Mission Madagascar

The villagers heard the rumble of the bikes drawing slowly closer, and by the time they saw the first emerge from the forest they were already lining the main track, six-deep through their village.

- Jon Bentman

Touratech created a new concept for 2016, inviting fellow adventurists to join them on an all-expenses paid experience in Madagascar on a ride known as the United People of Adventure (UPoA). Over 200 applied for the six positions, and those six certainly got to experience what Touratech calls real adventure....

Six-deep just about describes the depth of the sand that constituted the village’s main track, too—it was deep and it grabbed mercilessly at the wheels of the UPoA machines. The villagers whooped and hollered in the mid-day heat as the riders crashed over and over, in a struggle to keep the near300kg machines upright. In the villagers’ eyes this had to be comedy gold, while for the UPoA riders it was torture— and behind the visors of their Aventuro helmets sweat stung their eyes. One person’s adventure is clearly another’s situation comedy.

Yes, it pays to have a good sense of humor if you want to venture into the unknown on a fully loaded adventure bike. If not, the challenges, the mishaps, the sometimes sheer ridiculousness of the undertaking, can unravel you. And seeing as how the inaugural Touratech United People of Adventure ride into Madagascar very quickly became an exercise in the extreme, good humor certainly was a welcomed attitude.

The concept behind the UPoA was to unite six individuals from the six main continents for a serious adventure ride. It’s a brand new concept from Herbert and Ramona Schwarz of Touratech.

“It was Ramona’s idea,” explains Herbert Schwarz (joint-CEO of Touratech). “But we developed the idea together, not just Ramona and me, but with our team at Touratech. Essentially the UPoA is everything that Touratech is—adventurous risk-taking but also fun, the stuffof dreams.”