Story: Missing In Adventure

Does embracing dual-purpose bikes suggest we’re ageing disgracefully, or simply becoming more practical? We marry inexperienced adventure riders with BMW’s 650 Sertao and Yamaha’s 660 Ténéré and head to the hills to find out. 

“I’ve got no idea what snow clouds look like, but by the looks of those fast-moving fluffy things up ahead, I’d say we’re about to ride into a snowstorm!” Davo is an old buddy of mine, so I let the contradiction of his astute roadside weather ‘analysis’ slide. “Glad I grabbed myself a pair of decent gloves for this three-day caper – despite your advice to the contrary, Andy,” he says with a sideways snigger at my paper-thin gloves. Smithy then chimes in from the seat of the other bike: “Yep, snow’s forecast down to a thousand metres altitude tonight. Saw it on the inflight news broadcast this morning, and my iPhone’s weather apps are all saying the same thing.”

I see Smith is also sporting a pair of gloves that wouldn’t be out of place on an Eskimo, and consider pressing them both about why they’d failed to mention the likelihood of sub-zero temps and snowfalls back at Sydney Airport, where we’d collected Smith in glorious sunshine earlier in the day. But I decide to save it for a fireside discussion up at Geoff Ballard’s farm, where the three of us plan to rendezvous with GB later that night.

“Listen, you mincers,” I growl, glancing down at the BMW 1200’s info-stacked digi dash. “Five degrees is really not that cold and hardly the kind of temperatures that bring snow. Okay, it’s just dropped to four. But switch your bloody grip warmers on and see if you can survive the next 25 gruelling kilometres of tarmac up to Ballard’s joint, where you’ll be pampered with an open fire, cooked meal, hot shower and cosy bed.”

But as I gaze up the road, I notice it disappears into some very ominous-looking clouds, which have suddenly brought on a 4pm ‘sunset’. And before we’ve even travelled 10 kays, the temperature readout on the 1200’s dash has fallen to 3 degrees … 2 degrees … 1 degree! Then the LED starts flashing, which I assume is a black ice warning. But by this stage, my visor’s fogged, and we’re engulfed by torrential rain that quickly morphs into sleet and then full-blown snow. I can’t even tell whether I’m on the black stuff or the brown shoulders that flank it. Everything underfoot feels like slop or ice, or both. I pop my visor open for some directional assurance, and a snowflake spears me fair in the eyeball. It hurts like hell and it’s all I can do not to collect the Armco.

Thankfully, the three of us manage to tippy-toe into Ballard’s property without incident. The snow is already a couple of inches deep on the front lawn, and it feels as though we’ve arrived at some cedar lodge hideaway in Canada’s Rocky Mountains. Smith fumbles for his camera to capture the white phenomenon. Davo and I fire up the workshop’s cast-iron combustion burner that Ballard has kindly prepared for us, and stare out into the white-speckled darkness like a couple of kids ogling at snow for the first time in their lives.

At this point, it dawns on me that I’m travelling with two full-time professional photographers who both take the task of being ‘in sync’ with weather patterns very seriously, and I contemplate my complete lack of preparation for this trip. For the first time all day, I notice that Smith is sporting a swanky head-to-toe adventure ‘suit’ he’d taken home after a Triumph bike launch he recently shot. Davo looks every bit as warm and toasty in his own set of top-shelf gear he’d blagged from a distributor a few years back, and worn a sum total of twice since. I’m sporting your average trail-spec riding gear, and feeling horribly undergunned. My hands and legs are frozen to the bone, but I at least had the good sense to zip the liner back into my enduro jacket before leaving Sydney Airport.

“How are the mitts feeling, Andy?,” Davo inquires with mock concern. “Toasty on the palm-side – care of the grip warmers, thanks mate – but frozen top-sides,” I confess. “You?” To Davo’s credit, he refrains from serving me up an, ‘I told you so!’ or cocking on about how warm his hands are. Or maybe I just stopped listening. In any case, I quickly change the subject by grabbing a set of ‘elephant ears’ that Ballard has left on the workbench for us, and explain how my MX gloves and these simple, grip-engulfing devices will offer both warmth and dexterity for the big bike’s controls. The boys are unconvinced, and carry on comparing Gortex grades and other features on their fancy waterproof adventure suits. Fashion victims!

