ON THE COVER Grego Rios, taken at Lake Kremasta, Greece grego_rios
CONTACT editor@advrider.com
ADVENTURE
ADVrider founder Chris MacAskill
Adventure is my favorite word in the whole world. I know, it should be love, food, sex, or kids (great words!). But whatever the reason, I get a bigger surge of adrenaline when I hear “adventure” than from any other word.
I was walking with Jeff Bezos one weekend before he was rich and famous. We had just emerged from our tents and somehow we got talking about our love of tech. He casually said, “We don’t choose our passions. Our passions choose us.”
That’s the second-best explanation I’ve ever heard for our irrational love of motorcycles. I stare at each one I see, admiring its graceful contours, its sweet sound, its shiny finish. I get lost imagining how awesome it would be to ride it in sweepers, in the Andes, fishtailing on rutted roads in Baja.
The best explanation I ever heard was from inmate Stefano at the Pahrump rally. He said dogs understand. You can see it on their dog faces when they stick their heads out windows of cars and light up.
It never gets old. If the passion chooses you, you twist the throttle and smile—every time. If you’re in the Alps, the smile is bigger. If it’s with people who have been infected with the same passion, even bigger.
And I think that’s why Adventure Rider took off. The passion chose us and won’t let go. Even if we can’t ride the Andes or Dakar, we can spend endless hours watching Itchy Boots, Lyndon, Charley and Ewan do it. We devote years to restoring old Nortons, and we wonder how any motorcycle could look that gorgeous and produce such chills when the engine roars to life.
I will never get over watching ADVrider grow in ways I never saw coming and had nothing to do with: regional subforums, rallies, epic ride reports, stickers, GPS tracks.
Maybe the most inspiring thing is watching fellow riders come to the aid of someone in distress. Or maybe it’s watching injured riders decide they will ride again no matter what it takes.
I think the love of adventure infuses the rest of our lives with excitement. Why have an ordinary vacation sipping Mai Tais on the beach when you can make it an adventure you will think back on for the rest of your life with a smile?
When we started ADVrider, we had a simple mantra: pics or it didn’t happen. If “adventure” is my fav word and “pics or it didn’t happen” is my fav mantra, then I guess I’d better end with my fav pic. Even Batman loved this pic.
CHRIS MACASKILL (BALDY)
Chris founded Adventure Rider in 2001, and it has been his passionate hobby ever since. He has loved motorcycles and adventures of all kinds for as long as he can remember. Originally an earth scientist for 16 years, he became a Silicon Valley techie.
MIKE BOTAN
Mike Botan (Ride2ADV) has been traveling the world on two wheels for many years. Hoping to learn about different people and cultures, his mantra continues to be “Shrink the planet one ride at a time.”
LYNDON POSKITT
An avid motorcycle adventurer, Lyndon circumnavigates the world solo by motorcycle, prioritising off-road while self-filming and producing the YouTube documentary “Races to Places”. Lyndon has covered over 250,000 km through 74 countries and raced 11 competitions along the way, including completing three Dakar rallies.
CONTRIBUTORS
STEVE THORNTON
Steve is a writer and editor in Toronto, where he contributes to Cycle Canada magazine and copy edits ADVrider. He is writing a novel about a Canadian-made twin-jet interceptor and, for the sheer fun of it, studying mathematics.
EGLĖ GERULAITYTĖ
Motorcycle and travel journalist, author, and bike vagabond, Egle is indefinitely on the road going from adventure to rally and documenting the ensuing chaos along the way. She is usually found at rally races, on dirt trails, or glued to the laptop screen while over-caffeinated.
rtwPaul
The more I ride, the more I want to ride, to date having ridden in all 50 American states and 87 countries and counting. I like to share and document the good information I find whether it’s about my travels or other riders.
J PETER “THE BEAR” THOEMING
Peter studied Economics at university but became a graphic designer, ending up as Art Director of Sony Music Australia. He rode a Honda XL250 around the world and then settled down to editing and launching five motorcycle magazines. He part owns and writes for Australian Motorcyclist.
ZAC KURYLYK
Based on the east coast of Canada, Zac’s young family keeps him closer to home these days. He still loves travelling on two wheels when he gets a chance, and sharing the stories of other riders’ adventures through journalism.
JAMES BARKMAN
James is a photographer who draws much of his inspiration from the mountains and the sea. No stranger to the open road, his work, travels, and expeditions have taken him from the Arctic Circle to Afghanistan. He currently resides on his sailboat in Morro Bay, California.
PAOLO CATTANEO
Computer engineer, turned into world traveller. In 2015 I bought a KTM 1190 Adventure and started riding around the world. After 5 years and more than 190,000 km ridden, I am still travelling and living my life day by day, country by country.
MITCH B
Frequently lost. Always late. Riding the world 2 weeks at a time. 23 countries and (not) counting. Engineer by trade. Roadracer + hard enduro guy at heart, ADV guy by age. KTM 500EXC + 560SMR. Honda RS125, HawkGT, and Africa Twin. Gas Gas 280TXT.
CONTRIBUTORS
MICHNUS OLIVIER
GenX’er born and bred South African product. Semi full-time motorcycle overlander at PikiPiki-Overland with my better half the last 10 years. Not known to follow or believe my own advice; however, I love to share stories, photos and inspiration with others.
I’m a motorcycle enthusiast with a passion for adventure and food. I have ridden solo from London to New York, taking in some of the world’s most amazing countries, cultures and cuisines. When I’m not riding, I’m cooking. And when I am riding, I’m cooking!
NED SUESSE
Advrider has been a part of Ned(uro)’s life since 2004, and he’s met so many important friends there he could not imagine life otherwise. He has raced all over the world, spends his days running doubletakemirror.com, and never liked Jo Momma anyway.
Hank is a long time motorcyclist and photographer. He has travelled extensively, often by motorbike, throughout Mexico, Central America, South America, and Africa. For him, discovering new cultures, connecting with people of all ages, and learning their ways of life is what travel is all about.
KYLIE DAY
HANK ARRIAZOLA
AND WHATEVER COMES MY WAY
Ten years of adventures around the world
WORDS AND IMAGES Lyndon Poskitt
I’ve been riding motorcycles for 32 years and adventure riding for the last 17. I’ve ridden less this year, due to the COVID pandemic, than in any year since I started, and that’s got me thinking about experiences I’ve had as an adventure motorcyclist. It would be impossible to list all of the standout moments in a short article, but here are 10 of them, taken from the last 10 years of riding.
Adventure riding has allowed me to discover parts of myself that I didn’t know I had, while enjoying what I love doing— riding motorcycles in remote places, both alone and with others. I’ve developed skills and confidence while riding in places people rarely take motorcycles into, and I’ve taken on some challenges, achieved some things, and met some incredible people along the way, all thanks to the love of twowheeled adventure.
Spreading my wings and crossing borders has opened my eyes to the world. I’ve learned about cultures, people, food,
currencies and their values, climates, languages, fruits, plants, clothing, forms of transport, political situations, living conditions and a lot more. I’ve also learned to be more reserved and smile in situations that would normally fire me up, because it is respect, patience, and smiles that make progress around the world and help to keep the wheels in motion.
Seven thousand hours is a long time to sit in the saddle of a motorcycle. Those of you with inquisitive minds will already be working out the average speed of my travels. On average, on-road and off-road, through technical jungle riding, desert crossings and highways, my average moving speed over the last 10 years of adventure riding is approximately 46 km/h or just under 30 mph, according to all of my GPS data. Even I would have said it was higher than that, but this makes me feel a little better for not charging around the world full of gas and missing sights as I explored, even though some days it still felt like it.
MY MOTORCYCLE TRAVELS OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS
77 Countries travelled
157 Border crossings
200,000 Distance covered in miles
7,000+ Hours of seat time
page) Taking a
(Previous
bath in New Zealand; (from top) Machu Pichu, Peru; taking a moment in Patagonia.
Riding on Studs in Snow and Ice in Norway
Back in 2014, I was invited to ride with friends in Norway. It was snowing and cold but a lot of fun. Riding on studs is a whole new experience and counterintuitive to what we are used to. Typically, asphalt has traction and is predictable, dirt is less so. When you get on the studs in the ice and snow it flips: ice and hard-pack snow are predictable, but after that experience, asphalt is like riding on ice. I found out the hard way a few times before my brain rewired itself.
Crossing the Bear
On the first year of my world trip I joined up with a friend to ride across Russia to Magadan on the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk, north of Japan. It was a risky time of year, just before the first snowfall, cold and very wet with lots of challenging mud holes and river crossings. The scenery was flat, bland, and nothing to write home about, but the challenge of the route was what made this ride. This was an extreme adventure, camping in the freezing cold, fending off giant mosquitoes and trying not to get eaten by bears. I will always remember this adventure for the teamwork and camaraderie. We slogged it out and made a very difficult, miserable crossing fun by doing it together.
The Japanese Kind
Before I made it to Japan I didn’t care much for sashimi (raw fish) and didn’t know much about the country beyond its car and motorcycle industries. Having spent a few months there, riding around all of the main islands, I can honestly say that Japan felt like, and probably was, one of the safest countries I have traveled. The Japanese people were some of the kindest I have ever met, so welcoming and helpful that it made for one of the most pleasurable and unproblematic countries on my travels. I came away with a new love for sashimi and a huge respect for the Japanese way of life. Campai!
Wonders of the World
locals, rocking up on your motorcycle and paying the local rates. Then, once I had taken it all in, rather than being sad about going home, I was excited to get on my bike and wonder where I would camp that night and what I would see tomorrow. It is unlikely that I would have done all this without my motorcycle.
Mired & Tired in Thailand
One of the hardest parts of my adventure and my first really sticky situation was an attempt to ride a remote jungle route through Thailand solo. I made it so far, then had to turn around due to extreme heat, humidity, and technical terrain. I couldn’t get back out of a river I had crossed previously, the bank too steep and slippery. I got tired, exhausted, and dehydrated but kept my head together and made a plan, though it wasn’t pretty. I made it out and was picked up and recovered by a small group of U.S. missionaries working on the border of Myanmar. Thanks to them I had a bathroom to clean up, an amazing multi-course meal, and live music. Not a bad ending to a difficult few days. This experience helped me to consider more before going on particular rides and generally be more prepared.
I made it out and was picked up and recovered by a small group of U.S. missionaries working on the border of Myanmar.
Paradise on the South Island
The South Island of New Zealand was a highlight due to the sheer amount of off-road tracks and exploration this place has to offer. The summer weather was perfect and I spent two months and 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) exploring New Zealand, most of which was on the South Island. I got routes from a company called RemoteMoto, which helped massively in finding the best places to explore at a level I like to ride, and I simply loved it. Every day was a new adventure. I even found a bathtub in the middle of nowhere with running water and a fire pit beneath for a hot bath with incredible views.
North America’s Continental Divide
While tourist attractions really aren’t my thing, I enjoyed being able to see some of the most spectacular pieces of history the world has to offer without having to use public transport or join an organized tour. There was something about the adventure on two wheels: getting there, exploring new places, meeting the
Utah in the western United States is one of the most spectacular places I’ve travelled, mainly due to the state’s amazing scenery and rock formations. It’s on par with Tajikistan, which also has unbelievably strange terrain that takes a while to digest. The well-documented routes and
endless trails made it easy to keep moving and seeing new things along the way. Some great adventure riding indeed.
Mountains of Peru
Peru sticks in my mind a lot, not only because I started two Dakar rallies there, but also because I spent quite some time exploring the Andes while in South America. Endless peaks, high mountain tracks, trails often reaching over 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) in altitude and incredible riding off the beaten path. I explored local villages high in the sky and visited people living in freezing, snow-capped conditions with no central heating in their homes. It’s a truly spectacular area.
Rural Patagonia
Patagonia is beautiful. It’s accessible and not too challenging, so exploring it is something for all skill levels and bikes. There are so many amazing things to see along the way: glaciers, national parks with incredible hikes and views, stunning mountain ranges, volcanoes and much more. The Carreterra Austral offers a rewarding route through Chile, and if you combine this with multiple trips over the Andes, riding back and forth into Argentina (I crossed 13 times), then you get some of the best adventure riding this region has to offer.
Ethiopia: the Hidden Secret of Africa
I could not conclude this list of highlights without going to Africa. I had so many incredible experiences traveling through Africa that it’s hard to choose one single place. It was the most demanding continent to ride through, and I think the highlight was riding in Ethiopia. Often a place remembered for its famine and poverty, it has some of the most incredible off-road riding on the continent. I will always remember the children singing me songs and dancing and just generally happy to see me. It was a truly humbling experience as I handed out stickers and pens on my way through.
Conclusion
If I had waited for someone to come with me on my many adventures, I would have achieved less than 30 percent of what I did. In pulling the trigger and doing a lot of my riding solo, I have not only discovered new experiences, but I have also discovered myself.
In 2019, I completed my circumnavigation of the globe on two wheels, something that was a dream for many years. I planned for it to take 18 months, yet it took over five years. Wheelying down the street that I had left 1,886 days earlier was an incredible feeling and one that I can only hope to be able to put into words one day in my book. The time was right to close that chapter, but I’m already looking forward to what’s next.
Camping with a view in Ethiopia.
PEAKS, MOTORCYCLES AND SMILES
An interview with Allen
Stoltzfus
WORDS rtwPaul | IMAGES James Barkman
In the spring of 2017, Allen Stoltzfus (stoltzfii) and Jeremy Beiler left Pennsylvania on Suzuki DR650s for Oregon, where they met up with fellow DR650 rider James Barkman and set off for a monumental motorcycle-andclimbing trip, heading north to Alaska, then south to Ushuaia at the bottom of Argentina.
As a collective group, we inmates of ADVrider are known to do a little dual sporting, but we have nothing on Allen, James Barkman and Jeremy. They took dual sporting to a whole new level with a journey that mingled motorcycle riding with mountain climbing. Dual Sport indeed!
Whose idea was it to ride and climb as one trip?
I would have to go with James on this one. Jeremy and I were the original two for the motorcycle trip and climbing, due to our interest in hiking and very low-key mountaineering. I’m sure there would have been mountains involved, but not to the level it was with James.
He called me maybe six months before the trip and said his friend Sterling
Not only did they ride thousands of miles, but the three of them also climbed five peaks: Denali (Alaska), Mt. Robson (British Columbia), Mt. Hood (Oregon), Mt. Whitney (California), Pico de Orizaba (Mexico); and two failed summits: Churup Oeste (Peru), and Alpamayo (Peru). When Allen was stricken with Lyme disease, James and Jeremy climbed a few more peaks to keep busy. The highest peak Allen topped was Denali in Alaska at 20,310 feet.
Taylor would climb Denali with us if we were in. That was all the push we needed, and it was full steam ahead from there. Once we were geared up for Denali, it was easy to add other mountains because we already had almost everything we needed.
Looking back, it was a great call to incorporate climbing and riding as one trip. Although it added a lot of gear, the climbs were definitely the most memorable experiences of the trip.
How long have you guys known each other?
We all grew up together, and Jeremy is my cousin, so basically since we were born. That was one of the main reasons we wanted to do the trip with all three of us. We had so much history together that it made it an especially unique experience.
Of all the peaks you climbed, which were the most memorable?
Mount Robson in the Canadian Rockies. Over a year before the trip, I watched an awesome video on YouTube of two climbers summiting Robson, and I immediately put it at the top of my list. For me, that was one of the main goals of the trip to at least attempt it. When we did summit Robson, it felt so rewarding.
Mount Hood in Oregon was an easier one-day climb. But after pushing through bad conditions with icefall and almost turning around, we summited just before sunrise and experienced the most incredible sunrise I have ever seen.
I was back in the States for two months fighting a serious case of Lyme disease while the guys were climbing in Peru. Once I returned to Peru, mostly recovered, I spent a week acclimating before attempting a pretty serious 18,000 foot mountain. Around 16,000 feet on summit day, I completely ran out of steam. I had never been so tired in my life and even cried a little as we were forced to turn around because I could not handle it physically. It was a tough place to be at.
Any peaks you regret skipping?
I would have loved to climb something in Patagonia, but the weather wasn’t good yet when we were down there. We were ready to end the trip so we ended up not climbing anything there. Also, Patagonia is notoriously challenging climbing and more likely than not we would have been completely shut down.
What advice would you give to other climber-riders, now that you’ve done it?
This sounds cliche, but I really believe that almost anything can be accomplished with hard work and perseverance.
You don’t have to be an amazing rider, you don’t have to have a lot of money, and you don’t have to be extremely talented. You need to be determined.
Also, I read a lot of amazing ADVrider forums and I never would have even thought it was realistic to drive from Alaska to Patagonia until I saw some of the wild trips that other people did. I drew a lot of inspiration for the trip we did from what I saw others accomplish.
What came first, climbing or motorcycles?
Motorcycles. I got a motorcycle when I was 20 and I never climbed until I was 23, about a year before the trip. I always wanted a motorcycle, but I was a crazy driver when I was younger and my parents never would have let me have a motorcycle right after I got my license, and it really was for the best.
I finally got a motorcycle when I showed them how much money I could save with a little bike. I rode a Ninja 250 that got 70 miles per gallon for over a year before moving on to bigger and better bikes.
You took dual sport to another level. Any plans for another ride in the future combined with something else?
I would love to ride the Trans-Canada Adventure Trail. Hopefully, in the next few years, I’ll be starting a trip forum about the TCAT.
I would love to do a trip that is only focused on riding, which would eliminate a lot of the gear and allow me to have a way lighter and more road-focused bike. So not really combining anything, but rather subtracting. It would be great to do a minimalist style moto trip.
(Previous page) Riding up to Deadhorse, Alaska; (opposite, clockwise) Jeremy climbing in Peru; Salt Flats, Bolivia; Ecuador
Have you replaced your DR650s at home with other bikes?
Unfortunately, no. The finances were looking bleak when I finished the trip so a bike got pushed to the back of my list of priorities, but I would love to get a bike in the near future. Hopefully something with a lot of dirt capabilities but still able to legally ride on the road.
Do you have a dream bike that isn’t your current bike—if you had an unlimited budget?
Probably a KTM 690 Adventure. Or if we are talking a truly unlimited budget then it would definitely be a KTM 450 cc Dakar Rally bike. They are incredible bikes.
Where is your favorite country to ride and why, and which other two round out your top three?
America is incredible. I loved Death Valley. Amazing trails, lots of history, and huge. We spent a little less than a week there but I would love to spend a lot more time there. Also, Nevada was awesome. We rode a 250-mile stretch of trails through the middle of nowhere for five days, and it was such a great time. The trails are endless, and there is an incredible amount of public lands where you can ride and camp anywhere.
Bolivia is amazing but brutal. I have never been so cold for so long in my life, but it was beautiful.
It’s tough to narrow it down to three, but I think I would go with Peru: great riding and great people. The mountains are massive and the terrain is top class for adventure riding.
Is there one particular road or track that stands out above all the rest?
We rode 250 miles of the Backcountry Discovery Route in Nevada, and it was one of my favorite experiences of the trip.
A dream location to ride to that you have yet to visit?
Deep in Patagonia. We more or less stuck to the main roads there and were slightly rushed. In the summer I could spend a lot of time there. There are so many roads that lead to nowhere.
Scariest moment on your travels?
Jeremy was buried in an avalanche for over five minutes while James fought to dig him out. When he got to his face, Jeremy was purple and not breathing. James gave him CPR and soon after that he started breathing again. That was incredibly scary. I was actually back in the States over that time, recovering from Lyme disease, so I was not there for that experience, but it was definitely the scariest experience of the trip.
Most memorable day?
The last day riding into Ushuaia in Argentina. It was so, so cold and my bike motor was about to explode. But we made it, and the destination never felt so good!
Should more people travel?
Yes. It opens your eyes to a lot, both around you and inside you. It’s really easy to live in a nice bubble here in America and traveling can be an excellent way to break out of that and see what the world is really like.
Top three tips for a new rider?
Ride slow and don’t be afraid to wreck—it will happen a lot. Carry a basic tool kit. Actually, if you’re doing a long trip, take a pretty extensive tool and spare parts kit. And be alert all the time. Anything can happen really fast on a bike.
When you aren’t riding what do you do for a job?
I have a mechanical engineering degree and I am currently a sales engineer for a metal fabrication company in Pennsylvania.
I am moving to Colorado in a few months and continuing my job, but remotely, which means I will have a lot of control over my schedule. This will offer me a lot of flexibility to continue to pursue adventures and hobbies while still holding down a full-time job.
What does the word “adventure” mean to you?
Adventure means to challenge yourself in whatever capacity that is. It doesn’t have to be in the classical sense of adventures, such as climbing or a motorcycle trip. Anything that puts you out of your comfort zone and causes growth is an adventure. That’s what it means to me.
What is your one favorite photo ever from all your travels?
At Deadhorse, the northern terminus, accessible by road, of North America (page 16). We were so cold, so muddy and so tired, but victorious; we were ready to head south.
(Previous page) Salt Flats Bolivia; (above) Riding Peru; (opposite) Salt Flats, Bolivia; the end: Ushuaia, Argentina.
THE LIFE CHANGING RIDE THAT LED TO ADVRIDER
Why ride a motorcycle through remote Mexican villages instead of flying to a resort?
WORDS Chris MacAskill
On an ordinary morning in the spring of 2001, my wife Toni answered the phone and her face went ashen. She quickly handed the phone to me but pressed her head against mine in an attempt to hear both sides of the conversation.
The man on the other end had asked for me. He identified himself as the Mormon Mission president from Sao Paulo, Brazil, where our 19-year-old son volunteered. Our missionary son had been sending us fascinating audio stories of living among poor but wonderful families.
Mission presidents rarely call parents unless there’s bad news. Toni’s fingernails pinched my arm as Shepherd said Ben was in critical care with an unknown but possibly life-threatening illness. He was down to 140 pounds on his six-foot five-inch frame.
The next few weeks were terrifying. I got a call from a church authority that lasted five seconds because my cell dropped. I was in a packed elevator 26 floors up and suddenly believed the only reason someone like him would call was that Ben had passed. In that moment I had the awful realization that I hadn’t rehearsed how I would break the news to Toni.
On a Ducati 1260 Enduro near Death Valley on the way to the Pahrump rally.
Photograph courtesy: Kevin Harrington
As I left my house near San Francisco, the heavens opened and it poured all the way to Mexico. “ ”
To get a cell signal among the skyscrapers I ran in my suit through a crowded lobby and across a busy boulevard, where drivers thought I was crazy. I shouted “WHAT?!” into the phone when it connected. The church authority explained that Ben had recovered enough to be flown home. I burst into tears.
