February 2020 Newsletter
Good morning All
It’s been a month since our last update and since then the world seems to have gone a bit mad. Corona virus has brought China to a standstill and it’s evident that the effects have been felt all over the world. In the UK, biblical storms have been lashing the country from Cumbria to Cardiff and causing untold havoc to homes and businesses as they struggle to cope with unprecedented water levels. On the other side of the coin, at least a bit of rain is helping in the fire ravaged areas of Australia!
In Ride Expeditions’ world, things have thankfully not been quite so dramatic, but we’ve got great news from Mongolia, cracking videos from Cambodia and a whole new touring venture in Colombia, and Julian’s got some lovely new kit from Alpinestars to make Toby jealous.
So, let’s get on with it!
The Future is Orange
Some fantastic news to lead on this month as we’re delighted to announce that for our epic new Mongolian tour ‘The Warriors Trail’, we will be using a fleet of sparkly new 2020 KTM EXC450Fs. It’s pretty much the ideal bike to explore this enormous country and the truly epic landscape. From the sweeping trails that cut across the wide grasslands to the epic tracks that pass through the uplands and cool Larch forests, Mongolia is a place that any motorcyclist would want to explore and armed with our new KTMs, there’s pretty much nowhere we can’t go.
If you want any more convincing, check out our fantastic video from Ian, Ride Expeditions’ hugely talented, if perennially unlucky, film maker-extraordinaire. It’s epic!
Up for it? Simply send Anna an email on anna@rideexpeditions.com and she’ll take it from there – you know it makes sense …
Head for the Hills
So, our rather fantastic Hill Tribe Expedition in Laos is scheduled for November this year, and it’s such a little gem of a tour, that we thought it deserved a moment in the spotlight. This eight-day adventure starts and ends in the beautiful UNESCO world heritage city of Luang Prabang and takes a meandering circular route up into the remote hills of Laos that a regular tourist would never see. We’ll ride some of the best trails in the world, through truly stunning landscape and stay in everything from luxury resorts to cosy homestays. We’ll cross the Mekong on canoe ferries, and picnic by the shores of the great river. We’ll even try the local rice whisky, Laos Loa (which might be the name of the drink or the only thing you can say after a few glasses, you’ll have to join us and find out for yourself)
This is definitely one of the most special trips on our calendar!
THE Zip-line is a Go!
So, on the recent Tough One tour in Cambodia (since upgraded to The Tumble in the Jungle) , Toby, Vut and the team had a very important mission – to make a motorcycle fly! But before you start thinking we’ve teamed up with NASA, let’s wind it back – quite literally!
When we run this tour in November, the trails can be very wet and many of the river crossings that we would normally ride the bikes through become deep enough to totally drown out the motors and sometimes even completely cover the bike! Now in the past, we’ve resorted to carrying the bikes or floating them over on lorry inner tubes, but our esteemed leader has always dreamed of sending the bikes across on a zip line, whizzing its way to the other side with a rider on the seat.
And after hours of trial and error, over 80 metres of steel cable and the collective expertise of five Cambodians, nine Kiwis, one American and one enthusiastic Pom, the dream has become reality. Our crash test dummy for this first flight was the fearless Dan, trip organiser for the New Zealand posse and a man who clearly has either no fear of perhaps no concept of pain. After the bike had flown solo a few times, Dan put on his helmet, got onto the saddle and with a swift prayer to Hundy, the God of Foolish Endeavour, zipped across the river successfully in a blur of blue and silver.
Here’s the proof!
I Love Horses!
..And so do we, as EquiTreks launches it’s first tours in Colombia! Yes, it’s long been a dream of Anna, Ride Expeditions co-founder, to expand our tours into the, apparently lovely, world of horse riding. When not dealing with all the logistics of running our multiple tours, Anna’s mind is filled with images of epic equine endeavours – traversing untouched natural landscapes to the sound of nothing but galloping hooves and enjoying classy picnic lunches surrounded by happily grazing four-legged companions.
So, when we went on our Colombian recce trip last year, Anna and Toby – but mostly Anna – was able to put plans in place to start running proper horse riding tours in this wonderfully beautiful country. On the inaugural ‘Gaucho Gallop’ we’ll ride epic trails, have a private polo lesson with an international polo player, go for a night ride and gallop across wide plains on our stunning Colombian steeds.
If you or your partner fancy a bit of this and are free for a couple of weeks in January 2021– please feel free to view the tour page here or get in touch with Anna via email at: anna@rideexpeditions.com
BLOG JAM
With Julian away for most of January, the blogs are few and far between, but what’s there, is solid gold. So fresh from the jungles of South East Asia, we’ve got 7 great reasons to go riding in Cambodia, and to help those newbies out there, next week we’ll have 10 basic tips for off-road adventure bike riding.
Read and enjoy folks.
And finally
To finish off, we’re going with a great highlight video from the guys at Enduro Life shot at the recent BasSella Race in Spain – We can all ride this stuff, right?