With friends like mine I’m bound to constantly leave my comfort zone! Let me tell you what I did today. As I said yesterday, I planned my first ride of the year, basically a warm-up. The usual route north of Bucharest: Otopeni – Adâncata – Mizil, with a lunch stop at Licorna winery, then back on whatever road felt right. We stopped by the Motorpark race track to see the cars competing in Retro Racing, admired the rapeseed fields, had something to eat, and enjoyed the twisty roads over Prahova hills.
Alex, an experienced rider and rally guy, had been nagging me for a while to take the GS off the asphalt. I kept refusing: I’m a beginner, I’m scared, I’ve never ridden a motorcycle on gravel before… excuses. He said he “just wanted to check if there were puddles” on a cool road he knew, and that we’d turn back if it got bad. I even deliberately wore my short riding boots that morning, because I had decided today was not the day for my off-road debut — so I definitely didn’t need proper boots.
Somewhere in a random village on the way back, we turned left… straight onto an unpaved road. Alex still doesn’t have comms on the bike, so I just followed him and thought well, here goes nothing, since there was nobody to argue with. It was a rural street in “good” condition, and after the first few meters it didn’t seem that bad.
// Just so you understand how scared I was of “non-asphalt”: in Cyprus I once parked on the road next to a parking lot simply because the surface had potholes and grass, and I was sure I’d drop the rental bike.
Anyway, after a few hundred meters we stop, take those photos of me happily celebrating that I had “ridden off-road” (I had absolutely no idea what was coming), and I agree to continue riding up the hill — “and if I don’t like it, we turn back.”
That’s when it started: gravel, ruts, grooves, rocks, holes, river stones packed into the road – it was an oil-field service road, like a proper rally special stage. Google Maps says it’s about 7 km long. You even screenshoted the map so those of you who know the area can tell me if that road is considered easy, medium, or hard for adventure bikes.
All I know is that I absolutely loved it and I think you can see it in the video (my GoPro was already in the top case because I was convinced I wouldn’t ride off-road today…). I’m so proud that I didn’t turn back! I couldn’t have anyway – I had switched into rally mode: reading the road, trusting the bike, focusing corner by corner and never letting fear take control. If I had stopped, I’m sure restarting would’ve been much harder. So I just kept going after Lascu, adding throttle just like I would in a rally car.
Okay, don’t imagine we’ll see each other at Romaniacs anytime soon… but in a few years – who knows. The important thing is that I didn’t fall and I gained huge confidence.
Once again I confirmed that I chose an incredible motorcycle, and the Michelin Anakee Adventure tires were fantastic too – even though they’re designed 80% for asphalt and 20% for gravel. I’m already thinking about switching to Anakee Wild this summer, because I’m pretty sure I’ll be diving deeper into this whole off-road-on-two-wheels thing.
So thank you, Alex, for the encouragement – this was one of the coolest days I’ve ever had on a motorcycle!