As Ben began his long recovery, I sat beside his skinny self during the memorial for a beautiful 21-year-old who had lost her battle with cancer. Her father and I were good friends and I wondered, as he somehow managed to pay tribute to her, would I have that strength if Ben’s life ended at 21? Fortunately, Ben recovered, but another missionary who was sent home with similar symptoms did not.
I was mentally and emotionally exhausted and had a burning desire to escape all my troubles.
What explains the choice to ride a motorcycle through remote Mexican villages instead of flying to a resort in Cabo? Is it the wind in our faces, the adrenaline that comes with risk, leaning into sweeping corners? Or was it a desire to experience everyday people in Mexico as Ben had done in Brazil? That seemed like true adventure to me: to go the rugged, primitive way that connects you to the sounds, smells, rain, mud, burros, food and people. Maybe connecting with people whose lives were tougher than mine would help me realize how lucky I really was and get over my feelings of self-pity.
I remembered something the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain had said: “If you sit down with people and just say, ‘Hey, what makes you happy? What’s your life like? What do you like to eat?’ More often than not, they will tell you extraordinary things, many of which have nothing to do with food.” This became a mantra for me, a driving force while I was in Mexico.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t think much about preparing. I had a sexy red BMW street bike that I thought was the
ultimate riding machine. It had a rear topcase that would carry a bit of clothing. I had a map of Mexico. I had skimmed a tour book. What could go wrong?
I bought Toni a ticket to meet me in Puerto Vallarta; she would fly back from Monterrey six days later. I’d do the hard miles down and back without her. We could ride two-up to Mexico City, Acapulco, and maybe to the Guatemalan border. How far can you travel in a day in Mexico? Guess we’d find out.
Thank God I had bought a good waterproof electric jacket and pants. I didn’t know anything about leathers or Aerostich, and I can’t even remember exactly what I bought. All I remember is I plugged them into my Beemer and I was warm and totally dry. Until they were stolen in Mexico.
As I left my house near San Francisco, the heavens opened and it poured all the way to Mexico. I don’t remember ever seeing rain like that. Interstate 5 had standing water and when trucks passed, I couldn’t see the road. Do motorcycles hydroplane? I didn’t know. I was hoping not.
When I would stop for gas, motorists felt sorry for me. I explained that I was warm and didn’t have a drop of water seepage anywhere. Electric clothing—what will they think of next?
Arizona was terrifying. There were dark vertical clouds dumping water with lightning that came to the desert floor. There was no place to hide and wait out the storms. Did lightning sometimes take out motorcyclists? I didn’t know that either.
That’s when I finally realized that a lifetime of owning motorcycles and riding them up and down Highway 1 in California did not prepare me for this. I knew a lot of local riders but no one who rode through Arizona lightning. Does Mexico have heavy rain and lightning?
Things quickly got real for me and my shiny red street bike when I crossed the border at Nogales. The potholes were full
of rain water. I had no idea the first one would be half-awheel deep. It bottomed my forks with a huge bang. That was followed by a second bang when my bash plate didn’t clear the asphalt edge of the pothole on the way out. I didn’t notice that my topcase flew open. I would discover later that I’d left my ear plugs, toothbrush and some clothes in the mud.
There were buses and trucks following close behind, driving aggressively, while I was discovering that my bike also didn’t clear the speed bumps (topes) without a loud bang. How durable are bash plates on shiny street bikes? I had never considered it. I could slow down, swerve across the speed bumps at an angle and not bash, but trucks would bear down on me when I tried.
Wait, what?! How could I—the guy who read every motorcycle magazine and had a stack of them up to my hip— not know this? If I drop my bike when my front fender fills with mud, causing the front wheel to stop rotating, how much does it cost to replace the plastic? Three thousand dollars? I wasn’t seeing any bikes like mine in Mexico. What happens if it breaks down? The sane thing would be to turn around and tour the U.S. instead. I didn’t think of that.
The first time the men in black pulled me over, I had no idea who they were. The locals I stayed with that night told me that they are the drug police. I don’t remember them asking about drugs, but my bike created a sensation with all of them. They would grab the throttle and rev it. They would ask to
ride it. I always said no. They would reply, “El Jefe, he gay, HE WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO YOU!!” (Laughter all around.) “You better let him ride it.”
That night I checked into a small village hotel. The owner looked at my bike and said I could bring it in my room. She told me I should never leave it out at night. So every night in Mexico I parked it beside my bed. In Mexico City, I splurged for a night and stayed in a 4-star hotel on the 12th floor. They let me wheel my bike into the elevator and take it upstairs as if it was no big deal.
The first night across the border, I looked myself in the mirror and shaved my head bald. I don’t know why. A 40-something midlife crisis? My hair had been thinning and I wanted to look badass? Whatever. It was a look. When I emailed the family, my sons thought it was the coolest thing ever. They called me Baldy. My wife thought I’d lost my mind. I found a pay phone and tried to persuade her I was sane. As I spoke I realized I too was afraid I might be losing it.
Shoulda had knobbies. Broke my leg but managed to walk it off.
Baldy in Mexico with his beloved BMW K1200, having shaved his head bald for the first time and earning his nickname, which stuck.
The shaved head thing—like the trip—wasn’t well thought out. The skin under my hair was porcelain white and there was no way to get a tan under my helmet. When I’d remove my helmet to walk into a store, I’d see my reflection in the window and get a shock. For 11 days in Mexico, I never saw another man with a shaved head. The men in black at the drug inspection stops would ask me to remove my helmet and I could see their shock. One screamed, “OH!! LEX LUTHOR!!” And he, like everyone else, called his buddies over to see my lilly-white cueball and laugh.
I rode south beside the Sea of Cortez, bashing my bike on more topes, wondering how much more it would take. Somewhere north of Puerto Vallarta, the roads became narrow, mountainous and twisty— perfect for the incredible power my bike had. It was white-knuckle thrilling because the roads were filled with semis and I could accelerate like a bat out of Hell around them.
One problem is my bike didn’t have good range, and with every abandoned Pemex station I passed, my stomach would tighten for fear of running out. One time I saw a farmer filling his tractor from a 55-gallon drum and I talked him into selling me a gallon. I also bought tacos from his roadside stand. Delicious.
How come the only two I could think of were a BMW GS and a Triumph Tiger? I didn’t like oilhead GS engines in the day because they surged. I had owned an oilhead street bike. I wondered, aren’t Tigers more street than dirt with that low front fender? Why can’t someone else make a rugged bike with more than one cylinder so I can zap past the trucks?
I made a mental note: get on the Internet when you get home and find a forum for ... hmmm ... what do they call rugged touring bikes? Oh well, I’ll just call them adventure bikes for now because this is turning into one hell of an adventure.
Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta were beautiful, but I avoided tourists and stayed with locals. I felt like Ben during his missionary adventures. A group of teens came over to hear stories about America from the big gringo. They laughed, asked questions about pop stars and fashion, and asked why we didn’t listen to Nancy Reagan when she was First Lady.
Okay, that’s it, my ears were going to explode from wind noise and losing my earplugs at the border sinkhole.
What? Nancy Reagan? They explained how American demand for drugs meant kids they knew got leather jackets and machine guns at 16 by joining cartels. Did Americans know how much our consumption of drugs drove violence in Mexico? No, actually, I didn’t. We stopped laughing.
Another time I ran out several miles from a town at night. I hid the bike off the road and hitched a ride into town. Gah. Nothing says “rob me” like a six-foot, four-inch white American with a porcelain head hitchhiking in rural Mexico in the dark. A store was open that sold milk in plastic gallon bottles, so I bought one, poured the milk out, put gas in the bottle from a nearby station, and got a ride back to my bike.
With all the banging of the bashplate, the daredevil passing of trucks, and running out of gas, how would Toni take this? As it turned out, she canceled. She had abdominal pains and had to schedule surgery for adhesions. I offered to come straight home but she insisted I continue. However, once again she insisted I had lost my mind and, well, the evidence was on her side.
I started to imagine how a motorcycle should be designed for this. It should be like a Land Rover on two wheels—rugged, good clearance, more upright seating, less buffeting, more cargo space, more suspension travel, bigger gas tank.
The ride to Guadalajara was breathtaking. On Sunday morning I cruised the city and admired the ’50s- and ’60s-era cars people were showing off downtown. I felt like I was in Cuba. I spent a couple of hours just walking and admiring the Buicks and Chevy Bel Airs, and wishing my father had let me buy his 1953 Buick Roadmaster when I was 14. I would still own that car.
In 2001, Mexico was building cement superhighways, called cuotas (toll roads), that reminded me of the Autobahn in Germany. They were nearly deserted. The locals said no one could afford them, not even the truckers. I was twice shaken by the sight of trucks that had plunged off the narrow roads into ravines below, and couldn’t stop thinking about the tragedy of the tolls.
I hopped on a cuota from Guadalajara to Mexico City and accelerated to the speed limit. After a few minutes, whoom, a BMW car shot past at what seemed to be twice my speed. Ten minutes later a Porsche did it. Pretty soon I realized there are some rich Mexicans and nobody seems to enforce the speed limit on them. So I got bolder.
The first thing I wanted to know is how fast they were going. So I took it up to 90. Whoom: another one passed me. A hundred: whoom. Well maybe more like a whoosh at that speed. Oneten: whoosh. Okay, that’s it, my ears were going to explode from wind noise and losing my earplugs at the border sinkhole.
The burros made me shiver on the two-lane roads because they would feed on the shoulders just a few feet from me as I zoomed by. Do they ever run out in the road? On the cuotas, the burros were blocked by fences. Relief.
Sometimes I’d run into a flock of butterflies and they would coat my face shield so I couldn’t see. I kept stopping to wash it. And for some reason my bike was getting slower. More whooms. Was it because we were getting to higher altitudes near Mexico City? Top speed dropped to 90, then 70, then lower. The engine sounded pitiful when I rolled open the throttle. Buwaahh
This was the trouble I dreaded. A breakdown on a fancy bike in the middle of nowhere. Dirty gas? I pulled into a rest area having no idea what to do. As I washed my shield again I thought, “Hmmm . . . so many butterflies.” I checked my air filter. Totally clogged. I cleaned it out, along with the radiator, and was back to 110 mph.
No one told me that in Mexico City the buses don’t care if you’re in the lane next to them, they’re coming. Better squeeze between them and the car next to you. The first time it happened, I thought jerk! You could have killed me on this congested freeway. But I figured out that if you’re a motorcycle, they’re coming for you. After that I stayed off the freeways in Mexico City and enjoyed the city streets. They have beautiful roundabouts, dramatic statues, parks and big trees.
Lucky for me—the man without a plan—I happened upon Zona Rosa near the old town. It has artists, a gay community and great restaurants.
Zona Rosa is the only place in Mexico where I saw almostshaved heads (more like buzz cuts) and always on women. They were striking.
Mexico City stunned me. First, it’s surrounded by some of the world’s highest mountains. Who knew? El Pico de Orizaba is 18,500 feet.
If only I’d had a rugged motorcycle, I could have ridden up a dirt road to 14,100 feet. From there you can summit in a day. I didn’t have crampons for hiking up glaciers or a warm parka, but I got a great bucket-list item for someday.
Second, just 45 minutes outside of the city is Teotihuacan, an ancient (abandoned) city of perhaps 125,000 population, concurrent with the Roman empire—perhaps the 6th largest city in the world at the time. It also contains the sixth largest pyramid ever built. Tourists were bent over clutching their burning quads trying to get to the top.
Third, the road to Acapulco! Well-paved, smooth twisties, remote, beautiful, alpine. . . .
Whenever I’m asked what my favorite road for motorcycling in the world is, I think of this road. Whatever rugged bike was in my future, it would have to be good on roads like this.
It’s a crazy thing to suddenly descend, after four hours of riding in the cool mountain air, to Acapulco. In the space of a few miles it suddenly gets hot, humid, congested and packed with luxury resorts.
A funny thing happened in Acapulco: I got homesick. I called Toni from a phone booth: $96. I was tempted to ride south down the coast and through the mountains to Guatemala and Belize, but I wanted to do it with her. And I wanted to be home when she went under the knife.
So I turned around and rode back to Mexico City. I still can’t believe this but the next day I rode 1,141 miles to El Paso by setting the speedo to 120 on the Cuotas and holding it there all day. Ow, my ears. The next day I rode an equal distance back home, in slow motion, at 70 mph.
What’s a motorcycle adventurer to do once the needle is in your arm and you need a daily fix of adventure? Buy a server and forum software on a lark and not think about what it will mean for you for the next 17 years?
Yeah, I didn’t think that through either.
Whenever I’m asked what my favorite road for motorcycling in the world is, I think of this road.
(Clockwise) Bodi and grandkids are my constant companions in the Ural—they’re why I have a sidecar; a pic by Cannonshot observing the ADV mantra: when a rider goes down, first get the shot; Baldy test riding an Energica electric superbike.
Photograph courtesy: (Clockwise)
Vilen Rodeski, Bryan
Much and Vilen Rodeski
ADVENTURE RIDING PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
As the world has changed, so has adventure riding
WORDS Zac Kurylyk | IMAGES Chris Scott
(Previous page) Scott’s second trip to Algeria on a homemade bike using a 200 cc Honda twin in an AJS Stormer frame with VW Beetle tailpipes and the recognisable air-cooled Yamaha RD tank; (above) Scott, reaching the first real Saharan dunes near El Golea in Algeria, 1982.
It’s a gag-inducing cliche, but—in 2020, we’ve learned to expect the unexpected, and that has left adventure riders with a lot of questions. Where’s it all going? Will we be able to travel by motorcycle in the future? Will there be any travel at all?
A look at the past might give us a better guess at the future. Let’s start with the earliest days of adventure riding, with Carl Stearns Clancy—the first person to circumnavigate the globe on a motorcycle.
Carl Stearns Clancy was 22 years old when he started his trip around the globe on a 1912 Henderson Four. The journey lasted from late 1912 through August 1913. When he was done, Clancy had traveled 18,000 miles—not bad for a guy traveling on seven horsepower.
Probably nobody understands Clancy’s travels better than American author and rider Dr. Gregory Frazier. He literally wrote the book on Clancy’s adventures, and 100 years after the round-the-world journey, he recreated parts of it, tracing Clancy’s steps alongside Geoff Hill and Gary Walker.
But even though he followed Clancy’s steps, Frazier says in some ways Clancy was part of an era that can never be recreated. Clancy was the first motorcyclist to explore many of these routes, but now they have been travelled for 100 years.
“Clancy was blazing a trail around the globe; today most overlanders are following trails marked by others,” Frazier says. “A morphological resonance exists related to traveling and exploring the unknown that disappears once the door to the unknown has been opened—others will follow.”
That’s what happened. As decades passed, more and more moto-adventurers started laying out the tracks that would eventually become the well-worn routes of the overland motorcycle travel scene.
Wars, politics and plagues kept it all low-key, though. World War I broke out after Clancy’s return, then the Spanish Flu. The Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and all the other regional conflicts spawned by the Cold War—these didn’t completely rule out overland travel, but they certainly restricted where you could go.
But by the 1970s, some relations were normalizing, and a new generation of riders wanted to explore. In 1974, Robert Pirsig published Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, introducing a whole generation of younger readers to the idea of motorcycle touring. In 1979, Ted Simon published Jupiter’s Travels, the story of his 1974–1977 round-the-world trip on a Triumph Tiger. Also in the late ’70s, the Paris-Dakar rally kicked off. BMW released the R80 G/S, and Yamaha released the XT500.
The motorcycling public had been doing local-ish adventure riding (enduro riding, desert racing, that sort of thing) in Europe and North America for decades, but had mostly stayed close to home. That was about to change. More and more riders became aware of global travel possibilities, and they finally had factory motorcycles suited to the task.
I feel safe in saying that by no other means could I have obtained the broad insight into conditions in foreign countries that has resulted from my motorcycle journey. In many countries I reached districts inaccessible to the automobile and far from lines of ordinary travel and thus was brought into touch with the great rank and file of the people.
— CARL STEARNS CLANCY, QUOTED IN MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURER
Author Chris Scott was one of those riders who, in the early 1980s, started exploring outside their country, and even outside their continent. Working as a despatch rider in the UK, he decided to take some vacation time and see if he could explore the Sahara. Even then, there was little information available about what to expect; the Sahara Handbook guidebook had three pages of scant details, and he’d figured out some basics of desert bike setup from reading American moto-mag Dirt Bike. That was basically it.
Scott says his first trip “felt like walking off into the void ... I didn’t know anyone who’d been there but it was clearly doable so could be done again.”
Scott’s first trip didn’t go as well as he would have liked. “I left encumbered with masses of what proved to be unnecessary junk, an understandable over-reaction to the perceived perils,” he says. “The learning curve was steep and eventually I fell back down to the bottom, but got up armed with valuable lessons of how to do better next time.”
As the years went by and he continued his travels, Scott picked up more skills and knowledge, pushing himself and his bikes further. He wrote up his travels in moto-mags in the 1980s, and in 1993, he published his first full-length edition of Desert Biking, a guide to help others follow his wheel tracks through Africa. He’s been writing those kinds of books ever since.
And then, by the late 1990s, the adventure riding scene started getting really, really big. Helge Pederson published 10 Years On
Two Wheels, and Austin Vince and his chums put together the Mondo Enduro expedition, filming it for television. Over in the United States, Dr. Frazier’s books, along with work from Carla King, showed the GSphiles and other adventure riders that there was an exciting world to explore beyond their own continent. Adventure riding was everywhere, even on DVD and television.
There was one other major factor behind the ADV scene’s growing momentum: the Iron Curtain had come down, opening up destinations that had been closed for decades.
“It did it a whole load of good by opening up the Caucasus and Central Asia which are culturally and scenically still among the most fascinating destinations in Asia, if not the planet,” says Scott. “Plus, you could now ride the Trans-Siberian right across Russia to Vladivostok or even Magadan ... it also freed up our compadres in what they called the Eastern Bloc to come out and get a piece of the action, too.”
It really was a case of a lot of things happening at once. Factor in the Information Age, and forums like ADVrider also allowed motorcyclists to get together and compare notes. Now you don’t have to physically search out like-minded riders. You could meet virtually. And then, in 2004, the adventure riding scene really blew up.
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s first round-the-world trip hit the U.K.’s Sky channel in 2004–2005. Long Way Round was an eye-opener to motorcyclists and non-motorcyclists alike; there was a great big world to explore on two wheels. Interest in
Morocco a couple of years ago on an XSR700 running a Bolt 19er front wheel and V-Max rotors.
Scott thought it was a great motor but as a proper off-roader the ergos were all wrong.
ADV bikes wasn’t just growing now, it was booming. McGregor and Boorman’s televised adventures were the final push that made the adventure riding scene what it is today.
So, what is the adventure riding scene today, anyway? It’s not just a question of what bike you’re riding, because the current adventure riding scene sees people tooling around the world on everything from the 50 cc Honda Ruckus scooter to 1200 cc liquid-cooled behemoths from BMW. It’s obviously much different from what Carl Stearns Clancy faced in 1912 and
1913. And yet, Dr. Frazier says he’s faced many of the same challenges that Clancy did on that first trip. Breakdowns, closed borders, transportation across oceans—even in the Information Age, there remain challenges along the road.
Arguably, the main difference is that now many adventure riders are content to follow established routes, instead of finding new ones.
“There is far less trail-blazing and fewer motorcyclists seeking new routes through and over continents or around the world,” Frazier says. Now, the routes that challenged those earlier
riders can be very easy, thanks to modern technology and information. You can make those routes tricky and difficult, but you don’t have to. You can circle the world on pavement riding a street bike. To some people that’s progress. Others say there’s no adventure in that sort of easier riding.
Scott is frequently credited with inventing the term “adventure motorcycling” in his first Desert Biking book. Since then, he says, the meaning has changed. “Now it’s come to signify a type of motorcycling, driven by similar lifestyle and aspirational motivations as the SUV craze, or indeed racereplica sports bikes back in the ’90s,” he says. “It all helps
move money around. So I use the term less and, along with other bygone influencers, have reverted to ‘travel bikes’ which has been a thing since the day an inquisitive farmer crammed an engine into a bicycle.”
But for those who are willing to push beyond the welltraveled path, Scott says that element of uncertainty is still there, no matter how much things have changed. Google Maps can provide you with all sorts of information, but ultimately, you’re still responsible for yourself when you’re on your bike.
Chris and Toni MacAskill on the Zero DSR Black Forest Electric Adventure Motorcycle.
“A SPOT (satellite GPS tracker) might reassure others, but the ever-present requirement not to blow it remains,” Scott says. “That involves preparation and resourcefulness in the face of challenges—something which is innate to us all, even if we don’t realize it.”
He’s not saying that modern tech hasn’t changed adventure riding, though. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
“Communication technology makes getting out of a pickle easier, while GPS combined with stunning online satellite imagery (especially in deserts) has enabled the plotting and execution of bold new routes, for those who like that sort of thing.” So, those who want to play it safe can follow the established routes, but more daring riders can use technology to search out newer routes, if they choose to. That’s a switch from the uncertainty of the old days.
“In the desert, people forget how constrained two-wheel exploration once was,” Scott says. “Just following the main supply route from one town to the next was adventure enough.”
One other major difference over the past: Now, female riders are a huge part of the overland travel scene.
It’s not that they weren’t always there; in the 1930s, Theresa Wallach and Florence Blenkiron were bombing around the Sahara on a Panther sidecar rig, completing an early Londonto-Cape-Town journey. Since then, female riders have been completing trips just as daring as their male counterparts, but you didn’t hear as much about it. That’s changed; female travelers like Lois Pryce, Noraly Schoenmaker, Lisa Thomas, Eglé Gerulaityté, Michelle Lamphere, Elspeth Beard and many others are not just traveling, they’re sharing their stories. The message is getting out: adventure riding is for everybody.
“Social media and influencers have helped women to realize that you don’t have to be big and butch to go on an adventure with your motorcycle,” says author Steph Jeavons. “It’s open to all shapes, sizes and ages. The hardest part was always getting them past the front door. When I was running an off-road school ten years ago, we got very few women. The numbers have been steadily increasing over the last few years for sure.”
Jeavons could be the poster child for this revolution. She’s the first Brit to circumnavigate the globe and ride her motorcycle on all seven continents. She didn’t do the macho thing and ride a full-sized adventure machine; her Honda CRF250L took her across 54 countries during her four-year trip.
She’s happy to see women’s choices for riding gear improving these days, she says, and she’s even led an all-female moto tour to Everest Base Camp in 2019. But Jeavons actually hopes those sorts of events remain a rarity in the future.
