Tabernas to Almería: The First Real Dirt
They call it the only desert in Europe. Standing in the middle of it at noon, with the heat shimmering off the gravel and nothing but orange rock in every direction, I believed them.
EST. 2019 · BAVARIA / MUNICH
// KILOMETERS. DIRT. STORIES. BREAKDOWNS. REPEAT. //
LATEST DISPATCH
Day three out of Ouarzazate, the tarmac ends without warning. No sign. No barrier. Just a line where the road stops being a road and becomes something older — rutted orange piste snaking toward the erg. I stood on the pegs and let the bike find its way.
READ FULL REPORT →ROUTE TRACE · STAGE 12 · MAR
31.6295°N · 8.0093°W
FIELD REPORTS
They call it the only desert in Europe. Standing in the middle of it at noon, with the heat shimmering off the gravel and nothing but orange rock in every direction, I believed them.
The forecast said "chance of snow above 1,400m." I was at 1,800m when the first flake hit my visor. The road became white before I reached the col. I kept going. I shouldn't have.
The road through the canyon drops 800 meters in twelve kilometers. I took it slow the first time. Then turned around and did it again, fast, with the sun dropping behind the ridge.
The first long trip. No planning, no GPS mount, a folded map wedged under the tank bag, and a tire that went soft in Salamanca. I fixed it in a car park and bought coffee from a machine.
The pass sits at 2,260 meters. In October, when the light turns copper and the shadows lengthen across the scree, there is no better road on earth. I say that every year. I mean it every time.
Rode through the night. Rain from Innsbruck to the Brenner. Stopped at a petrol station at 3am, hands cramped, visor fogged, ate a chocolate bar in a lit doorway like a fugitive.
HOMOLOGATION SHEET
// FIELD MODIFICATIONS & UPGRADES
COMPLETED ROUTES
Every line on a map is a decision made at a junction. These are the ones I don't regret.
OPERATIONAL THEATRE — EUROPE / NORTH AFRICA
LEGEND: ━━ COMPLETED · ╌╌ PLANNED
TRIP LOG
Morocco Loop
Balkans Deep Run
Pyrenees November
Paris → Lisbon
Black Forest → Dolomites
Central Asia — Planned
THE RIDER
I ride because the map runs out. Because there is a point — usually around hour six, somewhere past the last petrol station you should have stopped at — where the noise in your head goes quiet and the only thing that matters is the road and what's on the other side of it.
I started late. Licence at 31. First bike was a wreck — a 2003 F650 Dakar with a cracked fairing and a speedo that read ten percent high. I loved it. Sold it three years later and immediately regretted it.
This blog is a log. Not an itinerary, not a guide. I write these entries in guesthouses and parking lots and once on the floor of a garage outside Figueres where a mechanic was rebuilding my front brake. They're honest. The bad days are in here too.
BASE CAMP: MUNICH, GERMANY
RIDING SINCE: 2012
CURRENT BIKE: BMW R 1200 GS, 2017
COMPETITOR · MOTO AVENTURE
72
FRANK MAYER