(english version) BMW R1250GS HP and Honda CRF 1000 L Africa Twin: Offroad-Action in Tuscany

Bikes are made for riding. Sounds logical that we are grabbing some of the latest adventure bikes that came straight from our EICMA booth for a last ride in 2018. Alex Schönborn and Jo Wolfram from the Touratech headquarters are pretty familiar with our destination in southern Tuscany, because Moto Adventures, a German tour provider, is offering a bunch of hard enduro and adventure bike roadbooks in this region. Along with Traveltime editor Andreas Reimer and filmmaker Stefan Klabunde, we'll be riding for the next three days, taking photos for our new catalogue and testing some of the latest bikes. We've got the all-new BMW R1250GS HP, our Touratech Africa Twin Adventure Sports, our R1200GS World Travel Edition and a fully equipped F850GS. So, we're preparing for our first ride and today we're starting with one of the adventure bike roadbooks right from our accommodation, the small Agriturismo called Il Bettarello, close to the village Rocca Strada. For all roadbook tracks you can choose from easy and hard level. So, we've picked a route from roadbook 2 with a hard level for our first attempt today. So, let's see what happens. Thank God, they're only fastened with one screw and I'm going to unscrew them on both sides and then we'll have a much better ride. So, we're riding the big enduro roadbook 2 right now, from Il Bettarello in Tuscany. I took a shower outside this morning and now I'm on my way to the first run from the inside. So, hard level, big enduro roadbook 2, that's what it's all about in the beginning. I think it rained a little bit in the last few weeks, that's why everything has softened up a little bit. But we're fighting through with our four bikes here and let's see what the day brings. I think we've already done 10 kilometers. Lunch break here at our roadbook in Maremma, Tuscany. Yes, we actually know the region quite well. In recent years, we've always been riding with some colleagues from the different areas of Touratech, from the production, from the development, sales and we thought, man, that would be a great thing with the new motorcycles, which have just been presented on the EICMA on the internet. Just to ride the tracks, the roadbooks and just to try out how it works. So far we've had a lot of fun, it's been raining a little bit in the last few days. Some tracks are a little wet, you have to make sense of it with the big machines. But we've had a lot of fun so far and I think the next few days we still have a lot of things planned for us here. What can I say, I'm a little out of breath right now, but this is a difficult section of the roadbook. But if you're in good shape with the cameraman, you can get every motorcycle everywhere. And it really strengthens the spirit of the community. I can only confirm that, but I just let the guys pull the thing up. Someone has to film the whole thing for you. Yes, up now, but sometimes there are stones under the leaves when they are wet. You don't do anything as soon as the momentum is out. And then with the road enduro tires, it's a challenge sometimes. And that's good when you have a few strong colleagues with you. Especially in fall, there's a lot of hunting in the local forests, so we're literally covering by adapting our schedule for day two. In our accommodation, the Il Bettarello, Grandma Tegler's regional meals for dinner are almost legendary. And of course, you should not miss her self-made pasta. And how that's done right, she wants to show us this morning. On the first few kilometers for today, we are following Luca's invitation, who runs the Bettarello with his family surrounded by his olive groves, to visit the olive mill of Beroccio. Many of the local farmers come here to turn their harvest into real delicious olive oil. And as the production is running, we can have a closer look. So, no roadbooks today on our schedule, and we want to enjoy this beautiful day with a trip to the nearby seaside. From beautiful landscapes and beaches to curvy coastal roads, beautiful villages and some hand-picked off-road tracks, this region will have a lot of good photo opportunities to offer. Just in time for sunset, we're doing a little detour on our way back to the Bettarello, visiting the nearby Valdonica winery that produces some really extraordinary wines since 2008 on the natural soils of the Maremma region. And who wants to enjoy the wine tasting the right way other than us, can book a room with a beautiful view right away. But there's one more highlight waiting for us at the Bettarello. Grandma Tekla's homemade pasta and even more delicious food for our dinner. Always cooked with love and regional ingredients, the dinner is a real family thing here. Today on our last day here in Tuscany, we want to challenge ourselves one more time and we want to take advantage of the good weather for some more photos for the catalogue and the travel time story. We are navigating by the electronic roadbook device Trippi, which you can also rent with the roadbooks from Moto Adventures, so we can always switch between the skill levels and tracks. Today's level is quite high and the Africa Twin with its automatic DCT gearbox really performs great while testing some of the steep climbs and checking the tracks for the other bikes. And, well, Alex, who is quite familiar with this kind of tracks on hard enduro bikes, might get a little scared from time to time. So, turning around, looking for alternatives and retrying becomes our routine this morning. Our conclusion from the last three days. Enduro riding in Tuscany is just amazing. The diversified roadbooks and the central accommodation for the trips are reason enough to come back. From easy to extreme, everyone will find his own level and in the new Touratech catalogue from early 2019 on, you will find the whole story and more information.