“I think it is great as the odd one-off to encourage more into the sport, but I do hope it doesn’t become the norm,” she says. “Much of the women-only thing is led by companies seeing a marketing opportunity. There is no need to segregate men and women as a rule. I certainly wouldn’t want to see it the other way around!”
So what’s next for adventure riding? As we said, 2020 has taught us that no matter how carefully we weigh it all, nobody can predict the future. Electrification of vehicles might make long-term moto travel difficult, or maybe it will encourage a new form of tourism, with riders searching out destinations that still allow their trusty gasoline-burning bikes. The rising income of the developing world might allow those riders to start exploring Europe and North America, or maybe tighter post-COVID border controls will put a damper on all that fun.
Whatever happens, and whatever the future looks like, adventure motorcycling should stick around. No other method of travel offers the same immersion in your environment, while remaining able to travel at speed. Motorcycles take us places that nobody else can go and help us meet people we’d never have contact with otherwise. That’s what Carl Stearns Clancy found out in 1912–1913, and it’s true now
MORE
For more thoughts on ADV’s past, present and future, check out Dr. Gregory Frazier’s published books; Steph Jeavons’s first book, Home By Seven and Chris Scott’s Adventure Motorcycling Handbook, the must-have guide to adventure motorcycling, of which the eighth edition has just been published.
More information can be found at www.chrisscottbooks.wordpress.com
Photograph courtesy: Vilen Rodeski
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ADVENTURE
FINDING ADVENTURE ON A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH MOROCCO
Adventure during a guided motorcycle tour
WORDS Mike Botan | IMAGES Mike and Kim Botan
Can a guided motorcycle tour be an adventure, or does the presence of a lead camel make a desert journey simply that: movement across space? On previous tours I had decided that adventure is a matter of a rider’s attitude. But now I was headed to Morocco, and there I would learn that adventure is not about a rider’s approach. It’s about what awaits the rider. It was a spring break in early 2020, and I was going with my wife Kim, two other riders, and two tour guides.
We would travel from Malaga on the southern coast of Spain into the heart of Morocco via the Riff and Atlas Mountains. The roads were almost all paved, but road conditions were less than perfect, traffic rules were largely ignored and we were a small group, three women and three men, with no external support.
We were two Americans (Kim and me), a Dutchman (Hans), a Canadian (Bonnie), a Czech (Hana) and a Brit (David). Hans and Bonnie were strangers to us and each other, but Kim and I knew Hana and David from a previous tour.
We would ride BMWs: four R 1250 GSs and two F 750 GSs. All were pretty much new, so we didn’t expect any mechanical issues other than a potential puncture or similar failure.
Since no one could reliably tell us what constituted a group, we decided a smaller number of riders might help us get onto the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier. We split into two sets of three riders. One would catch the ferry to Tangier, and one would take the ferry to Tangier Med. We purchased ferry tickets and boarded the ship.
But once aboard the ferry, one of the crew members asked my group of three if we were a group. We said that we were friends and asked the crewman what constituted a group. His response was only that Morocco wasn’t accepting groups. Okay then, we’re not a group, we’re just friends.
The northern part is quite green with beautiful hills and the bordering Rif mountains. If you expect desert as soon as you arrive, think again. It will take you a while to get to the sand.
So far, the matter of adventure was a question that hadn’t even been asked.
What exactly is a group?
On the day of our arrival, we got some interesting information. There were some reports that Morocco was no longer accepting “groups” into the country.
We tried to find out the definition of a group but could not get a definitive answer. Busloads of people were being allowed on the ferries as well as many, many walk-on passengers. But we had heard of one group of 20 riders that was turned back. That many riders together, someone said, were considered a rally, and were therefore denied entry.
It’s just a short hop from Tarifa to Tangier, about a 50-minute cruise to the Moroccan mainland. We breezed through immigration and customs and got underway to meet the other three “friends” at Tarifa Med. They got through immigration and customs as quickly as we had, and our little unsanctioned group set off for a loop of Morocco.
Burros and Range Rovers
Morocco is a fascinating place with lots of dichotomies. First is the dichotomy between the wealthy and the poor. Just outside the city of Tangier, the land becomes more rural. You’ll see people riding slow-walking burros carrying the day’s items against a backdrop of Mercedes and Range Rovers rushing by on swoopy roads. Life can be very hard in Morocco.
But wealth is not the only element of dichotomy. The geography of this spectacular land varies greatly. The northern part is quite green with beautiful hills and the bordering Rif mountains. If you expect desert as soon as you arrive, think again. It will take you a while to get to the sand.
Lose the front, then the rear
The road from Tangier to Tangier Med runs right along the northern coast and the bordering Rif mountains. The road is in great shape, the views spectacular and there’s lots of fun to be
had in the twisties. But not far from those tremendous smooth twisties, the roads become rutted, potholed, and narrow.
And slippery. Hugely overloaded trucks move massive loads throughout the country. Diesel engines spew soot and rain diesel fuel and oil onto the pavement. Tires carrying oversized loads can polish the old sun-bleached pavement to a glass-like smoothness.
So while you are out there playing in the twisties, you must be mindful that what can look like a good surface below you can, in reality, be a paved skating rink. I like to think that I am a competent rider, but the roads were sometimes slick. More than once I found myself losing one end or the other of the motorcycle.
The Blue City
Still, it wasn’t long before we rolled into the blue city of Chefchaouen. It’s an ancient city and is called the blue city because of the blue paint that adorns its buildings, tiles and streets.
The streets are narrow and even narrower when you try to get into the marketplace. Our hotel was a longish walk up steep stairs and tiny narrow alleys. Similar to some of Morocco’s roads, the little alleyways had stone pavers that were polished smooth by the millions upon millions of footfalls upon their surfaces.
The blues of the city are incredible, especially as the sun sets. They take on a shade of blue with a depth that you don’t see during the day. We strolled through the narrow alleyways and found a tiny restaurant in one of them. Once inside, we were seated in a small room after climbing some very narrow, steep stone stairs. There we ate a dinner composed of traditional Moroccan food while enjoying some live local music from below.
Gritty Fez
The next day we headed to Fez. It’s a good-sized city with lots of traffic, but the road in town was the slipperiest paved surface I had ever been on, worn smooth and coated with diesel fuel and oil. When putting your foot down at a stoplight
or stop sign, the feel of the surface below you was very slippery. At roundabouts (rotaries), you had to be extremely careful. The surface was so slick that there was no way we would be able to quickly stop without dropping a bike.
One of Fez’s main attractions is its ancient medina (marketplace). We didn’t waste any time getting inside and walked dark narrow passageways among hundreds if not thousands of narrow stalls. Vendors sold everything from food and clothing to rugs, art, metalware, and just about anything else you can imagine.
A mint for your nose?
As we walked through the medina and souks inside, we had the opportunity to visit a leather tannery. Inside, workers toiled among giant vats of dye, cleaning and moving the submerged leather in giant tanks, removing the remnants of animal fur and working the dye into the skins.
I had heard that the tannery’s smell was awful because the leather is treated with a liquid called iferd. Iferd is a mixture of water, limestone, and pigeon droppings. Seeming to uphold that claim was an older man at the door handing out sprigs of mint leaves to put under your nose while inside.
Interestingly, the smell was not all that strong, and I never found myself needing the mint leaves. That said, it was only about 70 degrees F outside. If we were there in the midst of a Moroccan summer, it’s entirely possible that the smell would be horrible.
The Atlas Mountains call
The following day, we started our trip through the Atlas Mountains. As we expected, the roads were twisty, narrow and often had steep dropoffs with no guardrails. They were also packed with very slow-moving and heavily loaded trucks. This meant lots of passing on the narrow, slippery, twisty and often poorly surfaced roads.
The day’s destination is Er Rachidia and a small riad, but we were looking forward to seeing what the high Atlas Mountains were all about. The Atlas didn’t disappoint, and the sights were spectacular.
(From top left, clockwise) The narrow streets and alleys of Chefchouen - the blue city; workers toil among these vats to dye and clean hides; my new friend in front of one of the many very overloaded trucks you will see in Morocco; the GS in the northern part of Morocco which is quite green.
(From top left, clockwise) Think about how many hands carried this old leather bucket into and out of the mine; we stopped at a nomadic Berber’s tent to drink mint tea and get out of the sun; it’s hard to imagine how many workers climbed these stairs to then go down into the earth to mine lead.
After our arrival at the riad, we began to hear that some countries had closed their borders, and others were considering closing theirs due to the COVID-19 outbreak. There wasn’t much official information, but we were concerned that borders could become an issue. Ultimately, we decided to continue our trip and monitor what was going on.
The Desert
The next day we planned to get into the desert proper. Riding through Erfoud to Merzouga, we could see and visit the Erg Chebbi, the largest dunes in Morocco.
Once in Merzouga, we would park our bikes at a bivouac and take a 4X4 deeper into the desert. Along the way, we’d see some sights and visit with some of the locals. The day was to end with a camel ride to watch the sunset and return to a camp under the desert stars.
Once jammed into the 4X4, we were taken to the outskirts of town to see how the townspeople were able to grow food in the desert sand.
Rolling along, we came to an oasis, perhaps a quarter-mile square. Outside sat a hand-constructed well. But inside the walls were many palm trees with greenery all around. In the desert, water is precious, a life-or-death commodity. And these desert people have found a way to share this very limited resource to ensure that all families can feed themselves.
Water for an hour
Walking past the well into the walled area, we found a series of shallow irrigation channels. A slow stream of water flowed through the channels until stopped by mounds of sand blocking its flow.
To ensure that everyone gets the same amount of water, the channel is opened to each family for one hour each day, allowing that family to receive the flow of water from the well. After the hour is complete, that family’s channel is sealed off by sand, and the next family gets the flow of the well for an hour. This happens until all the families have had their hourly share of water. It is a simple but elegant way to ensure everyone gets their fair share of this precious commodity.
After seeing how the irrigation system worked, we piled back into the 4X4 and headed to an abandoned lead mine. We were going to get a glimpse of what some people did to make a living in the past.
It wasn’t far from the oasis and only a short ride. On the top of a sandy hill, the remains of the once-busy mine stood crumbling in the still desert air.
A bucket of lead
I took some time to walk around the site and found all sorts of signs of daily life. In one area, in front of the opening of one of the mine shafts, sat a worn old bucket. How many loads of lead that bucket had carried and how many hands had held it remained a secret.
Considering its age, the mine site was relatively large. There were remnants of several buildings, but I was not able to tell what function each building might have had.
I found a corroded sardine tin with both English and Arabic writing on it and wondered who had eaten them. Had they been shared amongst a group of miners or eaten by a single miner in a desert feast? Initially, I saved the can, but then I returned it to the ground. It didn’t seem right to take this tiny piece of history away from the site where many had worked in the hot desert sun and underground in the cooler desert earth.
Meeting with Berbers (Amazighs)
After walking around the lead mine for a while, it was time to move on. We once again crammed into the 4X4 and headed to a Berber camp. Some Berbers are still nomadic and travel the desert freely. Others have permanent residences.
Even when they are not close by, there are signs of them and other Arabs. On the way to see how a Berber family lives, we stumbled across a desert cemetery. No names marked the graves. Men’s gravesites had stones placed in a parallel fashion at the head and feet, and women’s graves had markers with upright rocks.
A short time later we arrived at the Berber camp. Their homesite contained several buildings including their house, kitchen and some tents. Goats and sheep roamed a small section of land, and a lone burro stood tied to a stake placed into the sand.
These people live a harsh life and have few belongings. Nonetheless, we were greeted as guests, offered mint tea and invited to lounge inside one of their tents. The tent was held up by thick tree branches. Inside, we lounged on colorful carpets and drank mint tea on a little blue table.
Unfortunately, we didn’t spend much time with the family. It was time to get to our desert camp for our sunset dromedary ride. We arrived a short time later where six camels lay in the sand waiting for us.
A man dressed in native garb motioned for us to pick a camel, and we just figured that the heavier persons would ride the largest camels. That left me in the second position in our group.
We sorted ourselves out, and once we were seated on the camels, our guide got the camels to stand. Mounting a camel is significantly different than getting on a horse. Horses stand while you climb on board, but camels rise from a sitting position rear end first after you’ve seated yourself.
A camel and a blaze of yellow and gold
So when you’re seated and the camel stands, you lurch forward as it rises from the rear and then lurches the other way as it rises on its front legs. But once underway, a camel’s gait is much smoother than that of a horse.
At first, I wasn’t too keen on doing the camel riding thing. It just seemed so touristy. And my camel apparently sized me up and then loudly protested that he didn’t want me aboard.
Nonetheless, I was instructed to hop on, and with continuing loud complaints, my camel got to his feet and carried me into the desert. The ride was particularly enjoyable during the quiet time sitting in the sand watching the sun drop below the dunes in a glorious blaze of yellow and gold.
The overnight camp was luxurious. We had a full-sized bed and hot-and-cold running water in our tent made from tubing and plastic. It was lovely.
After a nice dinner, we sat around a campfire as three Moroccan musicians played the tarija, a sort of drum. When we turned in for the night, the diesel generator was turned off, and the camp was quiet and still.
Bouncing around the dunes
We had a quick breakfast the next morning and then hopped into a 4X4 vehicle and headed back to where we had stored our bikes at the bivouac.
With the six of us and our driver in the 4X4, Kim and I were squeezed into the back. Our knees were jammed against the seatback in front of us, and my head was less than half an inch from the ceiling. Our driver turned on the radio and played some Moroccan music, an appropriate soundtrack for
our desert excursion. What we didn’t know was that we were about to be treated to some aggressive playtime in the dunes. We went charging up one side of a dune and down the next. We rode along ridges, sliding and bouncing, with sand falling down the sides. My head hit the ceiling several times. Stuffed in the back, we couldn’t see much. The windows beside us were tiny, and if something bad happened, we were trapped in there. As we charged through the dunes, all we could see were flashes of sand and sky through the windshield.
Making things more interesting was the melodic Moroccan music against the blare of the 4X4’s slip-warning indicators. It was a bit surreal. It’s one thing to be in control during this type of escapade, but quite another to be stuffed in the back of a 4X4 with no easy means of escape. Once the ride was over, I can’t say I was disappointed that we had ended this chapter.
COVID-19 getting serious
Back on the bikes, we continued to get dribs and drabs of news about the COVID-19 pandemic. We heard some countries, including the USA, had just closed their borders. But the closure didn’t apply to U.S. citizens and, at least for now, we could get home.
The COVID-19 outbreak was more severe than we knew. We began to think it might be time to leave Morocco and get home. Unfortunately, the only information we had was what we were able to pick up from contacts and the Internet when we had a connection.
We were nearly as far south as we would go on this trip, so we had to decide whether to abandon the rest of the ride or continue and wait for more information. Several things weighed on our decision-making process. First, we didn’t have reliable information. We checked the Internet, but the information was so conflicting that it was almost useless. Next, Morocco had no restrictions in place because, at the time, they had no cases of the virus. So we’d be safer here than in many other countries.
Third, we thought about our friends and ride leaders Hana and David. We were on their Spanish-registered machines, and Morocco is a Carnet du Passage country. Because of the carnets, the bikes were under our names. We were required to ensure that the bikes left the country with us.
If the bikes didn’t leave with us, we’d be handing Hana and David a colossal problem. Even if the carnets weren’t that big a problem, how were Hana and David supposed to get the bikes back to Spain, nearly 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away?
We were greeted as guests, offered mint tea and invited to lounge inside one of their tents. “ ”
Life the hard way
We decided we’d travel one more day and reassess the situation. We weren’t going any further south, so the next day’s riding would only make it easier for us to make a quick exit from Morocco if we decided it was necessary.
Getting to Skoura and a riad in a small oasis was easy but memorable. The roads were in pretty good shape, and we had an opportunity to see a little more of southern Morocco’s daily life.
We traveled through many small towns and caught glimpses of Moroccans and their daily activities. For many Moroccans, life is harsh. I was reminded of that every time I passed an old woman walking up a mountain road with a huge load in a sack hung from her back, every time I saw people sitting on stoops in old and dirty clothes.
Along the way, we saw the Gara Medouar Crater. It has been featured in several movies over the years, most recently in the James Bond movie Spectre. We also spent some time traveling through Dades Gorge and its impressive rock formations.
By the end of the day, we had reached a lovely little riad that would have been impossible to find had Hana and David not known where it was located. We rode down tiny dirt roads between palm trees and into a little fenced-in parking area.
Inside, the riad’s two cats greeted us. The riad was quite beautiful, and we actually got a good night’s sleep. But at breakfast the following morning, the news was somewhat dire.
Race to the border
Hana, our ride leader, had gotten information that the border where we had entered Morocco had closed. Even worse, Morocco would close all of its borders at midnight. We couldn’t understand why Morocco would seal off its exits, but there it was.
We sat around the breakfast table and quickly decided together that the best thing we could do was get to the Spanish territory of Ceuta inside Morocco and try to get the ferry back to Spain.
If we were to make it before midnight, it would be an interesting ride. We had about 550 miles to cover before then, and Google Maps said the trip would take almost 11 hours riding nonstop. We’d have to keep the speed up to make it in time.
We knew that part of the journey would be slower going. We still had to ride through the Tizi N’Tichka, a high, winding mountain road with lots of ongoing construction. I had been looking forward to riding the pass. We had little time to stop and enjoy the views, but the Tizi N’Tichka Pass was all it was cracked up to be: switchbacks, changing road conditions, and dangerous drop-offs. The construction made the going relatively slow at times with a few shortish mud and gravel sections. It was just enough to increase the tension level one more notch.
Highway hoon
We got through the pass reasonably easily, passing trucks and cars when we could. By early afternoon we were hooning along on some highway-ish types of roadway and skirting Marrakesh. The road became a real highway, and we increased the pace a bit between numerous tolls. We decided that we’d need to maintain an 85–90 mph average speed if we were to make it to Ceuta in time for the last ferry.
Hammer down, then. The highways were fairly deserted, and there was little traffic once we were outside of Casablanca. We managed to keep the speed around our planned target and stopped only for fuel and fast food.
As the sun set, we were still 100 miles from Ceuta. Well then, time for some night riding. While on the highway, the riding was a breeze, but as we exited the highway and made the turn to Ceuta, the road became twisty. The road would have been an absolute dream in daylight, but after dark we had to slow down. It was after 9 p.m. and we still had to navigate the twisties before getting into Ceuta, and then make our way through the city before we could get to the ferry. Time was running out.
Ultimately, we made it to the outskirts of Ceuta a little after 10 p.m. But there we ran into more problems. As we came down a hill, I began to worry. Could we even get into Ceuta? Below us, a swarm of police cars blocked the road.
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We also spent some time traveling through Dades Gorge and its impressive rock formations.
Tick-talk
Hana, our ride leader, rode up to the barricade. Hana was born in the Czech Republic but is now a Spanish citizen. She speaks several languages fluently, and when she speaks Spanish, all traces of her Czech accent fade. She told the police that we were all returning to Spain on Spanishregistered bikes and needed to get to the ferry.
One of the police officers told her to show him her passport, and she breezily told him in unaccented Spanish that she could, but she’d have to stop and get off the bike, open the panniers and search for it. Did he really want to wait?
He didn’t, so he just waved her and us past the roadblock. One down, how many more to go?
We rode a little farther and arrived at the border between Morocco and Ceuta, Spain. We had to break out our passports, the bike’s carnets, and hand over all the paperwork, but finally we were back in Spanish territory.
Now, all we had to deal with were the Spanish authorities. Once again, we were stopped, and again we broke out our passports and all the required paperwork.
The Europeans (and the one Canadian) in our party breezed through immigration, but when they got to Kim and me, we were stopped, and phone calls made. After a 15-minute delay, apparently, the bosses on the other end of the phone agreed to let us through, and now we were off to Spanish Customs.
Kim and I rolled into the Customs section and handed over our passports. We had to open our panniers and top box for a brief search. That completed, another phone call was made. The official stamped our passports but told us to pull ahead and go to the office.
Just scan it
Kim and I marched into the office with Hana hot on our heels. I walked up to the window where several officials sat talking. After a five-minute wait, one official motioned for my passport.
I gave it to him and he looked through it. He said something to me in irritated rapid-fire Spanish, which I didn’t understand. He opened my passport and showed me the Ceuta stamp. And said something else in Spanish, again which I didn’t understand.
But Hana was with us. She quickly replied in Spanish. The official ran my passport over the scanner and sent me and Kim on our way.
It turned out that the officer saw that I had already been stamped into Cueta and didn’t know what the other officials wanted him to do. Hana told him, “Just scan his passport,” which the officer duly did, and then sent us on our way.
To the ferry
We got back on the bikes and rode through Ceuta, finally approaching the docks, where again we had to show our passports and tickets. After a cursory glance the workers there waved us aboard, and we had made the last ferry leaving Morocco for Spain. Less than 10 minutes later, we were motoring across the Mediterranean and headed for Algeciras.
It took us a further week to get a flight to the USA, but we did get home, where I sit now, writing this. Unfortunately for many, Morocco closed its borders to both exit and entry. Many thousands were stranded there for months. Ultimately, the Moroccan government slowly started to open its borders around July 15. The airport began limited operations and ferries began running exclusively between Morocco and Italy. Had we been stuck in Morocco, we would have had to take the ferry to Italy and then try to get to Spain. We were lucky to get out when we did. We’re home now, but once the pandemic is over, we can’t wait to get back out on the bikes.
SILENT STREETS
Electric bikes and the quiet wave of the future
WORDS Paolo Cattaneo | IMAGE Aaron Brimhall
Untitled Motorcycles UMC ZERO XP Experimental Electric Motorcycle.
The sound of revving Harleys at the traffic light and screaming street bikes on a highway will soon be just a memory.
That is where the automotive industry is heading and there’s no escape from it.
It seems incredible to believe that combustion-based engines are coming to an end. The new trend has already started, and it is just a matter of time before we see a bunch of Tronlooking bikes zipping around town.
Technology and evolution will bring us to a new era of transportation and interaction with the machines.
It’s quite easy to see this trend, if we think about what high speed Internet and mobile technology brought in the past 20 years just to the travel and automotive industry. The world, which used to be too big and complex to navigate, is now available in the palms of our hands. Billions of users exchange trillions of bits of data every minute through our network.
If 15 years ago somebody had mentioned to me that we would all have high-speed Internet on our mobile devices, I would have probably answered, “What for?” We were perfectly fine with texting and T9 keyboards, right?
Now, unless you are a baby boomer or even a Gen Xer, it’s almost unthinkable to imagine a society running without high-speed Internet and smartphones.
