It’s what we do – adventure motorbike magazine

Adventure Rider Issue #32

• It’s what we do – adventure motorbike magazine
• BMW GS Safari Enduro = adventure motorbikes, news, reviews, publication
• BMW F850GS Rallye X
• Strap Yourself In
• The Dempster
• TomTom Rider 450
• Read Between The Lines
• Locked Gates – motorbike magazine, australian motorcycle publication
• Ural Adventure Ride 2018
• Sri Lanka – adventure motorbike tour, motorcycle magazine
• The Best Job In The World = australian motorbike magazine
• Wet Arses
• Yamaha Tracer 900
• Congregation 2018
• We Didn’t Have PLBs In Those Days
• Sahara To Sunraysia = australian motorbike riding tours news event magazine
• Managing Risk with Miles Davis
• Thinking Big? Start Small with Andy Strapz
• A Precautionary Tale from Karen Ramsay
• Checkout
• Fit out – australian adventure motorbike riding

It’s always thrilling to listen to pro riders tell of their racing careers. Stories of overcoming challenges, fierce battles with career-long rivals and taking the tiny, long-odds risks that win races have me spellbound. I’m transported to my world of fantasies where I dream I might be able to do such things. I sit, like all of us, enthralled as the stories unfold. When I think what it must be like to pull a fast lap of the Isle Of Man course, or to ride Dakar and seriously be a contender for a podium position, my eyes glaze over and I begin to try and envisage what that must mean.

Being fast enough and tough enough to ride at those speeds in those environments is beyond me to under-stand. Like all of us, I’m all but overcome by the excitement of a close MotoGP, a seriously tough TrialGP or a grinding,“I think what it must be like to pull a fast lap of the Isle Of Man course, or to ride Dakar and seriously be a contender for a podium position” hard-fought Dakar. The riders who compete in those arenas are like mythical gods to me, probably not unlike the adulation young kids feel for their favourite music personalities.

But after investing so much of myself in watching an amazing event, I drop back to earth. I slump down at my desk, exhausted, and pick up the next story to work on.

That’s when the glamour falls away and I get in touch with truly amazing real-life riding. I read stories from people who aren’t gifted or talented or paid to ride. They’re ‘ordinary’ people who have the courage to grab a bike and head out to the mountains, coastlines and corners of our world, not knowing what’s there, but wanting to find out.

No-one’s built a bike specially for them, there are no marshals making sure things are done fairly and there’s no medical centre or pit if something needs to be put right. In foreign countries where English isn’t the first language it’s sometimes not even possible to simply ask directions.

But the riders go. They face the challenges with nothing more than a credit card and a love of being out there and seeing the world.

Pros are glamorous and deserve the admiration of us all, but the men and women in this magazine are the real stars of the motorcycling world.