Interesting RTW route
 

Most RTW books and DVDs either gloss over or edit out the long boring stretches that are a part of most round the world routes.

I'm aware of this and it's one of the main reasons why I wouldn't travel far on a small capacity bike. Also on any long journey, unless you seek it out, there is not a great deal of unpaved road.

Can anyone come up with a route, no matter how convoluted, that would take in most of the worlds 'best biking roads' and unpaved roads whilst keeping the dull bits to, say, no more than 100 miles at a time.

Not particularly strung together but:

from Europe across Russia via Walter's 2012 Sibersky Extreme route.

Across North America via the TAT combined with the Lolo motorway and Oregon backcountry trail or TransCan

North/ South or S/N on the Continental Divide trail. In northern Canada and Alsaka there's roads like the Top of the World Highway and the roads to Inuvik or Deadhorse.

There's a lot of gravel/dirt if you avoid the PanAm in Mexico (ride some of the Baja1000 routes?)/Central/South Am.

North Africa: Plenty of Dakar race tracks.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Despite Chinese road building there's a lot of dirt/mud/former Colonial pavement.

Australia: The center has very few paved roads e.g. Canning Stock Route.

Forget it... doesnt exist... Or you fly your bike to only this routes... e.g. here in Australia, where we are at the moment, 100 miles you go for shopping without asking... you have to add a 0 to it and then it would maybe work ...

Cheers

Ok, I admit it. Everything I wrote above was totally fabricated and I've never ridden any of them. My entire website is photoshopped, as I'm sure Walter's trip was too.:rofl: :stupid:

Will you photoshop my website too? Can't seem to get pictures further out than Norway or North Africa. It's all the wifes fault :rofl:

Could I suggest a more anarchic strategy on top of the route suggestions? Simply get off the motorway of the inbetween bits when bored. Some days you find another slower but equally pointless thoroughfare, other times it's ladies-of-negotiable-virtue and drug dealers, often it'll be a nice little country lane with a pub or coffee shop that'll cut ten miles off the autobahn out. I almost never regret it though.

Andy

I took "Forget it...doesn't exist" to mean that you can't ride the routes you listed without interspersing long stretches of pavement--certainly far longer than 100 miles. Which is true: you can't get to the Top of the World Highway without riding on pavement for a few days straight (minimum). Etc. It's the same thing you said: "Not particularly strung together."

The "forget it" response was mostly incomprehensible, but then again so was the original question. What's "dull?" What's not? Stuff I find mainly quite boring (Kansas, Manitoba, Western Sahara, much of Ukraine, most of central Australia, long stretches through Patagonia) you might go wild over.

Mark

See I think this is one of the reasons to have a smaller capacity bike, they're just that much nicer on smaller roads be they paved or not that you seek them out instead of hammering through countries on the autoroutes but each to their own.

At least you still have a wife!:blushing:

I took "Forget it...doesn't exist" to mean I was talking sh!te.

One person's dull could of course be somebody else's wild. I believe there is of a lot more out there if you take the road less travelled. You just have to look/research hard enough, which the OP seems to be doing.

For a few of shorter deliberately off pavement trips on a thumper (Baja, Pyrenees, Romania, Morocco, Iceland, CDT, western TAT, Oregon, Lolo, northern Thailand for example) I sourced detailed maps or acquired/purchased GPS data that allowed me to ride virtually 100% no pavement.

I believe Walter used his contacts, research from previous trips and Google Earth to ride the length of Russia off pavement. Sibirsky Extreme 2012 - The Toughest Ride of Them All - ADVrider

In places like France there's a lot of opportunity for off pavement (a.k.a interesting) riding if somebody shows you the way, as the OP did for myself and some others a couple of years ago. Thanks again Charles!

Thx Mark, that’s what I meant. Sometimes there are long stretches to take if you go somewhere to find a nice ride. And a nice ride is very subjective as well. Even the Nullarbor (longest straight stretch in AU, 1000km asphalt dead straight...) to go from Western Australia to the South can be a nice ride as soon as you leave the highway and take some excursions. There are nice things to see and do right and left from the HW.

I should have written instead of "Forget it": IMHO In my opinion it is very hard to circumnavigate our planet nowadays without crashing into civilization from time to time, and most of the time it means to take some asphalt in between. It´s like going around the planed on a boat, sometimes you have to cross the oceans in between to see the nice spots on new foreign lands.

So no offence Chris to the tracks you mentioned b4. Just to combine all of them without 100km asphalt in between is a very hard task to do I think. bier

Humm if you look on the web there is a photo of the earth as seen at night - avoiding the 'bright spots' will keep you away from most 'civilization'. Having said that I've been to places where the main road between towns was paved .. but the 'roads' through the towns were dirt. Certainly effectively stopped people speeding through the towns, but tourist were rather confused for the first few towns.

Oh and the occasional bit of 'civilization' is good for restocking.

Looking at it on a global scale there are great swathes where there is only one road. In my experience in Australia and Southern Africa once you commit to a route, that's it for several hundred miles. Sure, there are turnings off to farms and small communities but these are often not a network of back roads because the distance between the settlements is to large. Sometimes it turns out to be a really pleasant ride, other times it can just be days of the same thing.

What I'd like to find is a map showing all the roads that would get a Michelin 'green line' on them interlinked with extended off road routes like the TAT and Sibersky that eventually forms a viable route right around the planet. It's not about avoiding civilization as any extended journey is, and should be, a mix of getting away from it all and interacting with different cultures and people. It is about justifying why a motorbike is the best way to travel.

Going around the whole planet using only by-roads you would first of all cover gazillion miles, and secondly you would need almost unlimited time to do it. Frankly I fail to see the point, though I do know very well, that the nicest sites and experiences can often be found quite far away from the main roads. Think I would soon get bored of getting lost on poor roads with absolutely no signage, and one local telling you to go this way, the next one telling you to go the other way, while the sun is setting, and it is starting to rain very heavily..... :rofl:

For me, it´s better to take in a nice, scenic route here and there, when the opportunity arises, and the rest of the way just cover the distance on the highway. And if I´m on a RTW-trip, then most of the time I´ll be on that highway for the very first time in my life, too, so even that can be exciting (for me at least). The selection of bike and its ability on poor roads as well as big roads is naturally important here.

After doing dirt roads for days a bit of tarmac is a welcome relief!!

Give it a few years and those lovely Chinese roads will be in a worse state than the tracks they replaced!!

That's the trouble, foreign countries wade in a build roads like they have when in fact they'd be a lot better off grading the road and donating the grader to the country to maintain it, and it would be cheaper!

It's just yet another ridiculous example of people forcing their standards on others when it's totally inappropriate.

In most parts of the US and Europe it is trivial to find beautiful small roads with terrific scenery, or at least tolerable scenery. Even in European Russia there is lots to see and enjoy once you've off the main roads. You don't have to be on a dirt track to get off the beaten path.