Among generations Y and Z, that’s all they know, actually! These generations were born with technology already in their hands and, as sad and daunting as that may sound, if you were born in the previous century, like me, you are already “too old.”
My generation (1980) grew up and lived without “modern” technology for most of our lives, so it is easy for us to make a comparison with how it used to be; people were still calling each other on house phones, looking up places on paper maps, and writing letters. Things that will make a 20-year-old cringe nowadays.
It’s easy for us to hold back and wish for technology not to take over our world, because we know how good it used to be. Back then motorcycles had no electronic technology, and you had to manually flick a switch under the tank to enable fuel reserve.
There was something about the lack of safety of those motorcycles that reminds me of the uncertainty of life. There was more connection with those shaky and smelly machines than with these modern silent ones.
Now that we are on the verge of 5G and driverless electric cars, we are stepping into a realm that is almost too fast for us to bear. Technology does this to people’s lives. It makes everything happen faster.
In the next five years, I believe we will see the rise of electric cars, which will culminate in 2040 with probably the eradication of fossil fuel use for most of the private automotive industry. Most first world countries are already starting to work toward that goal.
What would happen to motorcycles then?
Well, it’s easy to imagine that electric will be the new way. The good old “carby” will be a thing of the past. Once motorcycles become fully electric, it would be easy to monitor and manage our vehicles from our mobile devices.
Companies are already working on motorcycle AI, which will help the rider pick better lines, avoid obstacles and navigate through cities. Having AI (or a computer) on a motorcycle feels a bit like going to our favourite restaurant with a dietitian. It takes all the fun out of it.
A great change is going to come and will bring faster and safer vehicles.
It’s a new and exciting future.
Let us enjoy the relationship with our smelly and noisy steel horses for a while, as long as it lasts.
THE SUPPLYCHAIN EVOLVES
The past and future challenges facing the motorcycling industry
WORDS Zac Kurylyk | IMAGES Steven Thornton ILLUSTRATION Bailey Kennedy
hen COVID-19 started its rapid spread around the globe, adventure motorcyclists saw effects immediately. Borders closed between countries, and sometimes even inside countries. Travel was restricted in much of the developed world.
The coronavirus pandemic shut down more than borders; it also shut down the motorcycle industry—and the effect of it wasn’t just temporary plant closures. Every level of the moto industry was affected as every level of the supply chain saw interruption, starting with the producers (motorcycle manufacturers, gear and accessories manufacturers) and ending with dealerships, the last step before the customer.
Motorcycle Manufacturers
Early in the pandemic, there were plenty of headlines about motorcycle manufacturers shutting down. First China, then Italy, then the rest of Europe, and then much of the rest of the world. Not everyone shut down, but everyone was affected.
Now, that’s mostly changed; factories are back in production. So does that mean it’s business as normal?
Not a chance, says Michael Uhlarik. Uhlarik is a powersports consultant with a long resume in the motorcycle industry, working for North American, European and Japanese manufacturers. He says COVID-19 exposed deficiencies in the current powersports supply chain system, and that’s why many dealership showrooms are empty right now.
“Motorcycles themselves have a long lead time,” he says. The bikes for sale in showrooms this spring were built well ahead of the pandemic, so there was no initial shortage. But COVID-19 caused massive issues for re-supply plans, especially for small-capacity bikes made in Southeast Asia for the Japanese OEMs—bikes like the Kawasaki KLX230, or the Honda CRF250L. These low-priced bikes sold really, really well once moto shops opened their doors, but now they’re hard to find.
“The factories in Thailand that are punching these things out are trying to re-supply domestic markets, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, which are markets literally hundreds of times the size of Canada and the U.S.,” he says. “The attitude towards Canada and the U.S. is ‘You get it when you get it.’
“It’s not that the Japanese can’t meet high-volume demand, it’s that the COVID crisis did crazy things on parallel tracks. One was supply chains, the other one was economics.”
The manufacturers are bogged down because their suppliers aren’t getting them the parts they need. Uhlarik says it’s not that these sub-contractors couldn’t get the raw materials they needed—it’s that they went bankrupt. Small companies with 20–100 employees, companies that supply larger outfits like Brembo with sub-components—Uhlarik says many of these ran out of money during the COVID crisis. The problem was bad in Italy, and a lot worse in Asia. That means the motorcycle manufacturers are having trouble sourcing vital parts they previously bought from third-party manufacturers.
We’re starting to see the impact already, says Uhlarik. The buzz around the Internet seems to back that up. Riders all over are complaining that their local dealers are sold out of affordable bikes, and parts are backlogged.
They’re not imagining things. Insiders are all saying the same thing; whether they work with a large or a small company, Asian or European, everyone’s having trouble getting 2020 motorcycles, and they’re having serious problems with parts supply. By March, just about everyone says they realized they were in for a bumpy ride this year. Things worked out better than expected, with the early summer sales bump, but now there’s a new set of problems.
Even if the replacement parts have been manufactured, some national distributors can’t get their hands on them due to issues with the shipping network. This seems to be an almostuniversal problem for the OEMs right now.
“There have been shipment delays, and parts-order delays stemming from shipping challenges and production shortages,” one insider told me. “However, in a normal year, that actually wouldn’t be too horrible. In reality, the boom in off-road sales during COVID has exacerbated the problem of delivery delays.
“This problem is global. That means that all the factories and distribution centres are impacted. When we say, ‘Where is unit X?’, sometimes they just can’t answer. Every stage of the supply chain, from raw material processing, to assembly, to shipping, to customs clearance, all of it is impacted by COVID.”
So, if you’re wondering why your parts aren’t showing up on time: “Air freight flights are being cancelled regularly, there are issues with distribution hubs and shipping hubs. One COVID case could shut down a FedEx hub for days, and it has. That can have a major flow-on effect for shipping. Many warehouses are suffering from less staffing too, as COVID protocols dictate smaller staff levels on the floor.”
Another insider told me his company’s Euro factory managed to keep its parts division running throughout the COVID crisis, but despite the hard work, the parts inevitably hit a wall of delay as soon as they landed in customs in North America. He said the problem seems to be improving now, with quicker times through the borders since July.
All these issues are bad for business, but will it get better in 2021?
It’s hard to say. Some OEMs have given up on 2020 models and have moved straight on to ordering next season’s units. That sounds like a savvy plan, but going back to Uhlarik’s predictions, he says some manufacturers will be big winners, and others will lose out due to the realities of supply chain problems.
The Big Four will make out just fine, he figures. Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki are huge, multi-faceted companies, able to buy up raw materials as needed because of their volume of production across multiple industries. Smaller companies, particularly the Euro manufacturers, are in trouble, because they don’t buy in the same volume.
“Why would I sell you aluminum ingots for castings when there’s a lineup of big buyers who are going to clear out my entire stock at a 30 percent bribe/cost increase?” he says.
Will it work out that way? Maybe, maybe not, but he’s expecting a few visible changes to the industry as a result. First, Uhlarik figures there’ll be an increase in pricing. If materials go up, manufacturers will have to raise MSRPs as a result.
We’ll see. Some of the insiders I talked to said there might be an increase, others said they were holding the line for 2021. However, everyone stressed their desire to keep prices as low as possible. Low-priced bikes sold well in 2020, and nobody wants to price themselves out of that game.
Uhlarik also predicts some major changes in the highend motorcycle market towards an emphasis on affordable machines like Kawasaki’s 400 series or Yamaha’s 320 series, since these bikes sell well everywhere, from Europe, to Southeast Asia, to North America. He expects in-demand higher-priced bikes, like BMW’s GS line, will be harder to find for a while, while less-desirable superbikes and custom cruisers will languish on sales floors.
To a certain extent, this is a sales pattern we’ve already observed over the last decade.
“COVID didn’t introduce anything new; it exposed everything that was there. It advanced the trends that were there and brought them to their natural conclusions,” Uhlarik says. “This is the end of the sport motorcycle. This is the end of the $45,000 bagger. This is the end for the luxury, premium-branded, European motorcycle.”
Again, we’ll have to wait and see if he’s correct. The bigwigs at the OEMs are cautious. They aren’t all necessarily expecting huge sales in 2021, but if they can order 2021 models and sell them in 2020, they’re keen to do so. They can sell them if they can get them right now
Corsa Meccanica head mechanic Carlo Tarantino sanitizes a Moto Guzzi before working on it, a ritual imposed by the 2020 pendemic.
EVEN IF THEY HAVE PRODUCT TO SELL, DISTRIBUTORS STILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH ISSUES IN THE SHIPPING INDUSTRY, AS WELL AS REDUCED WAREHOUSE STAFF.
Social distancing is easy at the Viberg Boot factory. Machinery keeps the stations far apart.
“We have made modest changes to our forecast and asked the factory for additional units as quickly as possible,” Stephen Howland from Beta Canada told me. “At the moment, demand remains very strong.” That’s coming from a company that already sold out its entire line of machines in 2020—or at least, all the bikes it could get its hands on.
Parts, Accessories & Apparel
There’s one major difference between the motorcycle manufacturing sector and the parts/accessories/clothing manufacturing sectors: The bikes are built with a long lead time, while the other stuff is much more of an on-demand situation.
This isn’t to say that aftermarket parts aren’t made months ahead of time; they can be. However, due to different shipping techniques and different manufacturing realities, the timelines aren’t the same. This was obvious in the early days of the Italian moto industry’s return to work after the COVID lockdown. Normally, many of these companies would be releasing their accessories for new 2020 models as early as possible.
Instead, if you wanted sidecases or crash bars for something like a new-for-2020 Honda Africa Twin CRF1100L, you had to wait longer than normal for those parts to hit the market.
Having said that, it’s not as if a lot of new-for-2020 models were being sold early in the season, so that’s an issue that worked itself out somewhat. Otherwise, the problems in the parts/accessories/clothing market looked a lot like the bike manufacturers’ problems: shipping woes, overseas and domestic plant shutdowns and uncertainty over the market. Once again, it’s the bigger players and the smaller players who will survive this the most easily. The companies trying to climb into the big leagues will suffer, says Uhlarik.
“The massive Bosch, Kayaba, they’ll be fine. It’s the inbetween, middle-sized manufacturers. If a supplier survived COVID up until now, they’ll be fine, unless they’re leveraged. And all the middle-sized companies, that’s what they did. They used the boom time to take out massive loans to expand, to try and go from middle to big.”
I didn’t talk to any aftermarket or third-party supplier who said they were going under because of COVID, but Uhlarik says he knows of companies in that position. I did talk to other people involved in the aftermarket, though, in both production and distribution. On the production side, material sourcing definitely got tricky for some people during COVID-19. Donnie Seeley of ProFound CarbonWorx says his costs for carbon-fibre manufacturing materials got pretty expensive. He had to change suppliers, and of course, he had to wait when stuff he sourced from outside North America got held up at the border.
The same went for his exports; shipping times lengthened, and he had to learn how to work around DHL’s new pickup schedule. But despite all this hassle, his small-size production company stayed in business, just as Uhlarik predicted. In fact, because of the offroad sales boom, he’s having a great year for sales.
That’s true at the other end of the scale. I talked to an employee from one of North America’s largest parts/accessories/ clothing distributors, and she told me they ended up having an incredible year in certain segments, particularly oil, filters, chain maintenance—anything involving working on your motorcycle. People were buying motorcycles and they were fixing them.
Later in the riding season, re-supply certainly did slow down, she said, as the stocked-up products were sold off and only re-supplied slowly. You might have noticed this at your local motorcycle shop, or even at an auto supply store, where some products like motorcycle oil seemed slow to be restocked earlier this season. Now, though, it seems things have normalized as much as possible. But, even if they have product to sell, distributors still have to deal with issues in the shipping industry, as well as reduced warehouse staff. Effectively, they’re being told to sell more, with less.
What about the more specialized moto businesses, like Aerostich, with in-house production as well as retail aimed at dedicated motorcyclists? Aerostich big boss Andy Goldfine says his company has managed to keep almost all their products in stock. That’s a major accomplishment, considering the wide sources their excellent catalogue draws on. “There have been more back-orders this year, as a percentage of sales, but most items are always in stock,” Goldfine says. “Some slower-selling items have been discontinued and some smaller vendors have stopped making a particular item or closed down. The pandemic is partly responsible for these changes, but so are unrelated adverse demographic and cultural trends involving motorcycling in general.”
In other words, business as usual, more or less. That’s unsurprising, considering Aerostich sells to the kind of people who aren’t likely to stop riding in a pandemic.
Dealerships
Your average rider might be aware of production stoppages in Italy, but do they really care? Same goes for accessories; they’re not really a problem if you aren’t looking for a new exhaust or other farkles.
But sooner or later, the rubber meets the road at the local dealership. It’s the central location where new bikes, new addon parts, gear, routine maintenance items and customers all meet together. It’s the final point in the supply chain, and it’s arguably the most vulnerable going forward.
Photograph courtesy: Linda Petersen
“PEOPLE WENT BANANAS, THEY WERE STUCK AT HOME, AND THEY REDIRECTED VACATION MONEY . . . TO BUYING TOYS.”
An open-face AGV helmet fits nicely over Matthew Bernard’s COVID mask at Corsa Meccanica, a shop that specializes in Italian motorcycles in Toronto.
The problem is that there are a lot of things working against some motorcycle dealerships right now, even without COVID-19. Rising real estate prices, a powersports sales slump for the past decade and competition from Internet retailers make it a tough slog out there in the dealership world. And a lot of the bikes that sold well, the rising 250–400 cc class, didn’t have much profit margin. The real money was in high-end luxury bikes, with lots of accessories and a long-term financing plan.
Now, Uhlarik says those dealers are in big trouble, if they’ve got much debt or if they’re committed to expensive real estate deals. Their monthly overhead will kill them.
“That’s a lot of bikes you’ve got to sell, especially if the only things selling are low-margin products like 250 dirt bikes and low-cost ATVs,” he says. Mom-and-pop bike shops, who own their building and can trim down their staff and still keep on top of things, and with a focus on small volume and modest margins—he thinks they’ll be okay. And the big boys, the flagship dealerships owned by BMW Motorrad or Harley-Davidson or whoever, he thinks they’ll be okay too, as they’ve got deep pockets behind them with a vested interest in keeping them open.
But again, it’s the in-betweeners who are in trouble, he says, the dealers who borrowed a lot of money to expand, relying on highmargin motorcycles to get them through the riding season.
From the buzz I’ve heard elsewhere in the industry, he’s not the only one thinking this way. Another insider told me. “Midsize dealers with heavy cash-flow loads and debt leverage will have a hard time ahead.”
It doesn’t sound like it makes sense, at first; although many dealers closed their doors for weeks or months, they were selling like mad as soon as they opened.
“People went bananas, they were stuck at home, and they redirected vacation money . . . to buying toys,” Uhlarik says. The problem? “Toy purchases are not sustainable. Healthy motorcycle markets are ones where you have recurring customers, either because they’re enthusiasts or because it’s transportational.”
He’s not the only one who figures this year’s unthinkable rebound sales are likely not going to repeat themselves next season. “I think next year, and in years to come, we’ll see a sharp dive and a long valley in most sales, driven by a flooded used market,” an OEM source said. “The number of small-displacement, affordable offroad machines retailed this season has been astounding, but what that means for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji going forward is the concerning part from a dealer perspective.”
In other words, a year from now, dealers will be competing for sales with the same machines they sold just a few months earlier. But there are still plenty of people who are positive about the sales boom. A source from the off-road world told me his company feels confident that this year’s new riders are here to stay for a while. “If I were to guess we will hold on to 50 percent of the newcomers to off-road for the long term. What is really encouraging is the number of young riders whose parents have purchased minibikes.” After all, a minibike sold now could mean a lot more sales down the road.
That’s true. There’s another factor at play here, though. The rug might get pulled out from some dealers, no matter how many bikes they sell. Many dealers rely on ATV and snowmobile sales to get them through the fall and winter season, and if you visit a few moto shops, you’ll notice some ATV brands have been slow to restock in 2020, or haven’t re-stocked at all. In fact, from what I’ve seen, the ATV scene looks to be facing a far more serious resupply issue than the motorcycle world, and that’s bad news for dealers relying on that income.
Another factor: Harley-Davidson is in the middle of a massive restructuring project and is cutting its dealer network. Some areas seem to be hit worse than others, but if your local multiline dealer relies on Harley-Davidson sales for their high profits, that might not continue into the future.
However, don’t discount dealerships’ resilience. Many dealers have been around for decades, due to ownership and staff enthusiasm as much as businesses sense, and the coronavirus pandemic has actually forced some of them to explore ideas like e-commerce—options they would have had to adopt sooner or later anyway to stay relevant.
So, with that in mind, maybe COVID’s done the industry a favour in some ways. One dealer told me the coronavirus pandemic has “saved offroad motorcycling.” Another insider said he expected a strong crop of new riders, thanks to all this year’s dirt bike sales. Another told me that even the supply chain issues showed OEMs ways to save money and work more efficiently in the future.
With the motorcycle industry pulling off an amazing feat of survival, there’s a surprising amount of positivity floating around, despite the craziness in the world. Things could have been bad, and there’s still lots of room for a disaster. But as one source closed out an interview: “It’s kind of pushed us into this amazing place of opportunity, and now it means we have to learn from it, and figure out how to keep this moving.” Maybe that should be the mission statement, not just for the industry, but for all motorcyclists going ahead into 2021.
The bridge to Hanmer Springs
MOTORCYCLING NEW ZEALAND
WORDS AND IMAGES J Peter “The Bear” Thoeming Friendly people and fabulous roads
One rainy afternoon in a pub on the North Island a group of road workers tried to teach me how to say the name of a town, “Kohukohu”. They took turns correcting my pronunciation and ordered beer until we all reached the point where we would have had trouble pronouncing our own names. By the time they left, the publican had put my throw-over bags into one of the upstairs rooms and parked my bike in a shed at the back of the pub. I gathered that I had performed adequately for a pakeha (European) and Australian.
What I’m saying is that Kiwis are not only friendly, they are enthusiastically friendly.
And New Zealand is a place that the gods of motorcycling might have invented for themselves, given a few million years and a couple of volcanoes to play with. It would be hard to find a substantial length of road on either island, North or South, that doesn’t spend thrills of one kind or another on a motorcycle rider.
New Zealand is easy to reach by air from anywhere, although it does take quite a while from Europe or North America. But it’s like what people say about paying for things: you’ll appreciate the quality long after you’ve forgotten the cost. You’ll appreciate the riding, the scenery, and a plenitude of other attractions long after you’ve forgotten the trials of the flight. New Zealand brings astonishing scenery to a substantial road network for an irresistible motorcycling destination.
With native sons like racing legend Graeme “The Mighty Crozza” Crosby, frame-design genius Ken McIntosh, the late motorcycle designer and builder John Britten, and the World’s Fastest Indian, the late Burt Munro, motorcycling is close to New Zealanders’ hearts.
Kiwis are known for their approachability and friendliness, and nowhere is that more obvious than with the indigenous people, the Māori. Learn a few words of te reo, the Māori language, and you’ll be greeted with cheerful respect and outrageous laughter when you inevitably get the pronunciation wrong, as I did while drinking beer with the road workers.
New Zealand is a nation of unique qualities, its history the stuff of legend. New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote, and with a population well below one million, it sent 100,000 soldiers to Europe in World War 1. In 1984 the country became nuclear free, and the following year a U.S. warship was refused berthing rights because of this. The Americans were annoyed with N.Z. for a while, and the French, always over-achievers, sent a terrorist team to sink
the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour. Oddly, New Zealander Ernest Rutherford had become known as the father of nuclear physics many years before. New Zealand is the home of daylight saving time, zorbing, bungee jumping, the jet boat and jet pack and the disposable hypodermic syringe.
Attractions
There is something for everyone in N.Z., from oenophiles to trekkers and from painters to photographers. In Queenstown you can strap an aero engine complete with propeller to your back and whiz across a deep valley; just up the road you can strap on a bungee cord and fall into another valley. In Rotorua you can catch fish and have them served to you for your next meal. New Zealand has some of the world’s great trout streams. And in Kawakawa are the world’s most artistic public toilets, designed by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
If you prefer a stroll through Hobbiton, as seen in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, that’s easily done at Matamata in Waikato. For longer walks, world-class treks await you. At Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula, you can create your personal spa in the sands by tapping a geothermal hot water trough, and Waitomo has beautiful glowworm caves.
New Zealanders are great collectors, sometimes in a thoroughly mysterious fashion, and small local museums can hold unexpected treasures. A few years back, someone found pieces of Charles Babbage’s 19th Century Analytical Engine in a country shed near Dunedin in southern New Zealand. The Engine was the first true computer; the redoubtable Ada Lovelace wrote the very first computer program for it in 1842.
Sir Peter Jackson’s collection of WW1 aircraft is on display at Omaka, near Blenheim in the South Island. The halls in which they stand and hang were designed by Sir Peter’s Weta Workshop hobbits, and they make a wonderful backdrop to some of the rarest aircraft and most impressive memorabilia, including a section cut from the famous Red Baron’s aircraft.
On the North Island, not far from Wellington, is the Southward Motor Museum with an outstanding collection of classic and later cars and quite a few motorcycles as well, including a couple of unique bikes. Wellington itself has a Colossal Squid, shorter but heavier than a Giant Squid, at Te Papa Museum (where there is also a lot of other interesting stuff, including a Britten V-1000), and at the Reserve Bank Museum there is a Moniac Machine, an analogue computer demonstrating the workings of a national economy. It does it with water.
KTM 390 ADVENTURE
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(Clockwise) This narrow road near Wellington will take you back in time to primeval bush; domains are well signposted and offer safe, comfortable camping sites for all comers; motels, like these in a thermal area in Rotorua, are clean and well equipped. ADVENTURE RIDER
If you enjoy Japanese classics, Mike Pero’s Motorcycle Gallery in Christchurch is worth a visit. The gallery is run by local entrepreneur Mike Pero, a five-time national motorcycle road racing champion.
Here is an opportunity to test your riding skills: Dunedin’s Baldwin Street was recognized as the world’s steepest residential street at 35 degrees until 2019, when it was demoted to second-steepest by half a degree until it regained the crown on appeal in 2020. It came about because the planners back in England who designed the city didn’t have any idea of Dunedin’s topology.
One town you should definitely not miss is the cold but cheerful Invercargill. This was Burt Munro’s hometown and the World’s Fastest Indian (the motorcycle, that is) still resides in the E Hayes Motorworks Collection with a hundred other classic vehicles as well as mechanical displays. But this is no museum; it is a working hardware shop. Admission is free during shop hours, and so are a cup of coffee or tea, a hot chocolate or a glass of water.
