Further reading
This page used to be a blogroll, back when those things were in vogue. Now very few riders blog and I am slowly deleting sites that have not been updated for a long time however I am still sharing some links to helpful pages, active blogs and other things you might find interesting.
Moto touring guides
Motorcycle Diaries – a fantastic resource for best roads in Europe.
Vietnam Coracle – best guide for riding Vietnam, an amazing resource.
Ride Magazine – You can find a collection of well researched riding routes for UK, Portugal, Spain, France and Germany here
Best Biking Roads – A site that lets users list every good road but suffers from insufficient moderation – still worth a look.
Pass Knacker – Lot’s of info about all the European mountain passes for motorcycle riding.
Motorcyclist Map – A resource for motorcycle touring USA.
Ride the Highlands – A good site about riding Ontario.
Motorrad Strassen – German official motorcycle touring route and a lot more here (needs Google Translate).
Bucket List Norway – Perhaps the best guide about motorcycle riding roads in Norway.
Moto Route – Excellent guide to the best motorcycle routes in Romania which I found very helpful for my tour there.
WikiLoc – huge collection of routes with photos that can help you understand why some roads are recommended.
Motorcycle Colorado – There are many best road sites for USA but I found this one most helpful for my Colorado ride.
Penticton Motorcycle guide – A guide for part of British Columbia which I hope to revisit in future.
Terraxplor – besides having interesting ride reports Sean offers many guides to riding in SE Asia.
Forums
Most motorcycle forums were sadly abandoned when Facebook Groups arrived however the ones that remain are superb libraries of information compared to FB groups where information is not indexed and quickly lost (hence you see people ask the same questions over and over)
ADV Rider – this forum is so big many of the best ride reports are buried under the more contrived. Here are a couple I found inspiring.
- Ride for Smiles – From a horrific car accident the author sets off in his second life to see how far he can ride a bike that turns into a 5 year journey.
- Around the world in 800 days – Another 5 year RTW ride that ran same time as above but is different in every way. Inspired me to ride Oman.
- Angola, its not like they said – the best ride report I have ever read. If you only read one, choose this.
- Pakistan on a GS 150 – incredible scenery and a great ride report. Inspired me to ride Pakistan.
- Solo trip to Mongolia on a 125 – amazing adventure on the Mongol Rally.
Ride Asia – a motorcycle forum that has inspired some of my early rides in SE Asia. Friendly with no attitude or pay wall unlike the better known GT Rider forum which should be avoided.
Horizons Unlimited is a great resource for overland riders.
Moto Bloggers
Well this section used to be the main part of this page but nobody seems interested in writing or reading anymore. I’ve slowly deleted inactive blogs and WordPress has stopped providing a Blogroll display so I’m back to this basic listing at the moment until I can find a way to make this better.
I Just Roam Ride reports from around the world
Terraxplor Ride reports and riding guides from Asia and beyond
Tounge Express Japan moto blogger
Fuzzy Galore USA moto blogger (geo fenced USA)
Zed 14 Australian moto blogger
The Road to Nowhere Large collection of Australian ride reports
Motorcycle Meanders Worldwide moto touring
The View from Above Large collection of Australian ride reports
Tar Snakes Australian moto blogger
Bandit Rider NZ moto blogger
Reviews
While I watch some of the YouTubers that supposedly are showing motorcycle tests they mostly are ‘content creators’ who quote a lot of press release material and are careful to never say anything to upset distributors. They also live in a world where they own or have access to many motorcycles and talk about how you should have different bikes for different occasions which shows how out of touch they are as I don’t know anyone who can afford more than one bike given the current cost of living and the crazy prices of new motorcycles. So I have deleted the links I formerly had to them.
Here is an Australian independent motorcycle gear test site that rigorously tests gear and tells it like it is.
Video
I don’t watch much on YouTube other than old music video clips. I find most ‘on bike’ riding videos boring or annoying, particularly the 360 panning video that has become popular of late.
However there are a few channels I think are higher quality.
High production values help lift this channel and host Ryan can be very witty but don’t take anything here seriously and remember the site is run by a major motorcycle accessories store so you are being marketed to.
MC test ride videos with just engine sound. Usually I’m not going to watch POV bike videos but Schaffs are different as you will see and I also like how there is no talking and then Schaff will share some meaningful insight via text.
If you want to know good places to ride in Australia then check this channel out.
Touring of Japan with just engine sound. Shows many of the places I posted about when I lived there. (Tip – with non English channels turn on CC and set to auto translate) Consistently good quality footage albeit still with some of the unavoidable flattening of the landscape that action cams produce but probably best Japanese bike vlogger.
