Riding the Trans Euro Trail
There’s a 31,000-mile on and off-road route across Europe to be explored
‘A burst of excitement hits as we turn off the tarmac’
Imagine if there was a spectacular route that traversed the whole of Europe specifically designed for motorcyclists, open to everyone and free to ride. Well there is. Inspired by the Trans America Trail, the TET (Trans Euro Trail) is a 31,000-mile predominantly off-road route across the continent and runs to the top of Norway, to the bottom of Greece and to the edges of Portugal to the west, and Romania and Turkey to the east – not forgetting the UK. It’s a community-derived network pulled together by experts called Linesman who are rich with local knowledge. The idea is that it is 100% legal with the simple ethos of encouraging respectful motorcyclists to embark on a ride or an adventure of a lifetime. Typically aimed at smaller bikes, the TET is also tackled by many on big adventure machines. It’s not a race or a competition, so if the going gets too tough, you can simply turn around or find an alternative route.
With 38 countries and thousands of miles to choose from, you have to make a call on where to go and what part to ride. With a week to play with rather than the months needed to ride the whole thing, my brother Chris and I decided to tackle northern Spain. After 24 hours on the easy, pain-free Brittany Ferries crossing from Portsmouth to Bilbao, we head directly south for just over 60 miles before picking up the TET – represented by a pale purple line on our Garmin Montana satnavs. Our weapons of choice for the trip are a Honda Africa Twin Adventure Sport and a KTM 1090 Adventure
R – both fitted out with soft luggage and off-road focused Mitas E-09 tyres. The reason for the luggage is that we want to be as self-sufficient as possible so we’re fully equipped with all our camping and cooking equipment in addition to a handy range of spares.
A burst of excitement hits us the moment we turn off the tarmac and onto a dirt track for the first time. We don’t really know what to expect from the TET, but two hours later we’re grinning from ear to ear. The tracks are easy going and apart from dropping the tyre pressures and selecting the off-road setting on the Honda and KTM, our transition to the dirt is seamless.
Day two continues in the same vein but seemingly with every mile travelled the scenery gets better and the riding more interesting. Our long days of riding are intertwined with freshly brewed coffee at the top of mountains and wild camping in some of the region’s most remote and stunning surroundings.
The riding continues to throw up new perspectives each day, from picturesque hillside villages to uninterrupted trails through woodlands opening up onto abandoned churches.
In terms of the riding, it’s all
achievable on our fully loaded adventure bikes, apart from one downhill trail that looks like it’s been washed away by recent rain. With time on our hands we decide to recce the route before committing to it. Deciding discretion is the better part of valour, we turn around and find a gentler way to descend. Having been riding east towards Andorra for four days, we now have two days to get back to
Santander and make our ferry to the UK. There’s no way we can cover the miles needed riding exclusively on the dirt so we decide on a mix of TET and roads – and it works perfectly. The roads are arguably just as stunning and at times almost as remote as the mountain tracks we’ve been used to. The sections of the TET we rode before seemed unfamiliar on the return route – and they are. We somehow manage to ride tracks that we missed out first time round, probably due to a diversion to a campsite or food stop. And while I’d like to put it down to planning and Dakar levels of navigation – it wasn’t, it was luck, but we’ll take it.
Like all epic journeys that start with the luxury of time and opportunity, reality soon bites. One week after heading into the unknown we’re done. Seven days doesn’t sound long, but when you throw yourself into things it’s plenty of time to have an adventure that you’ll never forget.
Only 37 countries and 30,500 more miles to explore…