Accommodations
New Zealand has the unique institution of the Queen’s Chain, a 20-meter-wide (about 65 feet) strip that opens up large stretches of country along watercourses to the public. Whether you’re allowed to actually camp there varies; it’s a good idea to check with locals. As they say in New Zealand, “Be a tidy Kiwi” and dispose of your rubbish appropriately.
A lot of towns will also have domains. These act as camping grounds, usually free, with basic or more elaborate facilities.
For a step up—or sideways—from camping, consider hostels. N.Z. hostel costs are reasonable—I paid NZ$77 in 2019 for a private room with a bathroom in Auckland. All the usual facilities are available, including kitchens. You might not have secure motorcycle parking at some hostels in the center of a town or city, but the local reaction to my concern was, “Nobody’s going to steal your bike, eh.”
Country hotels (pubs) are basic, usually offering double rooms with shared bathrooms. Their advantage is that they have a bar (although some hostels do, too) and generally offer meals. It is not unusual for the chef to have one day off in a week, though, so ask before you check into a pub in the middle of nowhere, or you may have to subsist on bags of chips (crisps) and salted peanuts—though it might not matter after a few DBs (Dominion Bitter beers).
Motels are next on the scale, and they are also reasonably priced and well equipped. The standard Kiwi motel unit will not only have a bed and bathroom, but also a kitchen with basic cooking equipment. There are still a lot of what would be known as “mom and pop” motels in the U.S., some of which are quite unusual in construction, but all will be clean and carefully serviced. Some have restaurants, but that’s unusual. In cities or large towns you’ll encounter the same chain-motels that you’d find in the rest of the world, and they are significantly more expensive.
If you want more upmarket accommodation you’ll have to stay close to major cities or a significant tourist attraction like Mt. Cook Village, but you might spend upwards of NZ$300 for a night’s stay.
When to go
It’s not so much seasons as school holidays that should determine when you visit New Zealand. Outside holiday time—which is similar to Australia’s—you’ll find everything cheaper and less crowded. The summer holidays begin a week or so before Christmas and conclude at the end of January. The other breaks are from the middle to the end of April; from early to late July; and from the end of September to mid-October.
Stay away from those dates if you can. I’ve taken trips to New Zealand at all times of the year and have never regretted the timing except for one winter when I was stuck in Wellington for three days because the Cook Strait ferries were stopped by rough seas. If I had my druthers I’d go in Februrary to take advantage of the ideal combination of warm weather and relatively empty roads. But really, I’d be happy to go any time of year. Just be prepared for cold days if you choose winter.
How long should you stay? That depends. You could spend as little as a week on each island and ride most of the major roads, if riding is all you want to do. If you’re able to spend a couple of weeks on each island, you would have time for other pursuits, taking a dip in a hot spring, spending a day at Te Papa, Wellington’s wonderful national (and free) museum, and engaging in more sight-seeing.
New Zealand offers some of the world’s best walks, so if you’re interested in trekking, you’ll want to add more time. Likewise if you want to explore caves or take boat trips in Milford Sound or the Bay of Islands. And if you’re going off-road on some of the outstanding trails that both islands offer, you’ll want to add more days. The same is true if you want to trace all of The Lord
of the Rings sites. I suspect that there is no easily calculated limit to the time you could spend in Aotearoa.
On a day-to-day basis, you don’t need to worry as much about riding before dawn or after dusk as you would in Australia and much of North America. There are neither kangaroos nor wombats as in the former, and deer are not as much of a problem as they are in the latter. But there’s a lot to see wherever you go in N.Z., so try to ride in daylight. Take the daylight sailings of the Cook Strait ferries, too. Both ends of the trip are spectacular, especially the southern end.
Preparation
Both islands are relatively small, but you can still find yourself quite a way from help if you break down. Take a decent tool kit and know how to do some basic repairs and maintenance.
Other usual preparations include buying travel insurance, which is vital no matter where you go, and reading up on the local laws.
In many ways New Zealand is a piece of English countryside (or Scottish, in the case of the South Island) with convivial pakeha and even more convivial Māori. As a result, the preparation required is really minimal. Just try to avoid praising Australia.
Money
How much money should you take? New Zealand is not a cheap destination by backpacker standards, but as a motorcycle traveler you will find it reasonable—about NZ$200 a day should enable you to get around in comfort. Keep in mind that a lot of tourist activities, like skydiving, bungee jumping, a ride in a jet boat or a visit to the glow worms at Waitomo Caves can be expensive.
The only cash accepted here is the New Zealand dollar. Proffering a U.S. greenback will get you a quizzical look, not a grateful smile as it would in some countries around the world. Credit cards are accepted pretty much everywhere, and if you find the odd place that doesn’t like them, there are ATMs. Debit cards are not as well received as credit cards, but ATMs will generally honor them, too. One word of warning: not all ATMs accept out-of-country cards. If you keep getting an inexplicable error message, just try another machine. Don’t
carry travelers checks; some shopkeepers and even bank tellers will never have seen one. Small purchases such as cups of coffee are usually cash, but even that is changing.
To “fill up” electric vehicles at one of the 200 plus charging stations, you need a fob available from the energy supplier ChargeNet NZ. They operate mainly DC charging stations, so check that these are compatible with your bike. Tesla owners, for instance, need an adaptor.
Customs and Immigration
New Zealand has extremely strict biosecurity. Attempting to bring in undeclared food, fruit or animal products will result in an instant fine of NZ$400 (about US$250) at the border that has to be paid before you are allowed through Customs. Tourists are regularly fined; no excuses, pleading or prevaricating will allow you to evade the fine and having the undeclared items destroyed. If in doubt, declare it on your Customs arrival form.
Fresh fruit will never be allowed, but packaged and/or processed food may be allowed in if you declare it. And clean your boots and equipment before arrival. That includes your motorcycle if you’re bringing your own. If Customs finds muddy equipment, they will require you to clean it at a cleaning station. It is not uncommon to see tourists walking out of Customs holding a bag containing wet sports shoes or boots.
Immigration is fairly simple. You do not need a visa to visit New Zealand if you are an Australian citizen or resident; a U.K. citizen and/or passport holder (you can stay up to six months); or a citizen of a country which has a visa waiver agreement with New Zealand (you can stay up to three months). The list of waiver countries is long and includes the USA.
In the unlikely event that you don’t meet the requirements, you will need a visitor visa, which allows you to holiday in New Zealand for up to nine months. The fastest and easiest way to apply for a visitor visa is online. Visitors from visawaiver countries must request an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) prior to going to New Zealand. You may also have to pay an International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy (IVL). If you do need a visa to enter, be sure to apply well in advance of your trip.
World-class scenery and an excellent network of roads—that’s New Zealand.
New Zealand weather can change several times in one day, so bring good rain gear; cornering speed suggestions in NZ are as pessimistic as they are just about everywhere—make your own decisions with care.
Before traveling to New Zealand, make sure your passport is valid for at least three months longer than your expected departure date. If you have a biometric ordinary passport (or electronic passport) and are over 12 years old, you may be able to use New Zealand Customs’ eGate service. This allows you to complete your Customs and Immigration checks faster.
Motorcycle type
New Zealand regulations have allowed for the easy import of new marques and models which might never make it to, for instance, the Australian market. So you can, or at least could, buy a Voxan here. If you bring one to ride, you may well find that you can even buy parts.
But New Zealand has a small population, so motorcycle shops and especially franchised dealers are few and far between. You might find it difficult to buy parts locally for even an established marque. It’s not much of a problem with the Japanese brands; Yamaha for example has 17 dealers. But there are only six Harley-Davidson dealers, and none south of Christchurch. Even more limiting, there are only four Indian dealers, although they are well distributed.
If you’re renting a bike, you are pretty much free to choose on the basis of the kind of riding you intend to do. Inevitably, BMW GS series bikes are popular because they will take you just about anywhere on either island. A word of personal advice: you don’t need a 1250. The F 750 GS or Suzuki’s V-Strom, especially the 650, will do much the same job. There are many roads in NZ that start out with a gravel (or “shingle,” the local term) surface or turn into that at some point. It’s obviously a good idea to have an adventure-type bike for these, but it’s not absolutely necessary.
You can explore the country on a cruiser and never leave the tarmac, if that’s your preference. New Zealand does have some tracks that are best sampled on an adventure bike, but you will not feel that you’ve missed something if you stay on the pavement. And many of the shingle roads are in such good condition that they can be ridden on any kind of bike.
New Zealand presents you with the happy opportunity to ride any bike you like and get your money’s worth just about anywhere. However, that doesn’t mean that a dedicated trail rider will find Harleys clogging a remote track. On an enduro bike there are places in New Zealand where you can feel like one of the Riders of Rohan, on a ridge high above a sweeping, empty river valley with the snow-capped Southern Alps in the background. I’ve seen riders tackle this kind of country on Honda Groms.
Simply put, it’s a matter of asking for what you want. Your rental company will be able to advise you on the choice of bike according to your desires. This is New Zealand. They invented bungee jumping. They can provide you with the same level of thrills on a motorcycle. Just ask.
Equipment
New Zealand uses the metric system. If your home country doesn’t, you might want to set up your phone with a conversion app so you can work out distances, weights and other measures.
If you really want to make the most of these two (three if you include Stewart Island) bits of rugged dirt and rock struggling to stay above the waters of the Pacific, bring camping gear. New Zealand is all about nature. Admittedly it has an advantage over most other places that might claim this: apart from some stinging trees (don’t worry about them) its flora and fauna are friendly—the only remotely serious pest is the redback spider, imported from Australia, although there is a parrot which may eat your handlebar grips.
Bring good wet-weather gear. You never know when the clouds may decide to replenish the many freely flowing rivers, but it will happen fairly frequently. On the South Island, it’s usually safe to rely on the rule of thumb that rain west of the Southern Alps means dry weather in the east, and vice versa. On the North Island you need to rely on Australia letting go of the high to get you some sunshine. Fortunately, Australia is forbearing about this.
Most places in New Zealand receive over 2,000 hours of sunshine a year. New Zealand experiences relatively little air pollution compared to many other countries, which makes the UV rays very strong. It can quickly burn skin from September to April, especially between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., even on cloudy days. Bring good sunscreen lotion.
You might want to bring fishing gear. Apart from rugby, fishing is the national sport of New Zealand and there are many opportunities to indulge in it. Frequently, commercial fishing is forbidden, making it even better for recreational anglers. Just leave the worms at home.
Special Maintenance
No special maintenance should be required in New Zealand, except maybe more frequent chain lubrication if it rains. Which it will. Since you will inevitably be spending quite a bit of time riding near or on the coast, you may want to hose down your bike frequently to rid it of salt.
Riding: Gravel
You will not have a problem finding somewhere to ride on gravel, or rather, “shale.”
The most popular routes in the north include the two Coromandel Peninsula rides—east and west coast—both of which start from Colville, where the tarmac ends. Another track in the Coromandel with some gravel cuts across the peninsula from Tapu to Coroglen.
The Forgotten World Highway connects New Plymouth, or actually Stratford, and Taumarunui. It’s mostly sealed but there are several interesting shale trails leading off it, and it is enjoyable in its own right.
The Rainbow Road on the South Island crosses some similar territory to the Molesworth Track but is tougher and requires paying a toll. Another classic is Skippers Canyon north from Queenstown. This is also usually prohibited for rental bikes.
The lasso-like track that leads north to Portage and Kenepuru from Queen Charlotte Drive and Picton offers both some exciting riding on narrow tracks and wonderful views of the Marlborough Sounds. Further west, the French Pass track from Rai Valley takes you even farther out along the thin fingers of land that divide the sounds.
Riding: Tarmac
It’s easy to recommend specific tarmac routes. On the North Island, consider the loop around the Coromandel Peninsula and the road from Tauranga to Napier around East Cape. It’s relatively empty and not only highly scenic but also a scratcher’s delight with corner after corner. The so-called Desert Road which connects Taupo and Feilding is another enjoyable ride, as is the run from Te Awamutu to New Plymouth. Any of the roads around Rotorua and Tongariro National Park will repay your interest, too.
If you arrive by ferry on the South Island, there is a very simple route to follow. From the ferry terminal in Picton, head to either Nelson or Blenheim. Then continue to Westport, Greymouth and the glaciers before crossing Haast Pass to Wanaka. From there, take the Cardrona Valley Road to Queenstown. Spare a little time for the dead-end but by-nomeans-boring Glenorchy Road, and then take the not-sointeresting loop through Lumsden to Te Anau. From here, the wonderful Milford Sound road awaits, and when you return from that you can head down to Invercargill for the Burt Munro display and museum before following the coast north through Dunedin to Christchurch.
Now all you have to do is tie Arthurs and Lewis passes together in a loop, and you can claim to have seen most of the South Island’s best roads. But of course there’s still the Mt. Cook road.
Popular trails
In the north of the North Island you can ride up Ninety Mile Beach (actually just 88 kilometers) from Ahipara to Cape Reinga (riders on rental bikes may not be “encouraged” to tackle this route). While you’re up there, ride down to Spirits Bay. This is sacred in Māori culture; it is where spirits of the dead gather to depart from this world to travel to Hawaiki from a large old pohutukawa tree above the bay.
In the South Island, the Molesworth links Blenheim and its wineries to Hanmer Springs and its hot springs. It crosses a spectacular and remote region, climbing to 1,400 meters at Wards Pass when it exchanges the Awatere for the Clarence River. It’s usually open all January and February but is not passable all year and may be closed because of fire risk or poor weather. It’s worth the trouble, though. You’ll feel like a hobbit on a quest.
Road Conditions
Except for one peculiarity, tarmac road conditions are almost universally good on both islands. Keep an eye out for roadworks; there is a standard way of repairing potholes and other faults like frost breaks by digging up a rectangular patch of the road surface. These patches are usually about a meter and a half wide and maybe four metres long. The exposed surface is then stabilized with gravel. Sometimes that is left for a few days to compact it, which makes it an excellent motorcycle trap—especially just around a tight corner. After a while the patch is re-sealed and often has some loose blue metal (small pieces of gravel) spread over it. See above under “motorcycle trap.”
Gravel or “shale” roads do not always receive frequent attention, and may be quite deeply rutted, sandy or muddy. This is of course part of the fun, so I will certainly not criticize it. Main routes are rarely shale, but if they are, they’re likely to be better maintained. Keep in mind that a sweep by a grader may not be a good thing. It will fill in the ruts, but it will also quite often spread loose shale over the top.
Dangers and Security
The biggest danger you will probably face is a medium-sized parrot, and it’s not because you might hit one. The kea is sometimes called “mischievous”, which is a generous way of describing it. If you stop somewhere like the top of Arthur’s Pass and walk away from your bike, there is a good chance that keas will attempt to
rip the seat fabric off or tear away the handlebar grips. They have remarkably strong beaks, so they will be successful more often than not. They’re protected, and they know it.
Otherwise, New Zealand fauna is remarkably benign. The scary-looking but harmless weta, a spiky insect, is as terrifying as it gets. In direct contrast to Australia, which fields a thrilling range of venomous creatures and others vying to be roadkill, New Zealand only has deer and rabbits (imported from Europe) and possums (imported from Australia). The latter place is also helping to make New Zealand more interesting by sending over venomous spiders like the redback; their geographical range is presently limited to areas near major ports where they have sneaked in with cargo.
In popular tourist areas—and there are precious few parts of New Zealand that are not popular tourist areas—your most serious danger is going to be other tourists. They might be driving on the wrong side of the road, and they have a habit of stopping anywhere to take selfies where there’s a scenic view, of which there are many. On a bike you are vulnerable to their eccentricities.
New Zealand is a safe country, but it’s not free of crime. Take sensible precautions for safety. New Zealand Police strongly advise against leaving valuables and GPS devices visible in parked vehicles. They further advise not to leave maps or tourist brochures visible. Most tourist-related crime is theft from unattended vehicles. Oh, and having your seat cover ripped off by keas. Or, indeed, being locked in a toilet by one. That did happen at an upcountry mountain hut.
But New Zealand has been rated second only to Iceland for safety. The main cause of death for locals is heart disease and motor vehicle accidents are not far behind. The firearmrelated homicide rate per 100,000 people is 0.11, compared with 4.46 in the U.S. and 0.18 in Australia.
Tour operators and bike rentals
The legal age to rent a car or bike in New Zealand is 21 years. You will also need the appropriate licence; whether the supplier wants an International Driving Permit changes case by case; if you have a licence in a language other than English, a permit might be a good thing to carry.
There are many motorcycle tour operators and rental companies in New Zealand. You will have no problem finding them on the interwebs. Those we have experience with and are happy to recommend include: South Pacific Motorcycle Tours, Central Otago Motorcycle Hire, Paradise Motorcycle Tours and Rentals and Te Waipounamu Motorcycle Tours.
All of these tour operators also rent out bikes. For specific models and prices, check their websites.
South Pacific Motorcycle Tours www.motorbiketours.co.nz
Central Otago Motorcycle Hire comotorcyclehire.co.nz
Paradise Motorcycle Tours and Rentals www.paradisemotorcycletours.co.nz
Te Waipounamu Motorcycle Tours www.motorcycle-hire.co.nz
Rainfall
New Zealand’s average rainfall is high and evenly spread throughout the year. Over the northern and central areas of New Zealand, more rain falls in winter than in summer, whereas for much of the southern part, winter is the season of least rainfall.
Snow typically falls during the months of June through October, though cold snaps can occur outside these months. Most snow in New Zealand falls in the mountainous areas, like the Central Plateau in the north and the Southern Alps in the south. It also falls heavily in inland Canterbury and Otago on the South Island.
Gasoline
New Zealand follows most of the world by rating its gas at 91 RON for regular, 95 RON for premium and 98 RON for high octane. The U.S. and Canada use a different ratings schedule, but a higher number in N.Z. means the same thing: more octane. You can safely use 95 RON in just about any bike. Gull sells a 10 percent ethanol 98 RON blend called Gull Force 10. Although even that small amount has the potential to cause problems with seals, hoses and especially fiberglass fuel tanks, your bike may already have been filled with a blend like that at home. Most of the gas now sold in the U.S. contains some ethanol and a 10 percent blend is available in Australia. If you’re keen to avoid it, just check the label on the Gull pump in New Zealand or fill up elsewhere.
I don’t use ethanol blends in my bikes, partly because I am concerned about damage—some of my bikes are quite old—and partly because I find ecological claims for the stuff highly dubious. I do apply ethanol internally in various forms, however. Gas prices in New Zealand fluctuate but will be approximately NZ$2.50 per liter, or US$6 a gallon for 91 RON, higher for higher ratings, and be advised that “regular” 91 RON might be all you can get at a country fill-up.
Where to buy food
Bulk food is cheaper, but inconvenient on a motorcycle. When I spent six weeks riding through the U.S. on a seriously restricted budget, I found a small “esky” (for Australians), “chilly bin” (chully bun, for Kiwis) or foam cooler (for Americans and Canucks) and strapped it to the top of one of the panniers. That made it possible to carry food for a while, although it looked pretty déclassé.
I suspect it’s more likely that you’ll buy food daily. New Zealand has several chains of supermarkets, including New World and Countdown, the latter likely to be cheaper. You can buy beer and wine in supermarkets, but you can buy spirits only in liquor stores.
The most likely place you’ll buy your food, though, because it’s the most convenient, is the neighborhood “dairy.” These are local shops which are probably best described as convenience stores; they are relatively expensive but they do sell food in small amounts so you can avoid waste. They are also open for long hours. A lot of towns have farmers markets on Saturday or Sunday—you will see signs advertising them—and they’re
a good opportunity for a locavore. Keep in mind that prices may be the same or even higher than those in supermarkets, but they’re a buzz, and some even have live music.
The quality of takeaway food varies enormously. Generally, you’ll find it as good or better than that available in any other country, especially the fish and chips, but in some of the more remote areas such as East Cape it can be lacking. Just my personal opinion here. Try to get an idea of what the offerings are like before you order.
My thanks to my colleague Peter Mitchell, whose New Zealand Motorcycle Atlas published by Hema Maps (ISBN 978-1-877302-32-9) as a companion volume to my Australia Motorcycle Atlas, has been an invaluable reference for many of my New Zealand trips.
Here are some of the major New Zealand road rules, from the government website on the subject. Driving and riding is on the left-hand side of the road.
When entering a roundabout, yield to traffic crossing or approaching from your right.
When the traffic light is red, you must stop. There is no left-turn-onred rule like the right-turn rule in North America.
The speed limit on the open road is 100 km/h (approx. 60 mph). In urban areas the speed limit is 50 km/h.
Helmets for riders and passengers must be worn while riding. This includes passengers in sidecars. An approved motorcycle helmet is one that complies with one or more of the approved international standards:
UN/ECE Regulation No. 22: Protective helmets and their visors for drivers and passengers of motorcycles and mopeds (Europe).
Australian Standard AS 1698: Protective helmets for vehicle users.
New Zealand Standard NZS 5430: Protective helmets for vehicle users.
Snell Memorial Foundation: Helmet Standard for use in motorcycling.
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 218: Motorcycle helmets. This only applies for helmets manufactured and purchased in the U.S.
LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD
Right side of the law
British Standard BS 6658: Specification for protective helmets for vehicle users (for type A helmets only).
Japan Industrial Standard T8133.
In many other countries, a helmet that is legal in the same country as the country of origin of the rider ’s licence is permitted, usually for one year. Be aware that this is not true in New Zealand.
Motorcycles should drive with a headlight on at all times.
Drivers (or riders) must not use a hand held or hand operated mobile (cell) phone.
Drinking and driving/riding laws are strictly enforced. New Zealand has Compulsory Breath Testing, which allows police to stop motorists at any time. CBT is usually carried out at roadside checkpoints, but mobile patrol cars can also randomly stop motorists to administer a test. The police also carry out roadside drug tests upon motorists they suspect have used drugs. The alcohol limit is zero for people under 20 years old and 0.05% BAC or 250μg/L breath for people 20 years and over.
Check the New Zealand Land Transport Safety Authority website for details on the New Zealand Road Code, as well as cycle safety and other general motoring information. “Driving Safely in the Scenic South” has particular information about driving conditions in this area.
You can legally drive or ride in New Zealand for up to 12 months if you have either a current driver’s (rider’s) licence from your home country or an International Driving Permit (IDP). Carry both. Recent law changes mean all drivers, including visitors from other countries, “must carry their licence or permit at all times when driving. You will only be able to drive the same types of vehicles you are licensed to drive in your home country.”
If your licence is not in English, you should bring an English translation with you, or obtain an IDP. Contact your local automobile club for further details about a translation or an IDP.
