You don’t always pick the trip — sometimes the trip picks you
There are motorcycle trips you plan with your head. Spreadsheet, fuel stops, hotel grid locked in six months out. And then there are the ones that just won’t leave you alone. Colorado has been knocking around the back of my skull for years. Bluntly put: this one wasn’t a decision. It was a slow, quiet ambush.
What three US trips already taught me
I’ve spent serious time on American dirt over the past few years. Three big trips, mostly offroad, working my way roughly from south to north across this absurdly oversized country. Desert. Forest. Endless highway. Dust trails that look like nothing on the map and break your wrists by mile fifteen. Tiny towns where the gas pump looks older than the guy running the register. And that uniquely American sense of scale you can’t really wrap a European head around. You ride and ride and ride, and the map barely twitches.
Here’s the thing nobody warns you about before your first US trip: the scale doesn’t shrink as you get used to it. You just stop expecting it to.
Colorado is the one I want to go up for
Every one of those trips played out mostly at low-desert dust and forest pass elevation. Colorado is the one where I want to go up. Way up. The kind of altitude that, back home in Austria, means you’ve already swapped boots for crampons and the bike is parked at the trailhead. Out there, that’s just a Tuesday on the route.
Here’s why this state has me by the throat: it’s the mix. Wild high country. Lonely backcountry. Abandoned mining towns slowly losing the war with the weather. Gravel that bites. Water crossings that don’t look like much until you’re in one. Real passes, real exposure. None of it pretending to be a Sunday tour.
The route: Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route
In July 2026 we go. Two of us, on Aprilia Tuareg 660s, with a week carved out and the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route waiting at the start line. The COBDR runs roughly 1,080 miles through some of the wildest country in the state, and we’re rolling it as a self-guided trip with Colorado Motorcycle Adventures. Route, GPS file, Butler map, and the local logistics are sorted before we land. The riding is all on us.
That structure is gold for a European. You don’t want to spend half your trip in a hotel lobby arguing with a printer about your rental paperwork. You want to be in the saddle by ten. The operator handles the logistical knots. We handle the rocks.
The altitude calendar runs the show
Here’s the part most folks underestimate: Colorado doesn’t open and close its riding season on your timeline. The mountains do. Snow into May isn’t unusual up high. Fall can slam the door shut faster than you’d think. The window where the high passes are actually rideable is narrow, and “summer” is the only honest answer to “when can I come?”
That narrow window is exactly what makes the place feel worth the trouble. You don’t earn Colorado by rolling up in April and saying “we’ll figure it out.” You earn it by lining up your calendar with what the mountains will allow.
This isn’t a beginner trip — and I respect that they say so
Colorado Motorcycle Adventures is upfront about it: the COBDR isn’t a starter program. It’s an adventure route for riders with real offroad miles on big bikes. That kind of honesty in a tour pitch is rare, and I’m grateful for it. Saves both sides a lot of grief on day three.
Hand on heart: I’m not walking into this thing assuming I’ve got it figured out. I’ve raced rallies, ridden plenty of dirt, eaten my share of soil. But altitude exposure on a fully loaded Tuareg through high-desert switchbacks is a different math problem than anything in the Alps. We’re drilling fundamentals right now. Slow-speed control. Picking lines through loose stuff. Water-crossing technique. Weight balance on long descents. The plan is to show up sharp, not cocky.
The Alpine reference only gets you halfway
I keep catching myself comparing Colorado to home. Austrian riders know mountain weather. We know switchbacks. We know what a wet pass does to your nerves at 7,000 feet. But out there the scale is different. The distances are American. Some days the trail goes on longer than your fuel range. The loneliness is a different flavor too — fewer cars, fewer roofs, more sky than you’ve ever stood under.
There’s a connection, though. Same love. Mountains, two wheels, all day. Just dialed way up.
Why I’m taking you along
We’re going in July 2026, and we’re filming and writing the whole thing. The messy parts too. The bits before sunrise where you’re not totally sure you want to put the helmet on. The moments where the bike doesn’t go where you pointed it. The campfire where you remember why you do this at all.
If you’ve been quietly stewing on a similar plan — Moab, the UTBDR, the San Juan loops, anything where the air gets thin and the cell service vanishes — I hope this nudges you forward. Get the skills first. Pick the right window. Respect the altitude. Then go.
I’ve got a strong feeling this is going to be one of the biggest rides of my life. We’ll see if it earns the hype. Either way, you’ll hear about it.