My gear’s sodden in some spots and crisp in others, so I tear it off. It stands upright next to the fireplace for a minute or two before collapsing in its own melt-pool, and I riffle through my bag for something warm and dry. A hearty feed of steak, potato and red wine is just the tonic for our thawing brainsicles, and some time in the fireside massage chair helps relegate the afternoon’s chilling encounter to the sensory backburner.

It’s still snowing when Ballard and Brownie arrive in their trailer-towing motorhome around 10pm, and the duo burst through the front door in a plume of steamy breath and profanity about the frigid weather. Brownie’s a long-time mate of GB’s and the two have returned from racing the Masters class at an Amcross round at Bega on the NSW south coast. Evidently, they’ve also had their fair share of sketchy moments on the icy mountain roads. They huddle around the fire and wrap themselves around a glass of red. We retire to the workshop, stoke its fire to ensure the sleeping quarters directly above get some warmth, and suss the weather report. It looks like we’ll be lucky to see maximum temps anywhere north of 5 degrees for days, so Ballard and I custom-fit the elephant ears to the bikes to ward off the wind-chill. I scrounge a pair of GB’s old adventure riding duds. They might be a size too small, but they’re waterproof and come with a fleecy liner I like the looks of, and a cable-tie works a treat to secure the waist. I claim a disowned balaclava from the corner of the workshop, have a quick chat with the boys about tomorrow’s plan, and toddle off to bed, feeling a whole lot more contented and element-proof.

We feel like a posse of arctic adventurers the following morning as we gear up for the 300km route up to Mount Wilson, through to a few small townships down on the Hawkesbury River and back again. It feels strange to be riding out of GB’s, as we’re more accustomed to using the loops on his property as a destination for testing and photography. This time around, “Ballaranch” is our base station for a couple of frozen forays into a network of riding terrain Ballard assures us we’ll love. “It’s picturesque, a decent mix of road and dirt, has a few sketchy singletrail bits, and some options en route to stop for coffee and food,” GB summarises, before throwing a leg over his big Beemer and disappearing out the front gate. Brownie, meanwhile, has taken one look at the weather and decided it’s a good day to be indoors.

Despite running Yamaha’s national off-road race program for the best part of a decade, Ballard has evolved into a addicted adventure rider these days. And despite the racing ties with Yami, he’s become something of an unofficial ambassador for BMW’s adventure bikes – more specifically, the R 1200 GS Adventure that he and his mates regularly take on long, challenging rides (GB also has two adventure-modified XT660s). And it soon becomes apparent that GB’s got this adventure caper dialled. We wind a picturesque path up the western slopes of the Blue Mountains via routes the rest of us have never even known about, but which are less than 5km from roads we’ve regularly travelled for years. There’s no lairizing or wheelstanding. It leaves more time to take in the views, smell the roses, and immerse ourselves in the journey. While Ballard stays aboard his trusty 1200, the three of us rotate between the BMW 650 Sertao, Yamaha 660 Ténéré, and the near-new R 1200 GS Adventure ‘mothership’ I’ve borrowed from BMW – to carry the camera gear and act as the adventure bike benchmark on which the two smaller-capacity all-rounders could be judged. Following Ballard down firetrails, unused access roads and cliff-hugging tracks built by convicts, we make short work of linking familiar landmarks, and earn ourselves plenty of café time back at Bilpin, where we lap up the sunshine, grab a 10-minute siesta and wonder what the rest of the world is doing on a Monday afternoon. I contemplate how just half a day’s ride has cleansed my mind and put once-pressing obligations into better perspective. GB treats us to an alternative route home, with a mesmerising concoction of flowing, undulating sweepers on dirt roads and freshly laid tarmac. We arrive back at his farm in time for a golden sunset and a few Mexican beers of matching shade. We swap notes about the pros and cons of the machines, relive a few sketchy moments, and check the helcam has captured the flavour of the day.

