Wi-Fi.
The route saved, day by day, and sent to someone at home.
Phone mount tight, charging cable tested on the bike.
Power bank charged.
Emergency contacts, written on paper, in your jacket pocket.

You

Your own medication, for the whole trip plus a few days.
Water within reach, not in the bottom case.
Day one: you know where you are sleeping and roughly when you should arrive.
Someone at home knows the route and roughly when you arrive each evening.

The form to print

Below is the same list on a single A4 page, with tick boxes. Download it, print it and walk it through the garage with a pen. It takes ten minutes and catches exactly the things you skip when you keep them in your head.

If you use it often, leave a printed copy in the toolbox — that is where you will look for it next time.

And when you arrive: the places that held your trip together — the workshop that was open, the guesthouse with a garage, the campsite that takes motorcycles — put them on the map while they are fresh in your mind.