There is no maximum driving age in New Zealand.
And while it has nothing to do with driving, be advised that if you attempt to bring a gun to New Zealand without both a visitor firearms licence and import approval it will be confiscated and you will possibly be in a lot of trouble. Take a look at the NZ Police website for the process required to do this legally if you want to hunt or are competing. The New Zealand government has recently banned semi-automatic rifles and these cannot be imported for any reason. You are not allowed to bring in pepper spray, either. It is considered a weapon. And after all, there are no bears to keep at bay here.
It’s never met a continent it couldn’t handle.
It’s never met a continent it couldn’t handle. Lighter and more
It’s never met a continent it couldn’t handle.
Lighter and more powerful than ever, with a 1084cc engine, Cruise Control, and our available state-of-the-art 6-speed DCT. Select a new Adventure Sports ES model, and you’ll get a slew of additional features like tubeless tires and electronically controlled suspension, for the ultimate off-the-grid adventures.
It’s never met a continent it couldn’t handle.
It’s never met a continent it couldn’t handle.
Lighter and more powerful than ever, with a 1084cc engine, Cruise Control, and our available state-of-the-art 6-speed DCT. Select a new Adventure Sports ES model, and you’ll get a slew of additional features like tubeless tires and electronically controlled suspension, for the ultimate off-the-grid adventures.
The Honda Africa Twin
The Honda Africa Twin
The Honda Africa Twin
Lighter and more powerful than ever, with a 1084cc engine, Cruise Control, and our available state-of-the-art 6-speed DCT. Select a new Adventure Sports ES model, and you’ll get a slew of additional features like tubeless tires and electronically controlled suspension, for the ultimate off-the-grid adventures.
Lighter and more powerful than ever, with a 1084cc engine, Cruise Control, and our available state-of-the-art 6-speed DCT. Select a new Adventure Sports ES model, and you’ll get a slew of additional features like tubeless tires and electronically controlled suspension, for the ultimate off-the-grid adventures.
The Honda Africa Twin
The Honda Africa Twin
THE RIGHT TENT
Miles to go before you sleep? Then have a good tent
WORDS Michnus Olivier
Choosing the right tent for motorcycle travel is a complex decision-making task that’s influenced by where and when you camp, how many people will use it and also how you camp and for how long. It does not matter whether most people spend less than two weeks per year camping or make it their home for months on end; it is worthwhile doing proper research before buying a tent that will be your home on those epic expeditions.
THE BASICS
Intended use: Where and in what season will it be used?
Structure/features: Freestanding versus stakes, vestibule, double or single-wall construction.
Capacity: How many people and how much gear will it contain?
Weight: Your tent should be as light as possible while still meeting your purpose, capacity, structure and cost requirements.
Time traveling: How many times will it be pitched and then packed on any single trip?
Price: What is the best tent that you can afford?
Our current tent has been used for a total of more than 340 days and has been pitched and packed nearly every day. With time, we realized what type of tent would be best for long-term motorcycle travel and what features it would need. Motorcycle travel has unique challenges compared to other sports or adventures with regard to shelters. They might be pitched and packed nearly every day for long periods of time, so they should be durable enough to withstand that treatment. They should be composed of fewer parts, so there is less to lose. Poles should be able to take the repeated stresses of frequent use. A freestanding tent that can be pitched quickly is ideal. A high roof improves comfort, especially when you’re spending long periods inside. It should also be spacious with an overhang vestibule.
The best tents for motorcycle use would be either a oneperson tent or a Bivy for a short trip or a one-person doublewall tent for long trips or the two- and three-person doublewall tents. Most weigh less than two or three kilos and can be compacted for packing.
UNDERSTANDING TENT JARGON
Bivy and tarp: A bivouac sack (also known as a bivy, bivvy, or bivi) is an extremely small, lightweight, waterproof shelter and an alternative to traditional tent systems. It is used by climbers, mountaineers, hikers, ultralight backpackers, soldiers and minimalist campers.
Double-wall: These tents have three parts: an inner tent with a waterproof floor and non-waterproof roof, a waterproof rain fly and poles. Double-wall tents come in three varieties, self-supporting, freestanding and tunnel. This type is optimal for motorcycle use.
With breathable-waterproof fabrics like Gore-Tex, single-wall tents came into being. These are even more lightweight but also more expensive, and if not designed properly, single-wall backpacking tents can have more condensation problems.
There are three entrance styles in these tents: front, side and both side entrances.
Four-season: This is an all-weather backpacking tent for the heaviest snow and rain, the fiercest winds, winter backpacking or mountaineering.
Three-season: These are suitable for the worst weather of spring, summer and fall.
Convertible: Convertibles are designed so you can leave out a pole or zip out a section or panel, converting a four-season tent into a three-season shelter.
Two-season: These are more suitable for mild weather conditions. “Ultralight” backpacking tents often fall into this category.
Vestibule: A vestibule is an extension of the rain fly that goes out beyond the doorway and down to ground level. They’re extremely handy and allow storage of pack and gear out of the rain without taking up room in the tent. In really bad weather, you can use a stove to cook in the vestibule without fearing the carbon-monoxide poisoning that could occur in an enclosed tent. You can often get by with less internal floor space if you have a good-sized vestibule.
Hydrostatic head: For any fabric to be considered fully waterproof it must be able to withstand the pressure of a column of water 1000 mm high without leaking. This is classed as a hydrostatic head rating of 1000. These ratings are used to describe a tent floor’s waterproofness.
Doors: Very lightweight tents often have only a single door. That’s fine, but two-person tents with two doors give each sleeper a separate entry and exit point so you can come and go as you please. This can be nice if your companion wants to turn in early while you stay up to do some stargazing.
Poles: Virtually all backpacking tent poles are made of 7001 grade aluminum with sections shock-corded together. Older or cheaply made tents use fiberglass poles, which are best avoided. One important thing about poles, however, is the length of the sections. The longer the sections the harder they are to pack inside small spaces. Look for tents that use DAC poles or Easton poles, which indicate that you’re buying a good-quality tent.
Capacity/Size: Lightweight tents are available in sizes for one person, two, or more, but the actual inside space varies, and Chinese-made tents, made for small Asian frames, are seldom as roomy as they claim to be. Unless you plan on going solo and lightweight—because you’ll want the tent to hold your gear, too—consider a two-person tent for solo trips or, for two people, a three-person tent. You’ll be less cramped.
What is considered lightweight in tents? What is heavy? The more living space, the bigger and heavier the tent, though weight depends partly on the fabrics used. So when comparing tents, look for high square meters and low weight.
Repairs: It is easier to cut an aluminium pole and use it again than trying to fix a carbon pole.
Structure: Most lightweight tents these days are freestanding, meaning no stakes are required for setup. Hammering poles into rocky ground can be difficult. A freestanding tent also helps if you’re tired or arrive at a campsite late. Just insert poles, throw in your gear, and ignore the slightly loose walls.
Footprint & Groundsheets: Tent footprints are made for your particular tent model or floor shape. You place it beneath your tent to reduce wear and possible ground moisture seepage. Cut a footprint from a sheet of clear painter’s plastic or buy a cheap tarp from outdoor shops. It’s cheaper, lighter, easily replaceable and of course guaranteed absolutely waterproof.
Mesh panels: This is a very important aspect for Africa or hot climates. Tents intended for warmer conditions typically make ample use of mesh. Some lightweight tents, in fact, offer allmesh canopies—a nice place to spend a night under a million stars. Mesh also prevents stuffiness inside a tent.
Ventilation: Condensation is a huge problem in tents. If enough builds up, the moisture pools into drops and starts dripping on you and your bedding. The antidote is simple: get a tent with good ventilation.
Weight: What is considered lightweight in tents? What is heavy? The more living space, the bigger and heavier the tent, though weight depends partly on the fabrics used. So when comparing tents, look for high square meters and low weight. Don’t automatically discount a tent due to aboveaverage weight. Internal volume and floor space may be a bonus. As well, you may want less mesh for warmth, or more poles for strength, or a larger vestibule. Everything is a tradeoff. Some of the higher-quality brand three-person tents will weigh around 2.5 to 3.5 kilos.
Height: This is really secondary because motorcycle tents are always going to be low profile. You’ll be sitting, crouching or stooping, but it is worthwhile to search for a tent with a high roof. It makes life a lot easier.
Fabric: Lightweight tent floors and flies are made from, in increasing order of performance: coated polyester, coated nylon and cuben fiber. Cuben fiber is too expensive so we
RECOMMENDED TENTS:
If you want to invest in a tent that will probably last you a lifetime and the kind of thing you want to write up in your will to bequeath to your children, then Hilleberg tents will be it. They are about as good as you can get in tents and the quality is without a doubt the best on the market. Each tent is signed off by a person that stitched and made the tents. The drawback is that Hilleberg is not cheap. This is the luxury side pricing of tents.
Marmot offers a very good compromise between price, quality and usability of their tents. I know a number of motorcycle overlanders who have used Marmot tents for several years and have had very little negative feedback. The price won’t kill your trip budget.
FEATURES:
Packet weight: 2.9 kg / 6.39 lb
Floor area: 5.02 m2 / 54 ft2
Price: $341
Website: www.marmot.com
HILLEBERG - ALLAK 3
RECOMMENDED TENTS:
BIG AGNES - STILLWATER SL3
Big Anges is an old name in tents and offers quite a variety of tents. The range spans crazy-light to pack-the-kitchen-sink. Big Agnes Stillwater is an affordable lightweight 3 season tent that will not break the budget.
FEATURES:
Packed weight: 2.58 kg / 5.67 lbs
Floor area: 4.9 m2 / 52.7 ft2
Price: $348
Website: www.bigagnes.com
A three season tent for three people that offers a decent amount of space and is constructed with high quality fabric. This is a good option for our European readers but hard to find in the USA.
FEATURES:
Packet weight: 2.4 kg / 5.29 lb
Price: €799
Website: www.nigor.eu
NO INNER FLOOR AREA FOUND
NIGOR - GUAM3
will leave that out. Nylon is generally stronger and more resistant to abrasion than polyester. Both materials require a coating to become waterproof. A fabric’s denier (D) is a rough indicator of its weight per square area. The lightest tent fabrics are 10D, most tent floors are made of 40 to 70D and expedition duffel bags are made of 650D.
Ripstop nylon is woven with a doubled thread at regular intervals to prevent rips from spreading and is often used in tent canopies. It is a touch lighter than taffeta nylon (a common, high-durability floor material) and gets used for floors in lowweight tents. The weight reduction of such lightweight fabrics is fantastic, but using such feathery fabrics requires users to take extra precautions to minimize abrasive surfaces.
Polyurethane (PU) is the coating of choice for all budget tents because it is the cheapest way to achieve a waterproof fabric with reasonable durability in cold and wet conditions. Unfortunately, the PU coatings found on less expensive tents are susceptible to chemical breakdown, which eventually leaves the tent non-waterproof. The best mountaineering tents and some tarp inserts have PU formulations with polyester, which makes them highly resistant to hydrolysis.
Silicone elastomer coated nylons are used on all high-quality backpacking and mountaineering tents. SilNylon is highly water repellant, elastic, and UV- and temperature-stable. SilNylon is considerably stronger, lighter and more durable than PU-coated fabrics. It’s also much more slippery than PU. Silicone is widely regarded as the best coating for nylon fabrics used for pack tents. Unfortunately, for the budgetconscious consumer, silicone is more expensive than PU.
Pegs and Guy-lines: A guy-point is a reinforced, patch-like area on the tent to which a guy-line can be permanently attached. The guy-line is then pulled taut and tied or looped to a stake. During rain, this keeps a wet rainfly from sagging onto the canopy. In wind, it can reduce a fly’s tendency to flap. Keeping a rainfly taut and separate from a canopy aids ventilation and reduces condensation. Use the best quality stakes you can get; the low-grades ones will bend even in soft soil.
Pole Sleeves or Pole Clips: These connect to canopies via clips, sleeves or a combination of the two. Pole sleeves help distribute fabric tension over a larger area and thus create less overall stress. Sleeves offer a stronger pitch, but particularly during a rainfall, threading poles through them can be difficult. Pole clips are easy to attach and usually allow a larger gap between the rainfly and tent body. This improves ventilation and minimizes condensation. Clips also weigh less.
Seams and Seam Sealer: Nearly all of the best backpacking tents come with factory-taped seams and require no sealing of their tiny sewing holes. As a tent ages, seam tape may become frayed. If so, apply seam sealer to plug any tiny fissures that appear along seams.
Color: Why a really pimp-daddy color? One usually only needs a bright color for an emergency when rescuers are searching for you. Rainflys and canopies that use lighter, brighter colors tend to keep tent interiors brighter and cooler, something that can lift moods during extended tent stays. Traditionally, rainflys have featured earthy colors in order to remain unobtrusive and reduce the visual impact on the scenery.
Livability: How much comfort we need varies based on our level of camping experience, how much time we plan to spend in our shelter and what we believe to be an acceptable level of protection from the elements. Double-wall tents are more comfortable than shelters. For motorcycle use, it is always a good idea to have room inside the tent for gear as well as people.
Quality
Tents vs. Discount Tents: Why buy a brandname tent when bargain tents are available at chain stores? For durability: Tents designed by quality-conscious brands use better materials, like aluminum instead of fiberglass, and are built to withstand demanding use. Design: Bargain tents sometimes use coated fabric not just on the floor but high up the walls, drastically reducing breathability. Interior space: Efforts to boost wall verticality are rarely seen in bargain tents. There is another consideration, however: cost. Better tents are usually more expensive tents.
ACCESS AND ADVOCACY
The challenges faced when connecting beautiful places
WORDS & IMAGES Ned Suesse
Frequently, I’ve had conversations with friends on adventure bikes about public land management, and they fall to either side of a divide. One side holds that federal agencies are worthless and trying to close all of our access, and they therefore deserve to be either hated or ignored. The other side claims that the federal agencies are worthless and not doing enough to protect public lands, and groups like the Sierra Club are necessary to secure natural values.
In my view, neither of those stories has it right. In fact, we have an incredible bounty of great routes maintained by these agencies, so they deserve some credit. We also have great natural areas, and the laws that govern land use are generally biased to protect them. No matter what action or inaction the agencies choose, people will disagree, which explains how we can struggle to find consensus. Given that, I submit that the best way to improve the outcome for interesting routes that connect beautiful places, which we all enjoy riding, is a third idea: effective involvement to preserve and protect not only routes, but also the lands they pass through.
Wilderness (capital W) is defined by congress and allows no mechanized recreation, including bicycles, motorcycles, hang gliders and so on. It is the most restrictive protection available. Many companies talk about riding in wilderness (small w), so keeping the legal definition in mind is important.
In the American West, most of our riding is on public land managed by one of two agencies: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or the Forest Service (USFS). These agencies operate under different rules, but both are governed by public process, which requires public engagement to achieve the best outcome. Neither agency is mandated or equipped to look at the popularity of their decisions, so effective engagement is rarely a matter of sending form letters. The place where popularity counts is the voting booth, specifically for members of Congress, the branch of government from which the agencies secure their funding. Your congressional representatives will have offices near you, and it isn’t hard to get a meeting with staff and explain what you think is important. They may not agree, but they will take note that you care.
In both the USFS and BLM, a great deal of control is delegated to the local offices, where there is a line officer who is generally equivalent to the captain of a ship. These people don’t control the armada, they don’t pick the overall direction, but the ship does not move without their consent. Therefore,
WILDERNESS
Wilderness does not allow for fire mitigation (exceptions are made for fires once burning), or management for species of concern. Trail maintenance must be done by hand (no chainsaws).
You can support existing Wilderness, but be against additional Wilderness. This is my position. The places that are “untrammeled by man” as congress defined are largely already designated. New designations focus increasing use on diminishing areas and abdicate responsibility for management.
effective engagement happens most often at a local level. In many areas, there are clubs that are doing this work, and you can join and donate time, energy and money to help them make a difference. Clubs are also where most on-the-ground work happens, from cleaning up trash, to clearing trees and building new trails. Often, clubs are run by exhausted volunteers on the verge of quitting, so joining and helping can make a huge difference as well as providing new riding buddies.
The public servants who work in these agencies are generally bureaucrats who have worked their way up through a system that does not reward the same qualities private industry does.
SUCCESS STORY
In Salida, Colorado, the Central Colorado Mountain Riders (CCMR, local club), with support from the Colorado TPA (state organization) have succeeded in adopting, maintaining and even opening several new trails over the last few years. Each action has taken years to complete, and required partnerships with non-OHV groups for success. CCMR has an active board of volunteers who each take ownership of individual projects.
Latest example: In 2020, Dudbob’s trail was constructed and opened on BLM. The process for this trail started in approximately 2015.
In many cases, these bureaucrats are pleasant, reasonable folk, which doesn’t necessarily mean they understand or appreciate the existence of motorcycle riders on their public land. It is our job to justify ourselves, and our use, to people who are unaware or maybe even biased against us. It may not be obvious to a non-motorcyclist that connections and campsites are important to us. We can help them see the world our way.
These land managers are tasked with managing our lands within a mess of laws that are difficult for the layperson to understand and often contradictory even when one does. The rule that comes up most often is the National Environmental Policy Act (referred to as “NEPA”) which sets a process for every decision the federal government makes that affects the quality of the environment. The NEPA process has different protocols depending on the potential impact of the decision, but the key thing to understand is that decisions are made in a process, and there are times in that process where you can comment and be involved, and times where you cannot. Generally, during the “scoping period,” you can get involved. Later, once scoping is past and comment periods close, nothing you say has any effect, no matter how correct you might be. Scoping and comment is required for all NEPA processes, and most offices have a process to get you subscribed to notices so that you can be involved at the appropriate time.
The other key rule that affects our use is Travel Management. This is done at a broader level than decisions, typically by a Forest (USFS) or a Field office (BLM). As with everything else, there is a defined process to be involved with, and effective engagement requires getting involved early. Travel Management may only happen every decade or two, so when it comes
along it is critical to be involved with it. Because Travel Management encompasses a larger area, often a statewide organization will be involved. These statewide organizations serve an important role alongside clubs. Where a club is more likely to make a difference on the ground, the statewide groups are able to bring legal pressure, expert testimony and policy experts to bear on the larger regional issues.
Personally, I was uninterested in any of this until my favorite place to ride was closed. I went from uninterested to really angry in a flash, and it has taken decades to work my way back to engaged. Everything that happens on public land happens at the speed of government, which is both frustrating and occasionally beneficial, since bad news can happen as slowly as good news does. If you are getting involved, recognize that advocacy requires slow and steady involvement, not just a few moments of your time. It takes hydraulic pressure, not hammer blows. If you want to make a difference, show up, join a club, donate, get to know your local agency people and expect that moving the needle will take months and years, not days or weeks.
In the end, I see a false division between “environmentalist” and “motorcyclist”. I don’t know a single rider who would prefer an unhealthy forest to a thriving one, and in many areas, most of the trail work and funding to maintain trails comes from off-highway vehicle riders. This leads to the final point: wherever possible, we can try to break down the perception of us (motorcyclists) vs. them (environmentalists). Enviromotorist is a viable position (not to be confused with moto-mentalists) that holds that responsible access can coexist with maintaining natural values. Motorcyclists will never win a popularity contest, but we can show how our position is compatible with others.
THINGS YOU CAN DO
Be a steward—take care of the roads and trails you use, help educate other users, and leave campsites better than you found them.
Be an ambassador—show the best of motorcycling to other users, businesses that you patronize, and people who work in the land management agencies. Get involved locally—join your local club and show up for work days and public process meetings.
Donate funds—send money to organizations not only where you live, but also where you want to ride.
HOW TO DO VIETNAM
Before tourism ruins it
WORDS & IMAGES Mitch B @ Lost Cartographer
Got a few minutes? Let’s go to Vietnam.
For quite a few readers of ADVrider.com, Vietnam would be a country that was once engaged in a war it couldn’t possibly win. And then did. For others, Vietnam is exotica in green. It is far away. It is freakishly busy in some places, and so far from the noise of humans in others you’d think you’ve found the geography of joy. It is sound, colour, movement, taste, smell, warmth, water and organized chaos. Frequently all in the same place at the same time. For these and many more reasons, Vietnam would be a principal highlight of a tour of the world.
It is also a country where motorcycles are a fantastically common source of transport. There are about 45 million (scooters, motorcycles, mopeds—let’s just call them motorbikes) in a country of fewer than 100 million people. In Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) there are seven times as many motorbikes as in the whole of the United Kingdom, which is another place that loves its two-wheeled transport.
Employing a motorbike for getting around in Vietnam, then, would be as natural as chopsticks. And there are many ways to obtain a motorbike: you can buy or rent one that may or may not last your tour, or you can rent something more reliable. In my travels there I have rented crappy scooters, a dual-purpose Honda XR150, and a hybrid motorcyclescooter, the Honda Winner 150. I can assure you that the best option is always to rent a newer bike, and if possible, an XR150, which is big enough to be comfortable and has all the power you’d need there.
Tigit Motorbikes is a good place to start in your quest for a good rented motorbike. There are branches in four of Vietnam’s largest cities, and you can rent an XR150 without busting your budget. Motorvina is another Vietnamese outfit with a range of good motorbikes for rent, including Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha and even KTM models.
Buying a motorbike is an option, but be wary. The Honda Win (not the Winner, which is a different model) has been extremely popular among travelers in Vietnam, but Honda stopped making them 20 years ago. What you’ll find these days are Chinese knockoffs. The genuine article wasn’t terribly impressive, and the knockoff is worse. It’s cheap to buy, but you get what you pay for.
If you plan to travel two-up, you could rent a larger model— from 250 to 500 cc, which offers more comfort for you and your passenger. But don’t get a bigger bike if your objective
is only to go faster. Speed and Vietnamese roads don’t mix. Locals, dogs and livestock are frequent, random hazards on Vietnam’s roads. If you’re going faster than 30 mph (50 km/h) you’ll likely hit something, and it’ll likely be a dog.
Even if you don’t collide with a moving obstacle, you’ll need a good helmet. I’d recommend bringing your own, but not a fullface helmet. Most Vietnamese riders use open-face helmets, so a full-face lid puts a barrier between you and others on the road. A modular helmet is a good compromise, letting you open up around town and giving you more protection than an open-face helmet at higher speeds.
