Your Ride

Adventure doesn’t have to mean gruelling off-road exploits – there’s an easier way to tour South Africa… It had been a frustrating day. I was camping in the rhino reserve near Serowe in eastern Botswana, and despite seeing lots of everything else – impala, springbok, zebra, a giraffe and all sorts of birdlife – there…

Continue reading »

Peter Gripton raced on the Isle of Man in 1970-71 – what was it like to go back 45 years later? They say that life is what happens while you’re making other plans. I’ve been riding for 52 years – everything from an early Vespa to a petrol/methanol burning Suzuki TS250 and my current grey-import…

Continue reading »

A long day ride of nearly 300 miles from Northumberland into Scotland and back. Ever heard of the Border Reivers? They were English and Scottish families and clans who took to cattle rustling and raiding (reiving) as almost a way of life between the 13th and 17th centuries. Sometimes they would cross the border, sometimes…

Continue reading »

Jessica Leyne rode a Ducati Multistrada 2400 miles through Japan (and a typhoon), as part of the round-the-world 18,000-mile Globetrotter project So I’ve made it! From the bootcamp in 2016, when riders for the Globetrotter project were tested and chosen, to now taking over the Multistrada Enduro from Laurent (who rode the Ducati across Siberia,…

Continue reading »

Dolomites, Cortina… great European destinations that aren’t the Alps. June 2015 found Chris (BMW R1200GSA), Neil (KTM 950 Supermoto) and myself (R1200GSA) following a winding route to Lake Como and back. The initial plan included France, Austria, Germany and Italy, and the 2015 FAGI Tour was born. Chris had planned a route all the way…

Continue reading »

Forget Trump, there’s a far nicer side to the US – the Rustic Roads of Wisconsin Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck wrote of Wisconsin: “Why then was I unprepared for the beauty of this region, for its variety of field and hill, forest and lake? I never saw a country that changed so rapidly, and…

Continue reading »

Last month Steve and Julie flew into Las Vegas, picked up a couple of  Harleys and set off through the desert to the Californian mountains,  Yosemite and San Francisco. This time we trace their route back down  Highway One, through more deserts and back to Las Vegas… San Francisco on Sunday, and Union Square is…

Continue reading »

The technical riding challenge intensifies as Bruce Wilson’s expedition from Johannesburg to Cape Town with Trailquest enters its final stage… The Dutch word Baviaanskloof translates roughly as the ‘valley of baboons’, but to us – on day five of our South African  expedition on Triumph Tigers – it meant narrow gorges, tricky river crossings, steep…

Continue reading »

How do you prove a bike’s reliability? Ducati sent a Multistrada 1200 off on an 18,000-mile round-the-world trip. Frenchman Laurent Cochet did the Moscow to Vladivostock stint – we join him at Lake Baikal… An easy day today, I just have to ride 45km to the north of this island in Lake Baikal, and back…

Continue reading »

It might take a little longer now, but the annual pilgrimage to the Bol is never going to stop… I can remember 1978. I read a magazine article on the Bol d’Or by one Zed Zawada. It was so inspiring I rode from Peterborough down to the Bol d’Or the following year, in one hit,…

Continue reading »