WHO IS BERT:
At the age of 2 I was thrown on the ski slopes in Austria, or dragged around the world in the van of my parents. They took me high up on the mountains for awesome hikes and wild camping trips. I guess you could say that adventures and wandering the world is in my blood: my parents went for more than 8 months to Asia for their honeymoon, they love traveling, outdoor activities and the mountain life; my grandparents, well… they are both almost 90 and still travel through whole Europe with their mobile home!
I just finished my PhD as an Industrial Engineer in Product Design and I now want to start a new adventure! Having travelled to several countries with different kind of transports, I found out that motorcycle travel could be the best trade-off between mobility, interaction with world and pack ability. So, I bought myself an old bike (a 1998 Honda Transalp 600) and started planning! Being an industrial designer as profession, I like to design things and work on the bike by myself: I installed a custom-made carbon fiber rally fairing, upgraded the suspension, redesigned the “dashboard”, upgraded the bash plate, installed new lights, made a new saddle, etc.
Being passionate about adventure motorcycling, photography and mountain sports such as alpinism, climbing, snowboarding and skiing, I want to integrate this into my trip.
THE TRAVEL:
My goals for this big trip are:
– never take highways (you simply can’t!)
– ride as much as possible off-road (and probably wet your pants once in a while on the trail with that heavy bike)
– wild camp when possible (if you don’t get disturbed)
– be self-sufficient
– rock climb or perform some mountaineering in every country
I will start my trip in Belgium and ride all the way to the Himalayas. This through the Balkan region where I’ll be riding the TET routes (Trans Euro Trails): an off-road trial all the way through Europe, similar to the Trans America Trail. Following this, I’ll be searching for the finest off-road routes I can find through Greece, Turkey, Iran and the -Stan countries. From Tajikistan I’ll ride to Pakistan (over China), followed by India, Nepal and Bangladesh. I will start the first days of April and ride for 9 months.