Now assured that the trio of relative adventure newbies under his care are capable of staying upright on unfamiliar 200kg steeds, Ballard hatches plans for a more challenging route for our second day, and enlists desert racing legend, Allan “AJ” Cunynghame, as our specialist guide. The 1986 Australian Safari winner and 11-time Baja 1000 racer is born and bred in Bathurst, and intent on giving us the full cultural experience of the motorsport-mad town. After 100km of chilly morning air and sketchy, frost-covered wooden bridges, we meet AJ at Elie’s – his favourite Bathurst café – for an indulgent breakfast. It’s soon apparent that AJ’s a regular in the establishment and a popular figure in town, and he jokes with the owner and waiters while talking us through the route he’s got planned for the day. “After a lap of Mount Panorama,” AJ explains, “we’ll take the notorious Bridle Track that links Bathurst to the historical gold mining town of Hill End. It follows the Macquarie River for miles and is a good, fun ride, with majestic views and a couple of decent river crossings. There’s a few slick, rough sections, but nothing too nasty. We’ll have a feed at the Hill End pub, and then scoot over to Sofala where they serve a great coffee. From there, we can cut through to Turon Gates and Capertee, before heading back through Sunny Corner and over to GB’s for ‘Guest Speaker Night’. How’s that sound?,” he asks with a self-satisfied smile.

“Was that a rhetorical question, AJ?,” Smithy asks. “Great trails, epic views, a rock solid food and coffee plan, and two guides to make sure we don’t get lost … how do you think that sounds, mate? Let’s get into it.” The 350km round trip delivers everything AJ suggests, and more. Ten minutes out of Bathurst and it feels like we’re in the middle of nowhere, and it stays that way all day. The Hill End pub meal and Sofala coffee are everything they’re cracked up to be, the landscape around Capertee is magnificent, and we retrace a few of the 2010 A4DE trails back through Dark Corner and Portland. The setting sun sets the western horizon ablaze, just as a huge full moon climbs above the Blue Mountains to the east. And as we hit the highway, the glowing moon hovers dead-centre above the road like something out of a sci-fi movie and renders the black tarmac silver.

At the same turnoff where Davo had delivered his prediction about the impending snowstorm a few days earlier, we notice a marked drop in temperature. There aren’t any clouds, so the chance of snow is slim. But the air temp is already down to 1 degree, and the wind-chill at 100km/h is unspeakably brutal. That night, it’s a rowdy affair back at the Ballaranch. A few locals pop over for the traditional Guest Speaker Night, but GB’s got something else in store tonight. He wants to test his theory that “Shazza’s Cabinet” (his favourite cask of Shiraz Cabernet) is as good, or better, than the trumped-up bottled labels you pay $20 or $30 for at the bottlo. So he buys a selection of red on the way home and, using methodology he’s obviously put a lot of thought into, enlists seven of us to taste-test the four reds. Ranked from one through four and awarded points as if it’s a moto (25, 22, 20 and 18 points), the $10 bottle takes the title with five of the seven starters preferring it. Ballard is mildly content that Shazza’s Cabinet finishes a respectable second, but absolutely thrilled the top-shelf $30 bottle comes stone motherless last.

The combination of a long day in the saddle, wind-blown faces, lively banter and lashings of quaffable red guarantee we’ll all sleep well, and AJ’s already looking comfortable, face-down on the couch. I wander out to the workshop, settle in to the massage chair and flick the tele on to watch the Tour de France, and somehow manage to fall asleep in the vertebrae-pounding contraption. Smith has to be out the door at 5am to shoot the 2013 Kawasakis down near Wollongong, so he’s off to bed early, and suggests the rest of us do the same.

Davo and I are in no rush the next morning. It’s a glamour day, but there’s a dozen eggs and plenty of ham and fruit we need to polish off before heading home. We look for excuses to delay our departure, but by mid morning, we’ve run out of anything remotely legitimate. We thank GB for his hospitality and hit the road.

When we strike traffic around Katoomba, it’s all I can do not to turn tail and head to the hills. But I dutifully plod back toward suburbia and the commitments that come with it. Soul-destroying as the realisation is, I also feel somehow richer for the adventure bike experience, and begin plotting my next exploratory. I think I like this adventure bike thing.

To find out how BMW’s 650 Sertao and Yamaha’s 660 Ténéré compare, click here.