Dirt, Dust & Desire

Pulling off a month-long moto quest across 5,000 miles of Africa takes help. Luckily, this gang found lots of it everywhere they went.

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Throttle through it!I heard Josh barking through our T Bluetooth headsets as my rear tire fishtailed in six inches of sand. Even with knobby tires, my bike struggled as it lost purchase. Riding in sand is a game of momentum and balance-not overcorrecting, not spinning the tires. To complicate matters, I had 60-plus pounds of gear in my rear saddlebags. If momentum started the wrong way, it was game over.

Although your instinct is to slow down at signs of trouble, the solution in a situation like this is to hit the gas. So I punched it.

The Namib Desert is one of the least inhabited places in the world. With only a few settlements of farmers across a large swatch of southwestern Africa, it stretches from sub-Saharan Angola almost to the southern terminus of the continent. We often rode 100 miles or more without seeing another soul.

Two weeks earlier we'd touched down in Tanzania. The four of us, close friends, had spent the last half-year planning this moto trip across Africa. We'd divvied up the to-do list, researching routes, collecting gear, building a spare parts list and repair kit, figuring out visas and vaccinations, petitioning bosses for PTO.