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Morocco Photo of the Day: 2/22/2012

Moto — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:20:13 +0000

For today’s Morocco POD, I give you a double bonus. In a previous post, our fearless guide jogged my memory by describing a location that I was having a hard time remembering. My memory is often inexplicably tied to food, and all it took was for Tim to mention the last Tajine with the whole chickens we had out on the patio of a small auberge in the mountains:

“This is the road down from Ijoukak where we passed the old gold mine from the 1920′s and then had lunch in the auberge (the whole roast chicken tajine).The road is the Ourika valley road past the lake and down to Marrakech, about 90kms in total. Last part of the adventure!”

Bon appétit!

Delicious yard bird tajine and vegetables baked to perfection.

One of our last communal meals out on the trail.

Beers of Morocco

Moto — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 03:32:56 +0000

If you were thinking this was going to be a lengthy post about all the different beers we sampled while touring Morocco on KTM enduro bikes, sorry to disappoint. Morocco is predominantly a Muslim country, and they just don’t drink a lot of alcohol. So if the kind of motorcycle touring you like to do is from pub to pub, I’d suggest another country. But we did have our beer. Had it not been for our fearless leader and local fixers, this posse of Americans would have had a rough time chilling after the daily dosage of 250 kilometers or so per day. We became quite fond of the Speciale Flag pilsner, mostly because that’s what was available, and even better if it was ice cold. We encountered another beer called Casablanca only once along the way. According to a Wikipedia article about beer in Morocco, there is also a light lager in Morocco called Stork, and Heineken is available, but all of them are brewed by Brasseries du Maroc. We started and finished the tour from a home base of an oasis outside of Marrakech called Jnane Allia. Our man Mohammed always made sure there was a platter of ice cold Speciales, all you had to do was wish for it, and it would happen. We were also quite amused to arrive in the Erg Chegaga dunes bivouac after a particularly arduous ride through hot temperatures and rocky terrain, to discover ice cold Speciales waiting for us in the main tent.

Cold ones waiting for us at Riad Dar Chamaa in Ouarzazate.

Nothing like a cold Speciale Flag pilsner.

Mohammed took good care of us at Jnane Allia. Cold Speciales.

Steve especially enjoyed his share of Speciales in Morocco.

One last salute to a great adventure, with what else? Speciales!

Safe In The Barn

moto — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:21:22 +0000

As painful as it was to hear updates from Darth and Esteban while they were having THE epic moto adventure of the year, it was damn good to know they were shiny side up and not encountering any major issues. So I welcomed the occasional photos of their shenanigans, even though they were painful reminders that I was missing out on something grand. Last September, we all did a ride that took us over some of Colorado’s famed high passes. We knocked off Cinnamon Pass and Engineer’s Pass, and would have done Imogene had it not been for a mountain trail running race that closed Imogene to all motorized traffic. This caused us to change our plans and hit Engineer’s Pass instead. Coming down that pass in the dusk to dark was one of the most challenging rides I have ever done on a big bike, and when we finally hit pavement above the jeweled lights of Ouray below, all I could think about was a steak, a beer, a hot shower, and a warm bed. We had a surreal ride into a town that had not a single hotel room available because of the aforementioned running race. I vowed to return to Ouray on a moto trip someday under different circumstances; at a time when it was not so booked solid, and via a route that was not as white-knuckled. Darth and Esteban chose to up the ante and tackle Imogene, as well as Black Bear Pass. The beta on Black Bear is that it you screw up, you die. The rocky trail is exposed to the point where if you go off the side, you can forget it. Below is a photo of Darth’s encounter with the Orso Negro. No report on how or why this happened, only that it looked worse than it was. I’m hoping to get a few journal entries from the boys, because other than the photos below, we don’t have a narrative from the trip, other than they are back and the horses are safe in the barn.

Darth hit something with teeth on Black Bear Pass

Esteban aboard the big KTM 950 Adventure. Photo courtesy of Nathan Rafferty.

Darth Nater on top of Imogene. Photo courtesy of Nathan Rafferty.

