‘Experience Adventure’- at Motorcycle Live Show 2019.

As a huge fan of all things ‘motorbike’, we went to the Birmingham NEC this week and it really is like being a kid in a sweet shop for someone like me.

This year I really fancied trying out the ‘Experience Adventure’, so we headed to the hall where it was situated. There are barriers around creating a decent little taste of an ‘off road’ area, loose sand, some undulations together, a couple of small hills all mixed up with little trees and boulders for added effect.

After watching some people who were already riding it for a few minutes there was some stalling and one guy even dropped his bike on a slow corner, so I decided to try to get a place. Even in those few minutes some people were dropping the bikes and stalling quite regularly, but it was all at very safe speeds and the sand was soft for landing.

Anyway it was a pretty simple and straight forward procedure actually; you just let them see you have a full bike licence, enter some personal details into the iPad and they ask which bike you are interested in riding. This year there was a choice of a few Honda Africa Twin, the Royal Enfield Himalayan Adventure, some Yamaha Tenere 700’s and some Triumph Scramblers were also available. I wasn’t too fussed and as it happened there was a slot less than 10 minutes later on a Royal Enfield, so I took that without having to wait.

The next thing is you are breathalysed (some cost almost £15k I suppose), once that’s ok an instructor comes to get you and you are taken to watch a short instruction brief about the course and what to expect when you are out there. Next you go into another room and are kitted out with helmet, jacket, trousers, boots and gloves and then you get on to the bike you were designated when you booked up. After that its engines go and you are out on the course.

It’s all really well organised with instructors dotted about the course, it’s all relatively slow speed but it does have a few tricky ruts to watch and the loose sand certainly needs handling smoothly – no heavy grabs on the brakes. Stalling it is quite easy, we were all riding bikes we’d never ridden before and in an arena with people watching and photographing. One rider in front went into the barrier and get the front wheel wedged but the instructors sorted it in no time at we were all moving again, the course keeps changing every few laps to use all the little trail variations set up…and then in probably 10 minutes or so you get called back in and your time is up.

Nothing to stop you booking up more than once so I really recommend having a go, it’s a great chance to ride some brand new bikes, ask yourself…what’s not to like!?