A new arrival on British shores is Adventure Country Tracks (ACT eV.), a German-based not-for-profit organisation creating motorcycle adventure rides across Europe. After plotting five cross-country routes on the continent, this year the organisation has taken on the challenge of creating a UK route.
ACT is funded by adventure industry players including Touratech, Yamaha, Harley-Davidson, Sena and Metzeler, and is on a mission “to bring together the last remaining off-road tracks in Europe to form (self-guided) tours and preserve them with the cooperation of local authorities and partners”. The routes are available free to download from the organisation’s website, which also contains supporting information and links to the ACT community.
The ACT UK route, due to be released to the public at the end of the year, has been planned and scouted by British journalist Jonathan Bentman. “In short, these are carefully curated five-day routes, where the route needs to fulfil several key criteria, bringing together stunning landscapes and big-bike off-road capability while ensuring full legality and sustainability.
“Planning the UK route has been challenging as we have a limited resource in terms of tracks, and particularly those suitable year-round for big adventure bikes. That said, the route we have created is stunning, featuring long tracks which take in the wilderness landscapes of five national parks plus several areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It’s something that would not have been possible without the support and input of the Trail Riders Fellowship, nor the inspiration of Robert Hughes’ Rally Moto team who have blazed a trail for big bike adventuring in the UK. It’s a case of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.”
The ACT UK route will join the other five European routes on the ACT website www.adventurecountrytracks.com in December. Look out for details of a UK premiere of the accompanying 60-minute film of the route around that time, too.