How My Mind Works Sometimes

moto — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:17:31 +0000

I realize this post will likely create a lot of questions about what happened. I’m not a linear kind of guy when telling the story of a five-day dualsport motorcycle trip. I don’t keep a journal when I am out on the road. When you are riding in a large group (7 on this last trip), you go with the flow. I use my iPhone camera to snap some images that will help me remember the moments out on the road, and the places we have been. Then I piece the story back together in chunks that sometimes all fit together, never neatly. This post is about the Touratech Zega-Pro anodized black cases that I installed on the bike a few months ago. This was the first trip where I had them loaded to the gills. As you can see from the photos below, they got a little banged up on this trip. I learned an important lesson. Some would say a rookie mistake. When your bike is loaded up with 75 to 100 pounds of gear, the suspension handles quite differently when you are in rough terrain. That’s all I’ll say about the cause part of the cause-and-effect. This post is about the effect. The right side took quite a bashing. The pannier rack deformed enough that the box was pinching against my gas tank, but the box didn’t come off. The box itself was dented in the rear and the side, but later that night in the City of Rocks campground, my mates helped me bang it out with a two-by-four. We also took the rack off and did some blacksmithing to bend it back to the point were it wasn’t hitting my gas tank. Unfortunately there were a few cracks in the welds, so at least the right side rack will need to be replaced. The whole assembly did a lot to prevent my bike from serious damage. Check it out:

Direct side view of the right side box, post incident.

View of the box from the back. Ouch.

Walking it off after eating it in the ditch.

Kawasaki 250TR from Bike EXIF

Moto — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:05:17 +0000

via bikeexif.com

It’s really too bad these bikes are only available in Japan. The retro 70′s trail bike style would be super fun for knocking around the Wasatch Mountains. Maybe they’ll make it to the U.S.?

Rugged Roads & Adventurers Workshop

Moto — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:36:20 +0000

via ruggedroadsusa.com

Just found out about these products via an email newsletter from Adventurers Workshop. Looks like they offer some pretty stout farkles for your BMW or KTM adventure bike.

Triumph flat tracker from Bike EXIF

Moto — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:36:42 +0000

via bikeexif.com

Bike EXIF has been posting some fine specimens lately. This looks like it would be a hellafun scrambler. My rule is if it has knobbies, it’s worth taking a look.

Blood in the Streets: Landis Names Names

Moto — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:38:23 +0000

via online.wsj.com

I want my money back. I bought Floyd’s autobiography, the one where he professed his innocence, claimed he never doped, and that his Tour de France win was taken away unjustly. Here’s the deal: Floyd can’t handle getting destroyed by 19 year old amateurs in domestic U.S. races, so now he is going to point fingers at the top. Ironic this news comes out while his once “best friend” Dave Zabriskie is wearing the leader’s jersey in a race that Floyd once won. Expect more on this topic in the coming days.

Repost of 30 Years of the BMW GS from Bike EXIF

Moto — Tue, 18 May 2010 21:30:08 +0000

I don’t know what possessed BMW to give the R80 G/S a red saddle back in 1980. But it’s become one of the most enduring motorcycle liveries of all time. The G/S was designed to combine on-road and off-road qualities, just like a traditional scrambler—but unlike most scramblers, it was also an accomplished long-distance tourer. Then Hubert Auriol won the 1981 Paris—Dakar Rally, and the G/S reputation for reliability was born. The “G/S” designation (Gelände/Straße, or off-road/on-road) soon became the GS (Gelände Sport) we know today, and the Germans have dominated the adventure touring market ever since. Next month, BMW celebrates 30 years of the GS with new bikes harking back to the original livery—including that iconic red saddle, white bodywork, white indicators and a tinted windshield. There’s a great overview of the GS bikes on webBikeworld, and if that’s whetted your appetite, a terrific new book you can order called BMW GS: Adventure Motorcycle: A 30 Year Catalog, by Hans-Jugen Schneider. [Available on Amazon.]

Related:

BMW ISDT enduro racer

|BMW R69S custom

via bikeexif.com

Bike EXIF has been sharing some great knobby tire bikes lately. This post has some great history on the GS line, as well as a look at the new F800 GS special edition. Wow. An instant classic, although I am quite content with my Bumble Bee.

Ural ST from Bike EXIF

Moto — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:05:19 +0000

via bikeexif.com

There is a great post on Bike EXIF of the Ural ST, which is the first Ural I have ever seen that didn’t have a sidecar. Has anyone out there seen one of these in person?