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Destination reports and road notes — the routes worth the detour, the passes that earn their reputation, and the ones that don't. Ridden first, written after.
When your lower back complains after two hours and your forearms shut down, you start looking for the fault on the motorcycle. Usually it sits somewhere else. Colorado made that very clear to me over 1,060 miles.
The two questions that decide the future of a used engine cannot be answered by any mechanic. In Colorado I spent 1,060 miles on a motorcycle that answered them by itself.
Suspension tuning does not have to cost money. Set your preload properly and you change how the whole motorcycle behaves within minutes, for free and immediately. A field report from the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route on an Aprilia Tuareg 660.
There is one sentence you never want on camera during a trip. I said it anyway, in the middle of Colorado, in front of a river we did not cross. Two days later I was grateful for it.
On gravel your eyes get pulled down to the rocks in front of the wheel. That is exactly where they must not go. I made that mistake again in Colorado after twenty years of riding, and fixing it cost nothing but a thought.
Freezing mornings in Yellowstone, 106 degrees in southern France, rain at 12,000 feet in Colorado. No question follows me on my travels as stubbornly as what to wear off-road. An honest reckoning.
Ninety-nine degrees in the valley, barely above freezing on the pass, and 12,900 feet in between. Here's how you pack for a trip where the weather changes its mind three times a day.
1,060 miles of real backcountry, passes near 13,000 feet, a rental bike with 21,000 miles on the clock. What the Aprilia Tuareg 660 truly delivers, and where it falls short.
Up on the pass, near 12,800 feet, a stranger grinds fresh espresso. Welcome to the America no tourist sees, reachable only on an adventure bike.
745 miles of official route, passes near 13,000 feet, and a day with no gas station at all. What you need to know before you plan the Colorado BDR.
Four ride modes, five traction settings, rear ABS you can switch off. Here's what counts in real high-country gravel, and where the electronics hit a wall.
In Colorado the landscape starts where the Alps stop. On treelines, scale, and the distances you have to relearn before the riding makes sense.
There's a moment after the first river crossing when it clicks: this place forgives nothing. Romania's Southern Carpathians are the wildest enduro terrain Europe packs into one range. The question isn't whether it's beautiful. It's whether you're up to it.
Running 43 psi on coarse gravel sounds wrong. On a trip with no workshop within hours, it's a deliberate choice against the flat, and it has a price.
For three days I was certain this bike and I would never be friends. Then came a pass at 12,640 feet, and the whole thing turned around.
Range, standing ergonomics, load reserve. Nine criteria an adventure bike has to answer for, checked against real high-country gravel rather than a spec sheet.
There are motorcycle trips you plan with your head. And then there are the ones that start somewhere deeper. Colorado is firmly the second kind. In July 2026 we line up two Aprilia Tuareg 660s on the Backcountry Discovery Route.
It is not a launch event. It is not a magazine shoot. It is the Concorso d'Eleganza at Villa d'Este — and BMW dropped a six-cylinder K18 concept onto the same lawn as cars worth more than houses. Here is what Lake Como looked like this year.
When BMW says 'Concorde on wheels,' they actually mean it. The K 18 Vision landed on the Villa d'Este lawn last weekend wearing a 1,800 cc inline-six like a piece of industrial sculpture — and made everyone forget Lake Como was even there.
For a Central European rider, Utah does not compute the first time you stand in it. Salt Lake City to Kanab on a Beta RR 2T X-Pro 200, in a small group on a mix of enduros. Slickrock, sand, water crossings, slot canyons. Here is what stuck.