Vietnam is about 1,000 miles long and from 30 to 300 miles wide (about 1600 by 50-to-500 kilometers). A bit of that northsouth stretch is in the northern temperate zone but much more of it resides in the Tropic of Cancer. There is a rainy season, and there are seven climatic regions around the country, so when it gets wet depends on where you are. If you love riding in the rain, by all means do that, but if you’d rather stay warm and dry, be selective in timing your visit. Lots of websites will help you with that, but in brief, Ho Chi Minh will be hot in the winter, but dry; Da Nang and the Central Highlands will be dry and relatively warm in February and March; and Hanoi and northern Vietnam will be dry in the spring and fall, and wet in the middle of summer.
Tourism is booming in Vietnam, and the boom is getting louder year by year, aided by new-highway construction and stimulated by money. Now is the time to get on your bike and experience the country’s remote places because the tour bus routes are likely to expand and kill the local culture sometime soon.
You’ll probably need a visa, and there are two kinds: an E-visa, and a Visa on Arrival. Search the Internet for “e-visa Vietnam” or “visa on arrival Vietnam,” and don’t be put off by the amateur appearance of the sites you reach.
You’ll also want to find a decent place to rest your head at night. My girlfriend and I have stayed in four different types of places in Vietnam: homestays and farmstays; guest houses (usually a motel/hostel hybrid with shared bathrooms); basic hotels; and luxury hotels.
Rural Northern Vietnam Cao Bang Province
Luxury hotels in Vietnam are reasonably priced. We stayed in the executive suite on the top floor of the nicest hotel in Cao Bang for $44 US per night. In the same nice hotel, a standard room with a private bath would be approximately $25. In Hanoi or Saigon (Ho Chi Minh), the price would have been $60 to $70 for a comparable room.
Luxury hotels are your best bet for big cities, but most small towns don’t have them. Among the available options, I recommend a homestay or farmstay, but with reservations. On the positive side of the ledger we have family style meals with good food, meeting other travelers, friendly and outgoing hosts and, importantly, quietness, a rare treat in a loud country.
On the negative side are shared bathrooms, which tend to be all-in-one combinations of toilet, shower, and sink; a general lack of cleanliness (which applies to most lodging in Vietnam, with the exception of the luxury hotels); bugs (if you’re not in a luxury hotel, wherever you stay you’re going to be harassed by anything from mosquitoes to bedbugs, so use repellant); and germs, which introduce the chance of picking up something.
I recommend staying in the nicest place you can find in any major town. You could consider camping instead, but indoor lodging is cheap and available nearly everywhere. If you can afford to get to Vietnam, you can afford to sleep indoors.
you pay cash at the end of your trip. Downlod the app before you go, or better yet, download it after you get a sim card so that your new Vietnamese phone number is linked to the Grab app.
Your chances of enjoying a safe visit to Vietnam are very good, but it’s best to be prepared for possible unpleasant eventualities. There is no all-in-one 911 phone service, but there are separate numbers for various needs: 112 for search and rescue, 113 for police, 114 for fire, 115 for ambulance, and 110 for international phone assistance. Do write those down; if you need something in an emergency, you don’t want to try to remember a number.
You won’t get robbed in Vietnam, but you might get pick-pocketed in the touristy areas of big cities, so protect your wallet and phone while in crowds. The principal dangers in Vietnam, in order of risk, are drinking the local water, crossing the street, and riding a motorbike. With regard to crossing the street: walk steadily and slowly and let traffic go around you—and don’t rush.
Do not ever, ever schedule two flights on the same day, especially if that second flight involves getting you home.
Some quick yes-and-no information. Raingear: yes, but consider using ponchos, which are what the locals use. Vaccinations: you bet, but check with the Centers for Disease Control. Cell phones: check with your carrier, and consider getting a Vietnamese sim card and using it in your (unlocked) phone. English language: yup, and most adults speak at least some while younger Vietnamese are more fluent (Google Translate on your phone also works well).
You’ll probably use other methods of travel while you’re in Vietnam, and that means you’ll interact with airline and car services. The planes I’ve been on in Vietnam have been clean, relatively new, flown safely and late. Do not ever, ever schedule two flights on the same day, especially if that second flight involves getting you home. The Vietnamese equivalent of Uber is called Grab, and it works just like Uber, except that
On the road, you’ll meet 20-something Europeans and Australians, and empty-nesters nearing retirement age, but not many people outside of those brackets. A lot of these travelers will be staying in hostels, so if you run into a problem in Vietnam that isn’t health- or safety-related, just find the nearest hostel. Whatever problem you’re having, they’ve seen it before and know how to fix it and can probably speak English. Cell phone quit working? Go talk to this guy. Need brake pads for your bike? Go see that guy.
At the beginning of this story I mentioned a war. It would seem reasonable to expect hostility toward Americans and some others because of that, but don’t. There have been a lot of wars in Vietnam, and the American War, as they call it, was recent and was a big one, but was also just another blip on their war radar. Most Vietnamese are too young to remember it. I have observed that among Vietnamese there is far more anti-Chinese sentiment than anti-American.
And finally, what didn’t I like about Vietnam during my travels? Simple: litter and noise. There is a lot of both. The rural areas are quieter, but are still noisy compared to western norms. And, even more finally, don’t worry about communists trying to win you over. I have met a lot of Vietnamese people, and they were all capitalists.
Shortcut to Pac Bo HCM Cave; south of Meo Vac Cao Bang Province; Saigon Traffic; Bac Ha Market.
RICKY BRABEC: FROM BAJA HOPEFUL TO DAKAR CHAMPION
The recipe for Dakar success is hard work and determination.
WORDS Eglė Gerulaitytė
Since the origins of what is now the Rally Dakar, the world’s toughest rally race had never been won by an American. Born in 1979 as the ultimate adventure, the Paris-Dakar rally was a long-distance roadbook-navigation desert race from Paris, France, to Dakar, Senegal, designed to push pilots and their machines to their limits. Composed of gruelling special stages with brutal terrain, extreme temperatures and insane distances, the Paris-Dakar, now simply Rally Dakar, soon became the hardest and most prestigious race in the world.
Just as an American pilot had never won the Dakar, Honda had not seen a victory in 31 years. European racers have dominated the Dakar for decades, and KTM had an unbelievable winning streak for 18 years in a row, starting with Fabrizio Meoni’s victory in 2001. For a decade, the Dakar race in the motorcycle class felt like a never-ending duel between French rider Cyril Despres and Spaniard Marc Coma; from 2005 to 2015, Despres and Coma won the Dakar in alternating years, even when concerns of terrorist attacks forced the Dakar to move from Africa to South America in 2009. The Despres-Coma winning spell was finally broken by Aussie Toby Price in 2016, followed by Brit Sam Sunderland in 2017, Austrian Matthias Walkner in 2018, and in 2019 the win went again to Toby Price. Through all that, KTM kept a firm hold on the podium.
It was a prestigious race dominated by European riders and motorcycles for decades and offering fewer surprises each year. KTM’s long series of wins combined with the same names at the top year after year left fans with the feeling that the Dakar was becoming less exciting with each new edition. The stages were getting faster, the roadbook distribution system allowed bigger teams to have an advantage by using
“map men”—experts that would work on the roadbooks for the riders to pinpoint potential pitfalls and shortcuts to the waypoints—and the gap between factory and privateer riders seemed to widen each year, leaving die-hard, old-school ParisDakar fans concerned about the direction the rally was taking.
And just when it was least expected, the Dakar experienced a 180-degree turn. When young American racer Ricky Brabec took the lead on Day Three of the Rally, fans worldwide followed his progress with bated breath. Would an American aboard a Honda rally bike break the spell and take the win? Was this even possible? As Brabec stayed consistent day in and day out, never letting go of his solid grip of the lead in the overall rankings, excitement built up until Brabec finally took the historic Rally Dakar win in Qiddiya, Saudi Arabia, in January 2020.
Dakar Changes
In 2020, the Dakar went through some drastic changes. With David Castera as the new race director of the ASO (Amaury Sports Organization of the Dakar Rally), the Dakar moved once again, this time to Saudi Arabia. Considered a controversial decision at first, it appears the move has been successful despite some initial hang-ups: due to its vast territory of unpopulated, arid badlands, Saudi Arabia provided the perfect playground for a rally race as massive as the Dakar covering well over 7,500 kilometers across endless sand dunes and rugged desert terrain. Although the race tragically claimed two lives this year— Portuguese racer Paulo Goncalves and Dutch malle moto rider Edwin Straver passed away during the rally due to high-speed crashes—and Stage 7 has been cancelled for motorcycle and quad riders as a result, the Dakar in Saudi Arabia has shaped a new direction for itself. Aside from the move ensuring that
the desert terrain in Saudi Arabia was completely new to every single competitor out there (as opposed to South American landscapes already familiar to Dakar vets), there was another significant change in the rally this year. Instead of getting their roadbooks in the evening before each new stage, motorcycle and quad pilots received their roadbooks before the start each morning. Already pre-marked, roadbooks were delivered to riders just 25 minutes before the start, leveling the playing field for many as the chance to involve map men and have the roadbooks marked in a more detailed way was now removed, giving everyone fairer odds at successful navigation.
Both these factors could be considered pure luck for Ricky Brabec, a young American racer who claimed a truly epic triple win at the Dakar this year. Brabec’s victory was his first personal Dakar win, and it was also a historic moment for Honda and a first for the United States. Since winning the stage on Day Three, Ricky never let go of the lead and, riding with incredible consistency and focus, he brought it home, winning the Dakar in January 2020 with a 16-minute lead aboard his Honda CRF 450 Rally bike.
Origins of an Athlete
Luck had little to do with Brabec’s amazing feat at the Dakar victory. A native of Hesperia, California, Brabec comes from humble beginnings, and his exploding rally racing career is a result of relentless hard work, sheer determination and overcoming two major injuries.
Born in San Bernardino, California, in 1991, Brabec started BMX when he was five years old. As he turned 15, his family moved to Hesperia where Brabec started riding motorcycles and tried his hand at motocross, entering his first off-road race in 2008. However, Brabec soon realized he was better suited for Hare and Hounds and Baja style racing rather than motocross where a lighter and smaller frame is more advantageous than Brabec’s tall, solid build. At the same time, he admits there was something more that drew him out into the desert and off the
motocross track. “The desert caught my eye: it was all-new terrain that you couldn’t pre-run, and it felt unique. Desert racers have to read terrain while going as fast as they can. It makes it really exciting—you’re taking chances the whole time,” Brabec said in an interview with RedBull media in 2016.
The Dakar Dream
Yet the road to Dakar wasn’t a straight trajectory for the young Californian “desert rat,” as he still jokingly calls himself. Back in 2011, Brabec was still working full time and entering races as a privateer rather than a fully supported factory rider, and finding sponsors was a struggle. He had to make a choice: remain a privateer with a full-time job or go all in and try to make it as a professional athlete. Brabec decided on the latter, cleaned up his diet, began training hard, set a goal, and three short years later, in 2014, he won the Baja 1000, Baja 500, and San Felipe 250. These impressive wins landed him a sponsorship with THR Motorsports and later, the support of Honda’s HRC Rally Team despite a bad crash resulting in a broken neck in the middle of the 2015 season.
Teaming up with Honda led Brabec to enter the rally racing world, largely uncharted territory for American racers who are traditionally more used to Baja-style racing than international rally competitions. In 2015, Brabec came in fifth at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, and in 2016 he finished sixth at the Merzouga Rally and seventh at the Atacama Rally. The year 2016 also marked his Rally Dakar debut. He finished in ninth place, and for the next three years was forced out of the race due to bike failures. After Brabec had to abandon the race three times, and with Honda’s history of conceding wins to KTM, BMW and Yamaha for over three decades, few believed that Ricky would make history in 2020. Until he did.
What was the catalyst behind the change and the historic triple victory, and what’s next for the American Dakar star? We caught up with Ricky Brabec to find out.
(Top left, clockwise) Uncharted territory: Dakar 2020 threw competitors in completely new terrain; the historic victory that surprised the world but not Ricky; speed isn’t everything: in a race like the Dakar, it’s the consistency that wins; Ricky Brabec’s finely tuned Honda CRF was indestructible at the Dakar 2020.
Photography courtesy: Monster Energy Honda Team
Ricky, you’ve mentioned that 2010 was a turning point in your racing career. That was when you decided to go all in and try to make it as a professional racer rather than stay in your job and race in your spare time. What inspired that change?
I always loved dirt bikes and anything to do with the outdoors, and at some point, I just started feeling like there was more to life than work. I wanted more, so back in 2010, I started training hard, cleaned up my diet, and decided to go for it and try to make it as an athlete. I was also very fortunate to have had help and support along the way, but in the end, what pays off best is hard work.
Before your Dakar debut, you raced Abu Dhabi, Merzouga and Atacama. Which of these races was the closest in nature to the Dakar, and which offered the best prep for the world’s toughest rally race? All of those races were tough, but to be honest, the best terrain to train for the Dakar is right here at home. The terrain of the Mojave Desert is very similar to that of Saudi Arabia, so that worked really well for me. I’m good with a big open desert with rugged, rocky terrain, and that’s exactly what we had in Saudi.
Physical training is crucial, but the mental aspect of preparing for the Dakar is just as important. How do you prep for the Dakar mentally?
I think the mental preparedness comes with experience, there’s just no way around it. I’ve been racing off-road for years, and it just comes with the territory as you get older and your experiences accumulate over the years. A rally race is all about the long game, and every day, you plan your ride and you need to be strategic about it, otherwise you won’t make it. A rally is much more than just flat-out racing: you need to know when to hold back, when to ride at only 70 percent, and when to really hit it hard. You have several components that need to come together; the navigation, the strategy the ability to read the terrain fast. It’s not just about speed, so you need to plan for that.
What was the hardest thing to master going from Baja style racing to rally?
Patience! A rally race is very different from hare scrambles and Baja races; Baja is a lot more straightforward: you have a marked course, you go flat out, and the first one across the finish line wins. In a rally, it’s all about the long game, and you’ve got to play it. If you come from the American Baja and Hare and Hounds racing background, the first thing you need to learn to prepare for a rally is patience. The next big one is roadbook navigation.
You talk a lot about hard work paying off, and the willingness to go through some tough moments to get to your goal. What were some of the sacrifices you had to make to get to that Dakar win?
I broke my neck twice, and that gets you thinking just how dangerous this sport is. You start wondering, “Am I that stupid to race here? Can I have it under control?” Getting injured is very depressing and can bring some very dark moments, and it just reminds you how everything—your racing, your career, even your life—can be over in a split second.
When you get serious about riding, you also go through a lot of personal sacrifices, like not spending time with your friends and loved ones because you’re training and racing so much.
Over the years, there have been some tough decisions, but it’s all about pushing through it and getting after it anyway.
What was different this year, compared to your previous Dakar attempts?
For me, the move to Saudi Arabia felt like the best thing the ASO could have done. This was a completely new territory, and no one knew it, so I think it levelled the playing field quite a bit. The terrain suited me very well: the minute I saw that Saudi desert, I felt really good from the get-go because it was a lot like home. One of my strengths is the ability to go blind into an open desert and do well because I know how to read the terrain, all thanks to the fact I’ve spent so much time racing right here in California and Nevada.
Another big factor was the bike; we really had it dialled in well this year. I set my suspension to suit the rugged Mojave terrain, and that worked perfectly for the Saudi terrain, too. Just as with your riding strategy, you have to look after your bike, and I brought it back to the mechanics in near-perfection condition each day as I’ve only had two crashes. I avoided any serious mechanical issues and repairs, and that was huge.
How did you find the changes in the roadbook distribution? Was this an advantage?
I think that was a great move by the ASO, and it also made the rally much fairer for everybody. Because we got our roadbooks in the morning, and they were already pre-marked, nobody had the chance to spend more time with it or mark it differently. We all had the same roadbook, the same amount of time to go through it, and the markings were the same for everyone, so for me, I think that was a great move and it levelled the playing field a lot. It also allowed for more rest after each stage—you could just have a meal and get some rest instead of going through your roadbook each night.
Ever since you took the lead on Day 3, fans began placing their bets on you, especially as you stayed so consistent. By Day 6, the media was already talking about the possibility of you winning the Dakar. Did you feel the pressure as you were battling the Saudi terrain, knowing you still had a long way to go, and how did you cope with it?
I can’t say I felt the pressure to win simply because I didn’t allow it to get into my head. I tried not to think about the possibility of winning and just stay consistent every day. I already had my high hopes destroyed in 2019 where I began feeling very hopeful and then had the bike fail, so this time, I tried not to think about it and not let it get into my head.
How did your fellow Dakar rider Paulo Goncalves’s tragic accident affect you during the Dakar?
The passing of Paulo is sad, and all of us at Honda are hurt. Unfortunately, that day I didn’t find out about his death until I arrived at the bivouac. It was eating away at everyone, there were many tears and a quiet night in the bivouac as Paulo was the greatest person to be around. This is the risk we take when we gear up each morning, things can change at any moment; but we do this because we love it, and we all hope Paulo is up there looking down on us. He left us doing what he absolutely loved.
Your win wasn’t just your personal victory; it’s also a historic win for Honda and the United States. How do you feel about this triple win, and is it possible to top that?
After Baja 1000, I was told that this was it, I’d done it, I’d won one of the hardest races in the world, and I thought a lot about what to do next; then, the Dakar dream became a reality. Now, after this triple win, I’m thinking about where to
go next once again. I’m not sure I can top this triple victory, but I’m young, and there’s still so much to do. One of the things I’d like to do is maybe own a business at some point, but right now, I’ve still got a lot of racing ahead of me.
When I’m 40 or so, I’d love to do the Dakar malle moto (now Original by Motul) class. That would be memorable, for sure! The malle moto guys are just absolutely insane, they’re out there on their own with no support, sleeping next to their bikes, working on their bikes throughout the entire race—I think I’d love to try that at some point.
What’s your strategy for Dakar 2021?
We don’t have a strategy set in stone just yet, as we don’t know how the first few days will go, so we’re not sure how it’s going to shape up. Usually, we don’t have a strategy until about Day 4 when things begin to settle.
What would you say to riders out there who are dreaming of the Dakar, but think it’s an impossible feat for them?
Nothing is impossible, if you work hard enough. The thing is, if you think it’s impossible, then it will be impossible. But if you set your sights on a goal and work hard, you will get there.
We can’t wait to see where Brabec’s career takes him next. Perhaps we’ll see Ricky dominating the Africa Eco Race or the Silk Way Rally; or maybe, following in the footsteps of legendary Stephane Peterhansel, Ricky will repeat his Dakar win behind the wheel of an SSV or a car. Wherever his path takes him, we’re sure to be following and cheering him along.
(Top left, clockwise) Rally Dakar, the world’s toughest race, has never been won by an American racer - until now; opening a stage is one of the hardest tasks for a rally competitor, as there are no tracks to follow; Saudi Arabia’s rugged desert country felt like home for Ricky, a Mojave Desert native; bringing the bike back to the bivouac in near-perfect condition each day helped Ricky to stay consistent.
THE KINDNESS FORMULA
Just get on the road and you’ll find it
WORDS Mike Botan | IMAGES Mike & Kim Botan
For my wife Kim and me, travel by moto is almost always refreshing, enlightening and a way to renew our faith in people. One of our favorite things about traveling on two wheels is the opportunity it presents to meet new people, learn and share with them, try to understand them and receive and extend kindness.
We probably don’t remember all the times that strangers have helped us, at times even when we didn’t need it. Such attitudes reinforce my belief that people are basically good and want to help.
A couple of these roadside meetings stand out for me.
One of the first occurred when Kim and I were riding the Trans-Labrador Highway. It was sometime during 2007 when the Trans Lab was almost completely dirt and gravel except for a short portion in the bulldozed and defunct mining town of Gagnon. We started at the beginning of the Trans Lab near the Manic 5 dam, and the weather was already rainy. Sometimes it drizzled, but at other times the rain came heavily.
It began to get foggy and the going was slow. We had been riding for several hours with no civilization in sight, and the day had turned cold. We had seen perhaps three other vehicles during the entire morning of riding. Around noon, we decided to stop and eat our lunch of power bars, cashews, and water at the side of the road in the cold drizzle. We had been sitting on a small hill for about 20 minutes when a car stopped directly beside us.
Inside was a family with worried looks on their faces. I thought they might have a problem and needed some assistance. I jogged up to the car and found the exact opposite was true. They had stopped to make sure that we were okay.
Of course we thanked them for stopping. We got talking, broke out another bag of cashews and offered them to the family. There we sat at the side of the road for another 10 minutes or so, chatting while sharing nuts and stories. Before long, we were both underway again, but the kindness that family had shown us remains firmly rooted in my memory and will until I die.
A more lengthy act of kindness happened a couple of years later, while Kim and I were traveling through Iceland. The weather was a bit blustery. We needed to cross a mountain pass to get to the day’s destination. Above us and to our right, I remember seeing a waterfall. I could see that the water that was falling was not reaching the ground. But for some reason, I didn’t put two and two together.
Soon we were riding up a dirt mountain road through the pass. The going was relatively quick, and we were making good time. In fact, the wind had died down quite a bit due to the surrounding mountains.
But as soon as we crested the pass, hell broke loose. The wind instantly gusted to what felt like hurricane force. And it was coming from different directions in the gusts.
Kim told me through her communicator that she had to stop. When she did, she was almost immediately blown off her bike. She told me she couldn’t ride in this wind. I stopped, picked up her bike, and walked it to the side of the road close to some terrain to try to get some wind protection.
I told her to get on the back of my bike, and we would ride down together and pick up her bike later. Kim was having none of it and said she would rather walk down. She said she would start walking and that I could pick her up once I was able to hitch a car ride back up.
There was no changing Kim’s mind, so I hopped back on my bike to ride it down to the bottom. Eventually, I made it. But now, along with the howling wind, it was raining hard. Fog covered the entire mountain, and I wasn’t able to walk back up.
Not long after that, I saw a van coming down the same mountain road. It stopped next to me and out popped Kim. She had hitched a ride down the mountain with three Dutchmen. The gents found her walking down and stopped to offer a ride. Kim gratefully accepted, and was now, thankfully, standing beside me safe and sound.
Still, her bike was at the top of the mountain. She wouldn’t get on the back of my bike, and we were still about 15 miles short of our destination for the evening, so I hitched a ride with a couple going back up.
(Previous page) Gullfoss Falls; (above, clockwise) looking out from behind a set of waterfalls off of one of Iceland’s “F” roads; an iceberg floats by a fisherman’s shack just outside of Red Bay, Labrador; our new Icelandic friends. They helped pull my bike out of a water crossing after the chain jumped the sprocket and locked the rear wheel.
When we arrived at Kim’s bike, I thanked the couple and tried to get out of the car on the windward side. The wind was so severe that I couldn’t open the door, so I exited from the leeward side and got on Kim’s bike to ride it down the mountain.
