FLY-RIDES OF A LIFETIME
Start your journey by plane, and visit the four corners of the globe.
Seattle to Los Angeles on the PCH
» Out with Route 66, in with the Pacific Coast Highway. Where the ’66 is a flat, straight, uneventful stretch of road, the PCH can’t go 500 metres without a healthy dose of corners. Plus, the beaches are full of seals and the trees are large enough to drive cars through. Running the length of the West Coast, from the northern wilds of Washington State to the public gym on Venice Beach, the PCH is the best epic biking route in the Un-United States.
Tourwith: orange-and-black.co.uk
Length: 1500 miles Duration: 12 days
From: £3895pp
Australia’s great ocean road
» West of Geelong and the surfing mecca of Torquay, lies a coast sprouting monolithic stacks of limestone. The most famous stretch of these is called the Twelve Apostles, although only seven rocks remain and there were only eight to begin with. The coastal cliffs themselves are broken into headlands, towering over yellow sands like so many beached oil tankers, with a road that gallops through the hills between them. Homesick? Toddle over to the town of Peterborough and grab a coffee at the charming antique store.
Tourwith: bikeroundoz.com Length: 530 miles Duration: 4 days From: £801pp
Ride the fjords to nordkapp
» Timing is everything with any motorcycle trip to Norway. Confuse April with August and frostbite will set in somewhere around the Lofoten Islands. In summer, though, expect 10°C highs at Nordkapp and 8°C lows thanks to a sun that doesn’t bother setting between 20 May and 20 July. But arguably the real stars of any trip to the
Arctic Circle are the fjords you’ll cross on the way there: sheer, brutal faces of granite that slice deep into the waters of the Norwegian Sea. Fly into Oslo to pick up your bike.
Tourwith: mcitours.com
Length: 2100 miles
Duration: 14 days
From: £3000pp
Cross the Himalayas on an Enfield
» Popping over the highest mountain range in the world sounds as crazy an undertaking on paper as it feels from the cockpit of a puttering Royal Enfield. Especially, that is, if you include some of the most dangerous roads in the world. Rohtang Pass in India literally means ‘pile of corpses’, and Nepal’s Prithvi Highway regularly shuts when landslides destroy sections
‘Popping over the highest mountain range in the world sounds crazy on a puttering Royal Enfield’
of road. Next, search out these bottom-clenchingly terrifying passes: Zoji La is cut directly into sheer rock face, and Chang La summits at 5349 metres – the equivalent of 39 stacked London Eyes – and provides views at least 39 times better too.
Tourwith: nomadicknights.com Length: 1300 miles Duration: 12 days From: £3730pp
Island-hop ping in southeast asia
» Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia… fabulously rewarding places to ride a motorcycle, and all connected by land or ferry. You’ll be stuffed with even more culture than on a visit to Liverpool (European Capital of Culture 2008, don’t cha know). Cross the Strait of Malacca between Port Klang in Malaysia and Dumai on Sumatra. After that it’s non-stop to Bali, where you can show off your two-wheel skills to gap year youths as they crash their clapped-out scooters on the next gravel bend.
Tourwith: edelweissbike.com Length: 5000 miles Duration: 48 days From: £13,800pp
New zealand: south island
» Dividing a country 11% larger than the UK between a population of just 4.9 million people means there are vast tracts of empty space. When it comes to the road system, Kiwis just can’t relate to queueing on the Basingstoke bypass.
The whole country is very special, but the South
Island is really spectacular, with amazing scenery from rain forest to fjords and snow capped mountains that are all best seen from the saddle of a motorcycle.
Tourwith: paradise motorcycletours.co.nz Length: 1500 miles Duration: 11 days
From: £4650pp
The highest mountain on earth*
If South America were a Triumph Speed Triple pulling a wheelie, the Andes mountain range would be its aluminium perimeter frame. The huge, knifelike mountains run from the headstock (Darien Gap) far southwards, only petering out near the tail light of Ushuaia. And although the Torres del Paine National Park far to the south of Peru is confuddlingly beautiful, you need a right old trudge along straight roads to get there. Instead, focus twowheeled efforts on the motorcycling sweet spot of Ecuador, home to the highest mountain on Earth. (*Measured from the planet’s core.)
Tourwith: freedombikerental.com Length: 1000 miles Duration: 10 days From: £3120pp