Road trips
Our road-only trips are based on a mixture of fast twisties, high mountain passes, long desert straights and winding gorge roads that will take your breath away!
The focus will be on seeing the country, the culture, the amazing variation in scenery and the awesome natural beauty of Morocco, rather than off road adventuring.
Highlights are likely to include the Valley of the Roses, the Todra Gorge, the spectacular and challenging Tizi-n-Test and Tizi-n-Tichka passes, the Draa Valley with its lush green Oasis and some of the nicest twisties you’ll ever see, as well as a visit to the thousand foot high cathedral sand dunes of Erg Chebbi near Merzouga .We vary the routes according to weather and time of year -it can be unpleasant and dangerous at 50°C so if it gets too hot, we head for the mountains, and Road touring in the snow isn’t what we want to give you so if it’s too cold in the High Atlas we head for the deserts more)
Nearly all of the roads will be metalled tarmac (normal tarmac roads with a metalwork frame underlying it rather than a track with loose tarmac strewn on top), but there may be a short sections of hard, compact gravel (To get to the Bedouin camp near Merzouga for example) and from time to time we will encounter some rough or degraded roads. It will however be suitable for any road legal bike of over 500cc on street tyres (or road legal knobblies if you’d prefer)
The trips are perfect for pillions, those who don’t want to go off roading and for any bike over around 500cc (we’d like you to be able to cruise at a sensible speed for the long desert roads without holding the group up, so sub-500cc machines probably won’t be too suitable)
Basically, any bike of around 500cc or above that is road legal and in good condition is suitable for a road based tour.
We see everything from Harleys to old classic British bikes, super scoots to full on superbikes in Morocco, so whatever you enjoy riding is fine.
You don’t have to carry luggage, as that is all taken in our support truck, so you don’t have to have panniers fitted- We do strongly advise that you have some way of carrying a couple of litres of water, a camera and so on, so a small topbox or dry bag on a rear rack is a good idea.(failing that, a small rucksack with a water bladder like a camelback system is required- Don’t underestimate how hot Morocco can get!)
Your bike should have enough tyre wear left in it to do up to 3000 miles (or bring a spare that we can have fitted/fit ourselves) and your brakes should be up to the job as well- we do go up and down some steep and twisty mountain roads and crash barriers are not something that spoil the views very often, so you will need to be able to ride safely on this type of road.
As well as having enough wear left on them to do the trip, your tyres should be in good condition and road legal by European standards-Moroccan roads can get quite rough at times with frost damage, potholes and from time to time, sand blown across the road, so sticky racing tyres are not at al recommended!
Dual sport bikes with Knobbly or dual-purpose tyres are also fine and you shouldn’t worry about their performance on the road- several of our tour lead riders run Continental TKC80 tyres for every trip and there are few people who will keep up with some of them on the twisty roads even on road tyres!
Our road trips are focussed on seeing the beauty and variety of the country, taking in the scenery and culture rather than ‘hooning around’, so we set a sensible pace all through the trip…..we all enjoy the riding side of things as well, so riders who enjoy twisties and fast straights will have ample opportunity to play, but we always re-group before going through a main town.
This means that less experienced riders or those on slower bikes shouldn’t have any problems on one of our road trips and shouldn’t worry about ’slowing everybody down’ – we do ask that you speak to us if you have notched up less than around 2000 miles on the road on a large capacity machine or have held a full license for less than two years though.
All of our road trips are suitable for pillions.
The maximum distance we ride in a day is around 350 miles, with the normal day being between 150 and 200 miles, so seat comfort is important , particularly if you have a pillion (which usually means you can’t move around so much to stretch and so on)
We do, however, stop frequently for photographs , ‘comfort breaks’ and drinks, as well as having a sensible lunch break, so the day’s riding is broken up nicely.
Our support vehicle also has spare seats, so if your pillion wants a break, that’s no problem either- sometimes seeing the scenery from a car without a helmet and riding gear on can seem like a nice change to even the keenest pillion passenger!