Once again, I made it down, but the rain had intensified. Kim said she didn’t think she could ride anymore. We decided to try to figure out if there were any towns closer to us than our planned destination. We broke out our map, and it was immediately ripped in half, pulled out of Kim’s hands, and tossed into the ocean.
Things were looking bleak. Perhaps five minutes later, a car stopped. The couple inside told us that their friend lived a couple of houses over and they said we could leave our bikes there. Then one said she would drive us to the day’s destination, which they did.
Riding the Trans Labrador Highway just outside of Port Hope Simpson in Labrador.
PANNED ON THE RUN
Riding and cooking around the world
RECIPES & IMAGES Kylie Day
INTERVIEW J Peter “The Bear” Thoeming
Kylie Day concocts the recipes that are a much-loved part of the ADVrider.com website’s front page. They look wonderful and are easy to cook on the road. I cooked most of the meals during the months that Mrs. Bear and I were on the road, and I wish I’d had Kylie’s advice to hand.
You can also rely on Kylie’s recipes to be good for you. She is a food technologist, a job that is, among many other things, about healthy eating.
But she has another interest apart from cooking. She is an accomplished adventure rider who tackled Mongolia and other places on her Honda CB500X. So, how did that start?
“I had Hondas in Australia, first a VTR250 and then a CBR600,” she says. “That’s why I bought Yogi in England. I watched Long Way Round and wanted to be like Charley—not Ewan, big crybaby—and ride to places like Mongolia.”
More about Yogi, a then-four-year-old Honda, later.
To prepare for adventure riding, Kylie booked a couple of organized motorcycle tours. The first was to Nepal, the second to Vietnam. She is not especially tall, so the Royal Enfield she rode in the Himalayas suited her quite well. The roads, not so much.
“I woke up terrified every morning,” she says. “The roads are dreadful. You would find yourself choosing between hitting a huge pothole or going over the edge. I dropped the bike 20 times a day. Once I slid in the mud right into the front door of an old lady’s house. She was so nice about it!”
But there was an advantage to that apocalyptic ride.
“At the end of the tour, I knew that if I could do that, I could do anything!”
The Vietnam ride, on a Suzuki 125, was less dramatic except for one thing.
“I had all my belongings, including my passport, stolen when my pack fell off the back of the bike. We were riding in a national park, and a four-wheel-drive was following us closely. I’m sure they collected it. So I had ten days of riding without anything other than what I was wearing, but that was all right. What else was I going to do?”
Did she approach the choice of her own bike with the same insouciance? It sounds as if the CB500X almost selected itself.
“I would not have been able to handle anything bigger,” she says. “Mind you, I dropped Yogi at a petrol station almost
It is possible to cook healthy and tasty food on the road even when packing light on a Round The World trip.
immediately after I had bought him, with the previous owner watching. But I knew I had done the right thing after I rode him home from the north of England to London, three hours on the motorway.”
So, Yogi? As in Yogi and Boo-Boo?
“My younger brother Tim taught me how to ride. We have these Yogi—for him—and BooBoo—for me—nicknames going. He’s the person I most admire in the world. No one could keep me safe like my brother, so it seemed appropriate to name the bike after him. It meant I always had a connection to Tim.”
On to your own travels, Kylie. What were the ideas you started with, or learned very quickly?
“Be as cheap as you can. In Europe, even the campsites cost 20 euros a night. I always felt happier and safer camping, free camping if possible, but travel is expensive whatever you do. And it’s important to have a point of reference. I might have had a really bad day on the bike, but it was never as bad as Nepal!”
Kylie started her trip with a ride around Europe. France, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and then on to Russia. What were the high and low spots of that part of the ride?
“I found Spain challenging,” she says. “The people were not welcoming, there was no engagement. I felt isolated. I think it’s because they don’t travel much, and there is no multicultural buzz. Not like Australia. The high spot was Russia. I was treated so well. I mean, be as careful as you can be; I had trepidations about being female. But I was adopted by a ‘gang’ on my way to Mongolia, four blokes on BMW R 1250 GSs riding together. They were fabulous, even took me out to Lake Baikal, and the word was always ‘you are our guest.’ One night we were sharing a kind of B&B with one bedroom, and I said I’d be happy to roll my sleeping mat out on the floor. But it was no, no, you are a lady, you must have the bed ... you are our guest! That was the culture. It was just fabulous.”
But Russia is still quite a tough place to travel, isn’t it?
“Yes. It isn’t like France, say, where you can buy meals at service stations. It’s hard to find anything to eat during the day. I had big breakfasts and yoghurt for lunch. Dinners could be wonderful! And so could the people. I dropped the bike in Mongolia and bent the handlebar, but I found a Honda dealership to help me. This was in Novosibirsk. I got in touch with them on Facebook, and they messaged me to say, ‘We are waiting for you!’”
Kylie joined an organized tour for her Mongolian adventure, but then rode back to England by herself.
“You have to remember that it is not about being brave,” she says. “You will be afraid. It can be terrifying.”
But often it is about much less dramatic things, isn’t it?
“Oh yes. At the border leaving Russia, a bloke on an R 1250 GS dropped his bike . . . right onto Yogi. The handlebar was bent again. Then on the ferry across to England I was in a rush and dropped the bike again, bending the bar even further. But I was so relaxed by then . . . the chain was half hanging off, the fork seals were blown and on and on.”
I hadn’t asked Kylie much about food, an odd omission, but then she had had plenty to talk about without it.
“I love going into supermarkets. There is stuff there I’ve never seen before! When I go shopping, I can see what the locals eat; if you eat out, you can only choose from what’s on the menu. When I’m cooking I feel normal, I’m doing something I love—on the other side of the world! Sometimes I felt guilty for not missing things at home.”
Kylie had some simple but invaluable recommendations regarding food, of course. “Always carry nuts or trail mix, but not with chocolate. It will melt on the ride.”
The North American part of her trip was planned a little more than Mongolia, and she found herself calling on the network of friends she was developing around the world.
“I flew to Vancouver, and a friend picked me up at the airport—someone I had met in Nepal. I had so many wonderful experiences with people!”
It snowed on her ride from Vancouver to Jasper by way of Lake Louise.
Kylie rode down into the U.S. near Glacier National Park and found the border crossing surprisingly easy with her tourist visa. The border guards were not at all interested in Yogi.
“This was the beginning of September. It was snowing, and I was so happy! Winter is the time to ride; no traffic, even on Going-to-the-Sun Road!”
Her goal was Utah, then Colorado and Arizona. From there she headed east through what the Americans call “fly-over country.”
“Americans are so welcoming and inquisitive,” she says. “I never felt discriminated against for riding a motorcycle.”
She was also bonding more and more with Yogi, who was carrying her through all this. “I can’t imagine life without him.”
I mention, perhaps inappropriately, a theory by Brian Ó Nualláin (Brian O’Nolan) mentioned in his book The Third Policeman, which suggests that anyone riding a bicycle frequently would exchange atoms with it and become partbicycle. Perhaps this could apply to motorcycles as well.
Kylie was slipping into what I call the road-warrior mindset.
“People carry such a lot of stuff,” she says. “How will they ever pick the bike up? I ended up with one t-shirt. It was disgusting, but so? The important things are to waterproof everything, to have good navigation and to not be afraid of discomfort.”
But during the last two weeks before she hit New York, she knew the trip was over.
“It’s a tough time mentally, but that’s when everyone you meet becomes wonderful. A friend gave me details for meeting here and I wanted to get into Manhattan by one of the bridges, but my satnav kept taking me to a tunnel. Eventually I gave up and rode into the Big Apple blubbering. Mind you, my friend had arranged two weeks of partying before my flight out. ‘My friend rode around the world!’ I got lots of free drinks.”
Then Yogi was freighted to friends in Kentucky for storage— Alaska to Argentina is next for Kylie, in maybe five years— and she flew home to Sydney and the job that will eventually pay for that next ride. Aboard Yogi, of course.
SUMMERTIME PASTA SALAD
Quick and easy lunch
Serves 3–4
There are memories that bring a smile to your face, and mine often involve food. Eating leftovers from the night before while cruising the Italian Alps is one of those special memories. This fresh pasta salad brings together the best of summer produce, keeping things light and bursting with flavour. It’s a great lunch meal you can make ahead and take with you.
You can customize this recipe with any ingredients that are in season; I made the most of sweet corn on the cob and bright yellow tomatoes. Keep it light with a lemon or vinaigrette style dressing.
INGREDIENTS:
250 g of short pasta
1 cob of corn
1 small basket of cherry tomatoes, halved
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
½ red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 medium zucchini, peeled into ribbons
Some mixed leaves (optional)
1 teaspoon seeded mustard
1 lemon, halved
Olive oil
METHOD:
1. Bring a medium size pot of water to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to packet directions. Drain well, toss with a drizzle of olive oil and set aside to cool.
2. Heat a fry pan over medium heat with a drizzle of oil, grill corn on all sides until slightly charred. Remove from heat and when cool enough to handle stand cob vertically and use a knife, cutting downward, to remove kernels.
3. Combine all ingredients except lemon in a bowl. Season well with salt and pepper and dress with 1–2 tablespoons of olive oil and a good squeeze of lemon.
TIPS:
Grilling the corn on the cob gives it a nice smoky flavor and increases the sweetness.
Zucchini can be sliced thinly if you don’t have a peeler, or cut into a small dice.
Toss in some grilled chicken, steak or a hard-boiled egg for some added protein.
This recipe makes a great lunch on the road. Make fresh in the morning before you leave camp.
CARAMELIZED EGGPLANT CHILI
Deliciously sticky, with a kick
I recreated this dish based on a meal I once had in Malaysia. I’m not great with spicy food, but it was so delicious I persevered even though I was burning up! I decided to try and make my own version one evening while traveling through Italy. It was summer, eggplant was ripe and plentiful, and I needed a break from pizza and gelato.
Traditionally a Chinese Malay dish, this spicy eggplant recipe balances sweet, salty, and spicy flavors perfectly. Szechuan pepper is commonly used as the spice element; to keep it simple I used chili paste, which is easier to find and has more uses in the camp kitchen.
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup rice
1 large eggplant, diced in 2 cm pieces
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons (+ a little for plate)
vegetable oil
200 g (scant 1/2 lb) green beans, ends trimmed and cut in half
Handful unsalted cashews
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon chili paste
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 shallots, thinly sliced (optional)
METHOD:
1. Cook rice, set aside covered to keep warm.
2. Heat oil in a pan over high heat. Add eggplant and cook, stirring every minute until browned on all sides. With the heat on high, add the sugar and quickly stir to coat eggplant and caramelize. Transfer to a lightly oiled plate.
3. Return pan to heat, add beans and cashews and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
4. Return eggplant to the pan with soy sauce, chili paste, and vinegar, stir to coat and remove from heat.
5. Ladle rice onto plates, top with eggplant and garnish with sliced shallots.
TIPS:
Eggplant needs to be cooked through before adding the sugar. Be careful not to burn the caramel; it only takes a few seconds to burn.
Using a lightly oiled plate will stop the eggplant from sticking to the plate.
Serves 2
TWO INGREDIENT ALFREDO PASTA
Use local ingredients
Serves 1-2
You can’t always shop at a supermarket when you’re on the road, but you can create a delicious camp meal based on limited ingredients. One Sunday night while camping on the Spanish coast I walked to a local store to see what I could use to inspire my premade pasta and alfredo sauce pack. I managed to buy some top notch jamόn (cured ham) at the liquor store. The Spanish have their priorities straight!
Grab some bread if you want to stretch it out to serve 2.
INGREDIENTS:
1 packet of dried pasta and Alfredo sauce
2–3 slices of prosciutto
Pepper
METHOD:
1. Use your hands to tear the prosciutto into bite-sized pieces. Heat a frying pan over a gas stove on high heat. Crisp the prosciutto for a minute or two, turning with a fork to cook evenly. Remove from heat and set aside to cool in the pan. Allowing the prosciutto to cool will help it become crisp.
2. Cook the pasta in the sauce with water as per packet directions in a medium-sized pot. When pasta is ready, use your fork to remove it and place it in the frying pan with the prosciutto. Place the pot back on the gas and reduce the sauce until the consistency is that of thick cream.
3. Pour sauce over pasta and toss well with lots of black pepper.
TIPS:
The prosciutto is used to give some crunch and texture which can be lacking in camp wet-style meals. If you are going into back country and will have no access to anything fresh, take some pre-cooked bacon chips or dried sausage instead.
BETTER PORRIDGE
Add flavor and crunch to your breakfast Serves 6
There is rarely a morning when I’m traveling and camping alone that I don’t start the day by cooking myself a hearty porridge and eating it straight from the pot. One morning in Mongolia I opened my tent to find myself surrounded by a herd of hungry goats who watched intently as I made my oats and waited for any potential leftovers—a breakfast I won’t ever forget!
Adding nuts, seeds and flavors to your oats can make breakfast on the road a treat that really sets you up for the day ahead. The possibilities and combinations are limited only by availability and your imagination.
INGREDIENTS:
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup dried cranberries
¾ cup whole almonds
½ cup shredded coconut
METHOD:
1. Combine all ingredients in a large resealable bag.
2. Pour desired amount of ingredients into a pot and cover with water. Allow to sit 5 minutes.
3. Cook over low heat, stirring often to prevent sticking to the bottom; add water as necessary.
4. When oats are cooked to your liking, remove from heat, add 1–2 teaspoons of milk powder and stir well.
5. Divide between bowls, or if you are like me and traveling solo, eat straight out of the pot!
TIPS:
Oats don’t weigh much, but they are bulky, so measure out the number of portions you need to save space.
Allowing the oats to soak for 5 minutes prior to cooking will reduce cooking time and save fuel. Soak for up to an hour. Don’t leave to soak overnight.
Combine dry ingredients ahead of time, but leave the milk powder separate (if using). Cooking it with the oats increases the chances of sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.
INGREDIENTS:
4 medium potatoes, peeled, cut into 8 pieces each
Handful of green beans, ends trimmed
4 steaks, lightly pounded to tenderize
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
150 ml (2/3 cup) cream
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
METHOD:
STEAK DIANE
Decadent dinner for 4
I recall making my first camp Steak Diane one night when I was desperately homesick. Cooking on the road for me started as a way of bringing a sense of normalcy to the unconventional life on the road.
This classic meal was a postwar delicacy in highbrow NYC restaurants but is now found in pubs and bistros around the world—and for good reason. The combination of succulent meat and rich sauce really delivers flavor. The original relies heavily on lashings of butter for the sauce, but it has been adapted for cream. I never travel with butter for obvious reasons, but long-life cream is readily available and a perfect substitute for this dish.
1. Place potatoes into a pot of cold water. Bring to a boil and cook for 10–12 minutes or until tender but not falling apart. Add beans for the final 2 minutes of cooking. Drain well, remove beans. Mash potato with a drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
2. While potatoes are cooking, heat a pan with a drizzle of oil over high heat. Season steaks really well on both sides with salt and black pepper. Cook steaks for 1 minute each side, remove and set aside.
3. Turn heat down and add garlic. Cook stirring constantly for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add cream and sauces and season with salt. Bring to a boil, turn heat down and gently simmer for 2–3 minutes or until thickened. Return steaks and any juices to the pan and finish cooking.
4. Divide potato and beans among plates. Serve steak and divide sauce among plates and serve with cracked pepper.
TIPS:
Use the bottom of a pot or fry pan to flatten steaks.
Cooking the beans and potatoes together saves time, fuel and the need for another pot.
IMAGES FROM TWO WHEELS
How one of our favorite photographers snaps his shutter
PHOTO ESSAY Hank Arriazola | INTERVIEW BY Michnus Olivier
It’s all in the feel. Hank Arriazola is a motorcyclistphotographer who claims he has no technical knowledge of photography but manages to produce stunning images in faraway places. Michnus Olivier interviewed him for ADVrider.
How did you get into photography?
I own a BMW motorcycle workshop in Dilley, Texas and have been working on BMW motorcycles for the last 30 years. I’m a life-long motorcyclist and traveler who has a passion for photography. I got my first motorbike when I was ten years old and discovered that I really enjoyed riding and that riding came naturally to me. As I got into my twenties, my hunger for travel started to grow, and my thinking was that the cheapest way to go was by motorbike. In the beginning, I never saw traveling by motorbike as a romance but more as an affordable tool. As my travels expanded to far places, my want for souvenirs was almost impossible, as traveling by motorbike you are very limited on space. So my photos became my souvenirs. My first camera was a unit my brother handed down to me. It wasn’t long before the camera was part of my motorbike gear.
Where did your love for travel and motorcycling start, and where has it taken you?
I was lucky to have parents who liked to travel. All of our travels were always in the U.S., but this gave me a taste of the world. One thing about the U.S. is that it’s so different from one side to the other. I was amazed by how the country and the cultures changed along the way. When I got older and had some money saved to go beyond our borders, I made a practice run to Mexico, then back down to Belize and Guatemala, and finally all the way down to Argentina. I want to travel by motorbike to some parts of the African continent and India. For me now to go to Guatemala or El Salvador for example, it’s just like crossing states in the USA. They’re just down the road from where I live, is how I see it.
What is moto photography to you?
It started out as a personal documentary of my travels. What I try to do is photograph everyday life. Most all of my photographs are very raw, in the senses that they are taken in the moments of time. As I showed this to some of my motorbike customers, I started to get really good feedback from them. Often they would tell me that it made them feel like they were there too. So now I have gone through my collection and have started to display the photographs as art pieces.
What do you enjoy most about being a moto-travel photographer?
For me, this is kind of easy, because it always starts as a motorbike trip first. I try to engage with people and try to learn about them and where they live and how they live. As I’m there, I start to photograph or capture what my mind is seeing. As they often say about riding a motorbike, it gives you freedom, and in many ways it does, as you can go off to the not so common places, stay in places longer than when you are in a tour group. Often many people are curious about you and your bike, so they come to you and want to do the same with you, find out about you.
Which countries have been your best destinations for motorcycling and photography?
This is a hard one to answer because there are so many great places. But I would say Mexico and Guatemala are for sure high on the list. Pretty much every country in South America especially in the Patagonia region.
How has your photography evolved over the years?
Yes, of course it has. Most of it has to do with practice, practice, practice. Yeah the thing for me is to learn to trust my instincts in taking a picture. I learned to trust what my mind has seen. With my photography—which is more like street photography—you have to be quick to capture an image. Also over the years, I have bought better equipment that really improves the quality of the image.
In your many moto-travelling adventures, what experiences would you say have truly moved you?
I think the rawness of travelling by motorbike. We often take for granted flying from here to Europe or to Africa for example. You get there so quickly. But when travelling by motorbike you get to see the planet change along the way. You’re exposed to the elements; you’re burning hot one day and freezing cold the next. Like in Peru, for example, I was in Nazca, which is almost at sea level in the desert and very hot. I got up early one morning to go to Cusco, which is in the mountains at over 13,000 feet. Just seeing the climate change in these landscapes was mind blowing, and you felt it. As I climbed in altitude my body was reacting very badly to it. It’s these kinds of experiences that are always with you.
What does motorcycle travel photography mean to you?
Freedom and exposure. You have the freedom to move about and go to some places that are not on the tourist trails. Exposure comes from not only the elements but also your access to other people. Especially if you travel by yourself, as I often do. I pull into a village and people are very curious about who I am and what I’m riding. My bike is big and dusty and now shows some age on it. This has people coming to me wanting to find out where I’ve come from and where I’m going. You can’t have this kind of exposure if you are in a tour group.
What is your preferred genre in photography? This would be a mixture of street photography and documentary style.
How important is post-processing in your opinion, and what software do you use?
My post-editing is mostly cleanup, because I take photos in a hurry. For example, in markets or if on my motorbike, I will quickly pull over and snap a couple of shots and keep going. So in post-editing I often go in and straighten the image, adjust the exposure and color. I often take an image into the sun, not for the effect but because my subject happens to be standing in that direction. My way of taking photographs depends heavily on composition, versus the technical side. I am very, very bad about the technical side. My photos are taken in seconds. I think post-editing will always be necessary no matter how good you are. I used to use Apple’s Aperture software but when Apple cancelled this app I moved to Capture One, and I really like this program.
For someone wanting to get into motorcycle travel photography, what types of equipment would you say are essential?
My favourite system is Fujifilm. I currently use the X-T3 system and my favourite lenses are the 14 mm and a 23 mm. I carry two bodies with these lenses. I tried using one body and changing lens as I needed, but I discovered that some places are very dirty and dusty. India was one example where there’s dust in the air everywhere. So to keep from having to open the camera I just carry two bodies now.
If somebody asked me what camera to carry for a motorbike trip I would say a point-and-shoot type, or if they want to pay a little more for a higher-end, I would say a mirrorless camera. They are small and compact and really all you need. You’ll find that you need more space to carry extra batteries in the charger more than anything else. I do not recommend DSLR cameras as they are way too big for a motorbike. What happens is that you won’t take as many photos because you’ll find the cameras big and heavy and you don’t want to deal with it.
Travel and motorcycling comes with its share of risk for cameras and camera equipment, and it can be heavy to just lug it around. Any tips on how you protect your equipment and ways to make it easier to carry on your travels?
The motorcycle environment is not a kind one to the camera. I have to say though that I have only had one camera failure on all my travels and it came from dust and dirt on the lens. I carry my cameras in the motorcycle tank bag. I have two neoprene cases or covers for the cameras and then they go into a tank-bag. But that’s about it for me as, again, space is limited. I keep my cameras in the tank bag because I need quick access to the camera if I see a good shot. Also if I’m crossing borders and I need to spend some time away from the bike it’s easier for me to take the tank bag with me and not worry about the cameras.
What would you suggest are three easy things any motorcycle traveler can do to take better photos?
Practice, practice, practice. Having a good camera and a good lens is a big help, but it won’t give you a good photo if you don’t know how to use the camera or if you don’t have a feel for the camera. Even with me, when I get a new camera I have to play with it for a while before I get used to it. Cameras are like motorbikes; they have their own personalities and you have to learn them.
How do you deal with the people that you make photographs of?
What I try to do is be the fly on the wall, photographing. I never shove the camera in front of somebody. If you do that you do not get a good photo and it will upset the person on the other end. I don’t ask to take a photo of them because I like my photos to be raw and natural, and most of the time if you ask, they want to pose for you and it’s not the image I’m looking for. I may show them the photo afterward if I feel that they do not mind me approaching them. Nine out of ten times they really like the photo and would like a copy. I think we all struggle with shyness but it’s something we have to get over in order to do this style of photography.
