Description:

A group of moped-mates from the Ruhr. Most mid-40s Colorful biographies, some things accomplished, but is this now until retirement go on? Once more they wanted the total motorcycle kick. No luggage, just adrenaline.


Once more the full program: mud, sand, stones, desert rally pace. heat to 450 light-sport enduro without luggage over secluded slopes in the Moroccan hinterland. Go where no loaded enduro ever get there. One last time, still full of risk before the bones are not more people join the breaks off the condition, the women are hysterical, retirement is imminent. “Guys, this one makes once in life, the best kick I have ever come on the moped, you have to.” A year Olli campaigned for the trip. At some point he had us so far. All of his friends who were always used once a year on a motorcycle tour. “That you will never forget, we go routes, because you think you are on another planet.”

We meet in Marrakech. Jan, equipping the vessels, Essi, eye doctor, Nelle, aid workers, Robert, Business man, and Max, who does marketing for the company. Only Olli initiator has not come. Retreat at the last minute, serious heart problem, surgery. Tragic, but not change it. He encourages us to go through with the tour will, every day news.

Marrakech: The magic of the “Thousand and One Nights,” we lost in the souks, absorb the Moroccan daily life, give way to culinary delights. A bus brings us to the highest at-laspass to Ouarzazate.

John Griffith wait here called Johnny Maroc, and his partner, Su Downham with the KTM 450 EXC. Su drove the Dakar Rally, Johnny is a friend of Cyril Despres, his son was the “water carrier”. “Is jumped in time,” said Johnny, for all the other “water carrier” by the famous rally driver and Dakar winner are either dead or sitting in a wheelchair.

Just beyond the gates of the city branches off a stone slope to the west. The KTM brand new roll on-Mitas rough tread. Tires, which we pay in the shortest time of all the highest respect. Greedy the studs bite into the dirt, Johnny sets a furious pace. Rocky roads, sand tracks, washouts, mud, total solitude. In the midst of a breathtaking stone desert we rest. Sweat flowing over staubverkrustete faces, heat shimmers, Berber children grow out of the ground. January sped off, diarrhea. Su is with the extreme off-road Land Rover pickup. has formed transported our luggage, spare parts, fuel, water, food, emergency medical equipment and Houssein, a Berber, the Johnny the mechanic. For this was especially involved a KTM man from Mattighofen. Houssein is proud, the machines are his children, he knows their individual characteristics and fondling them at each stop. Su conjures up a lunch on the hood, the Berber families get their share.

We continue flying dust and stones. We drift toward the southeast. Since this morning, two new drivers are part of our group, both called Dan: Dan is one of the USA, two from Dan England. Suddenly a cloud of dust swirls, a motorcycle through the air, behind a body, then Dan is two on the ground. Jan was behind him. Dan across KTM had suddenly realized at high speed. High-side and multiple rollover. Can happen in this turf, where the mopeds flying over with the wheels stay on the ground. Dan’s shoulder is de-formed, a bone is out. Su, which is fast with the Landy at the scene shows the team with Johnny Ersthelferkom highest competence. We place the injured on the vacuum mattress and lift it into the back of the Land Rovers. Carefully, he is maneuvered to Agdz, then brought to Ouarzazate and flown.

The remaining fighters go into a palm oasis and narrow pass ruined Kasbah on donkey paths. In the end a gorgeous intact, family accommodation, the Kasbah Azul. Since we can dive into a swimming pool and enjoy exotic dishes. For recovery after a day that was spent standing solely in the catches.

As the sun rises, we follow the legendary Draa Valley. Narrow, winding paths, Kasbah ruins, countless talkative Berber families. Here it overtakes the other Dan: He verbremst to serious fall in large stones, is supplied, but must also adopt unfortunately. What remains is the troupe’s friends, who knows since youth days from the Ruhr. But this tour is different “tours Luschen” than our previous, as they called Olli, since he drove with Johnny Maroc.

