Photography by Gary Inman
For the February issue of Cycle World, I rode a variety of BMWs more than 2500 miles largely off-road from South Africa’s Cape coast north through Namibia and into Zambia with www.motoaventures.com. I should have only ridden one BMW, but I planted the first one (rented from www.motoberlin.co.za) in an old couple’s vegetable patch on Day 2 of the 16-day ride. But that’s another story, and you can read about it in the printed magazine.
What I wasn’t expecting (other than demolishing a 1200cc motorcycle) was how the trip recalibrated the way I thought about motorcycles and riding.
I’m 40. I’ve been riding since I was 16, the legal age to do so on the road in the U.K.As a kid, I didn’t have a beat-up dirtbike; I didn’t even have dirt. My dad had stopped riding long before I appeared on the scene (I was the youngest of five children). I had a bicycle. Then, I had a motorcycle license. That was it. For me, roads—blacktop, motorways, freeways, autobahns, ring roads, autoroutes, dual carriageways, one-way streets, boulevards and bypasses—were always, always, where it was at.
While there is a strong off-road community in theU.K., and British riders have led the world in trials, motocross and extreme enduros over the years, we’re a speck of an island with 60 million, often short-tempered, souls crammed onto it. In the whole of the United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—we’re never more than 72 miles from the sea or seven miles from a blacktop road.
So, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot of wide-open land to ride my motorcycle. Our green lanes aren’t GS-friendly dirt trails; they are often rutted and boggy and more suited to a 450cc enduro bike than a heavy dual-sport. And even those are being closed to motor vehicles at a heck of a rate.
This means the squadrons of U.K.-registered BMW Gelände Sports, with their auxiliary lights and de rigueur aluminum panniers, don’t deal during their cosseted lives with anything more testing than 50 yards of gravel driveway. But when it comes to roads, we got ’em! Some real beauties, too, but it wasn’t until this trip that it even crossed my mind that I was missing out on something by staying firmly on the firm stuff.
Then, somewhere inNamibia, the long-term love affair between me and asphalt changed. I’ll struggle to look at tarmac in the same way again—it’s so predictable. Riding a big Beemer at 80 mph on dirt trails for six hours a day was involving and mentally stimulating in a way road riding isn’t until the speeds are in instant-ban territory.
Of course, we’ll stick together, roads and me. We’ve shared too many good times to just walk away from each other. But I can’t stop thinking about my torrid affair with dirt trails. I love the way they kick the bars. I dig standing on the pegs and leaning back, lightening up the front when I need to negotiate soft sand. I enjoy having to concentrate continuously or that rock the size of a pet rabbit, just over the next crest, will ding the wheel rim (an F800GS has really soft rims). I like not really knowing what I’m doing.
Since returning to the U.K., I’ve been out on a Yamaha WR250 in the English countryside. While the riding was fun, only brief two-minute stretches were anything like the deserted wide-open that I lapped up in Southern Africa. And now, I can’t work out how to get more of it.
Read Gary’s Adventure Seeker story on page 40 of the special February, 2012, “Big Adventure” issue or get it on Zinio now.