The north has now, a narrow road leads steeply uphill through the Jebel Saghro, the most spectacular mountain scenery throughout Morocco. Above-ground rock formations, but all the senses are the slopes. Just do not fall into the deep washouts that would be the Off. It is impossible to endure what these motorcycles. Stone collisions, jumps, falls. The trolleys sovereign and stable, the Mitas tires with enormous grip on tar, stones, mud and sand. shatter resist the six-millimeter thick tube and the Excel rim shots, the other bikes would.

We leave the High Atlas to the south, dust off its runners, fly to take off on hills. Behind the track bend by 90 degrees, straight canyons with deep rubble. Problems to be solved, instincts that need to be sharpened, by wiping the rear in the Powerslide only inches on sharp rocks. Sometimes, just flat and a Angstwheelie to overcome obstacles appearing in front of the front wheel. We tear through the “Valley of Roses”, I slowly fed up.

In the fertile Dades Valley, we arrive at an inn, the body and mind offers all modern amenities. Johnny, a former diver and industry have only 28 days in a decompression chamber, was asked how we feel. As if we had held ten hours jackhammers. I get mad: How can you race through all these beautiful landscapes and carry almost nothing, because there was so much to concentrate on driving? He knows about the problem, offers to go to the fussy GPS and you simply take in the evening. Slower than the Land Rover should not be.

Jan, Nelle, Max and Essi are in rally fever stay tuned, wish to Johnny. I can not believe it, why these old bags are at once so mercilessly drive well Enduro? Have trained in secret? Is that all can have from the past? Robert and I take out a little speed, rumble through dramatic rock formations and reach the edge of the Great Erg Occidental. In a small Wüstenkaff we fill up at a mud hut from bottles to meet our friends who after a long break are back fresh and hot on the move. The Moroccans have mixed in our diesel fuel. Johnny says, the engines keep out the thumps and sooty on dirt tracks and dry river beds by the huge bed of the dried-Lac Maider.

Infinite, unfathomable loneliness, the dust plumes of buddies on the horizon, a lonely ladies shoes in the middle of the desert, camel skeletons. Then come six kilometers by devious “fesh-fesh. Here, go down all to overthrow, even Johnny. We eat this totally unpredictable, fine sand. The passage is hell, but not the end, because it goes over rocky tracks and sand drifts. A Berber tent on the edge of the dunes for the night in the middle of nowhere.

Sub-stars: supernatural, one is sucked into space and can not get enough. Shooting stars and permanent goose bumps crawl up at four in the crescent of the Berber tent. At five come the flies crawling in the nose and ears. Other hand, helps out only drive into the dunes where Johnny teaches us the necessary tricks. The need especially at the Erg Chebbi, Morocco’s highest dunes migrated here. The path is long. Endless desert, then a landscape of acacia trees, such as in East Africa. Again and again, stony river beds, all of a sudden, the KTM is transverse or oblique position is catapulted into what I can not shocking anymore. Slowly makes this theater, daily operations for rally drivers, real fun.

The 124-foot dune is a challenge. All do it, and agree: dune driving is the height motorcyclist’s happiness. We are surfing on the sharp edges along wind, sand fountains at the rear wheels, fountains endorphins in the body. But need to Erfoud through the stony “Hamada” Desert. Sand passages appear, reduce the rate only slightly. Fairytale Hotel in Erfoud, then vastness, the Atlas foothills in the distance. Suddenly, nothing like a building a half-pyramid “Stairway to Heaven”, built by the eccentric German artist and architect Hans Jorg Voth.

A few miles away from the desert grows much more impressive mega-monument “Orion Stars” by the same authors, it is reminiscent of a palace on an alien planet. The whole landscape looks like an alien planet. This also applies to the Todra Gorge. Each year the road is destroyed by floods. The river is also still water, the KTM plow through as jet skis.

Exclusive in Johnny GPS are the trails that lead us back to the Jebel Saghro. A landscape of awesome to describe. Then, purely in the Atlas on a high plateau. Beauty through slowly medieval Berber villages. The children want to beg for pens and candy, we are slowly but surely into a kind of ecstatic pleasure. Olli was right. This is the grandest tour we have ever done Ruhrpott Penner. Not only the body is shaken by an ultimatum, the soul is shattered forever.