Surviving the Balkans on a KTM 890 R and 1290 Super Adventure R

That was the stupidest and scariest thing I've done in a long time. I don't want to be here, let's get the f*** out of here. The word adventure gets thrown around a lot these days and I feel its true meaning is being eroded by those seeking a guided tour rather than creating their own unique experience. There's nothing wrong with that, we all operate within different comfort zones but in motorcycle terms if you've downloaded someone else's GPS routes which conveniently piece together a chain of pre-booked hotel rooms then I hate to break it to you. You're not an adventure rider, you're an itinerary rider. Now before you shoot me down in flames let me present to you an example of raw adventure. A journey through five Balkan countries in five days. Just me and my mate Efthimi, two adventure bikes, tents and sleeping bags as backup. No routes, no set destinations and not a single hotel booking between us. We will go where the wind takes us. The only preparation I've made is plotting some Google Earth waypoints that will land us in some of the most remote and rugged terrain these countries have to offer. I've never been to Croatia, Montenegro, Albania or Macedonia before so I have no idea what's ahead. I just set my GPS to track the shortest path between waypoints, include all unpaved roads and see where the hell we end up. So our story begins in Croatia and I'm tracking towards my first waypoint which is Mount Dinara, the country's highest mountain. I'm favoring any tracks which head south through the range as we make our way towards the border of Montenegro. This is adventure bike heaven and we're covering good distance despite the tracks turning into pure rock and rubble. All seems well but our pace through the rocks has caused a bit of a problem with Efthimi's 1290R. It's still beaded. Let's get your compressor out and let's pump it because it hasn't come off the bead yet. Okay. Oh what? You've got dents everywhere. Everywhere? It's like the rim, the rim's like a 50 cent paint. The rim is destroyed. Bugger. We failed to fit tubes on the 1290R so the tubeless wheel has been progressively losing air with every impact and is now down to zero psi. Just tick along at this speed until we get to someone's house or a garage or whatever. I spot an open door at an automotive workshop. Okay perfect. Tire levers to change the tire. Such a bonus this lovely young lady speaks English. And we're on. This friendly Croatian family has saved our ass. My 890 doubles as a bead breaker. A trusty flathead and half a busted tire lever from the old man's workshop is all I need to rip the tire off. In situations like these you need to recognise when it's time to stand aside and let a master do his work because this legend is an automotive craftsman. Can we just get a quick reference? Look how, look how screwed up it is. Before and after. Just go 35. Awesome. Was he a motorcycle racer once? No but he loves cars and all vehicles. He has all the skills of a professional enduro racer. Not only has this legend restored the rim to a factory spec but he's pulling strings in the town of Knin to make sure we get a hotel room and they keep the kitchen open until we get there. Are you going to keep the kitchen open for us? Yes. Your father is a legend and a champion and he's really earned that beer. For the most unbelievable day one, delicious. It turns out this hotel is a makeshift hospice providing palliative care for those nearing the end of life's journey. Whatever the case, the beer and food was awesome. What an adventurous place. My next waypoint is somewhere in the foothills ahead. A hidden little village that is home to one of the planet's most amazing geological landmarks. The eye of the earth. Nobody knows how deep it goes but on closer inspection perhaps a more fitting name would be the earth's birth canal. Its constant flow of icy water has been running for an eternity. Massive ice cream headache. Right, I feel reborn and ready for anything. Let's go. Imagine if you will, living in a time where you had to build a fortress to protect your family and your village from wandering invaders. The people of the Balkans have been forged by centuries of war. We need to start tracking further south and get to the border before we lose too much of the day. I've set my next waypoint which is an epic river system in Montenegro and my GPS is telling me it's at least 350 kilometers away. We refill the bikes, hit the road and roll straight into an unexpected border crossing. Country are we getting to? It turns out we've entered Herzegovina, a slightly odd place that reminds me of Kazakhstan. Yep, feels like I'm back in Kazakhstan. Yep, same ----, different country and the same sense of regret after eating this crap but sometimes you've got to do it on the run. It is Bosnia, it's Bosnia. What the hell and now we've rolled straight into Bosnia. I didn't expect to be back in Bosnia so soon. Busted up networks of highways, spooky looking power stations and legends driving tractors down the road. I didn't expect to be back in Bosnia again since I rode the KTM Rally here in 2019 but even more so, I didn't expect it to dish up such a stunning landscape. It's like we've suddenly arrived in a South American rainforest. I love it when the roads turn to ---- and the traffic has to tiptoe through. Off-road bikes rise straight to the top of the food chain. This rickety structure is the bridge between Bosnia and Montenegro and this bridge has a massive crack through the middle of it. It's been a big day, I've hit my intended waypoint and now it's time to think about making camp for the night but given there's a massive thunderstorm bearing down on us we're keen to find the first decent shelter that comes our way. Day three, onward to Albania. Last night's rain has cooled the place down and cleaned the roads. It's perfect motorcycling conditions. We're on a random pass through an epic mountain range heading southeast across Montenegro. Where we are, I don't actually know but we're on track to my next waypoint which is somewhere in the highest mountain range of Albania. These roads are great, you could sit back and enjoy this stuff all day but a quick scan and recalculation on the nav gives me exactly what we're after. Now we're talking, three days in, tracking through a remote mountain trail Hefthimi's 1290 front wheel is still holding 35 psi and we are living the adventure bike dream. Back on the tarmac and onward to Albania. Are you ready for Albania, Adam? Where are you guys going? From Italy. Italy? Italian boys. I am from Greece. He's from Australia. Tentatively rolling past the local police, I think it's wise to play by the rules until a local legend shows us exactly how you roll in Albania. We're having a great time and a good laugh observing Albanian culture but it's time to get serious and hit the mountain range to find my next waypoint. In life, a fork in the road is an opportunity to reach two different outcomes and the decision you make can direct you towards undesirable situations. The deeper we go, the later the arrival time is showing on my GPS and we are running out of daylight. One thing I haven't mentioned and it's been playing in the back of my mind this whole trip is the fact this entire mountain range through the Balkans is home to bears and wolves. By GPS, when two tracks run parallel after they fork it can be difficult to know you're on the right one. There's always one rule I go by when traveling around the world by motorcycle. Always have more fuel than confidence. The fact both our bikes are still showing 160km range this deep in means we can afford to blow 60km if we've headed 30km the wrong way. See the pink line? That's that ******* hill. We're not going that way. We'll stick to this side road and I'll be able to monitor where it's taking us and if it starts to peel back, we're in business. We've got to get to that. That's it. Okay. Let's just keep going. Let's do it. And see what happens. Let's do it. We're becoming lost now and when I find myself in these situations I block out distraction, get very matter-of-fact and keep moving. We've got to go all the way back to that switchback where we turned up that hill. This is it. This is the end of the road. It's led us to hell. We have to backtrack. The blue line is where we've been. We're going to backtrack and that switchback where we turned around, I'm going to take the right and follow this track down. Otherwise, we've got to go all the way back to that original point. Anyway, let's just press on. We're running out of daylight. We are fucked anyway. If you ever ride with me, you'll see that I don't accept panic. I don't do indecision and I do not waste time when there is no time to waste. I don't care if you're tired, thirsty, hungry, sore or scared. If you and your bike are not broken, then we move. We will rest when we are safe. Ephemis is well outside of his comfort zone now but he's talking himself through it. What the **** am I doing here? We're properly lost now. All tracks are leading us to nowhere and we're at least two hours in any direction from any kind of civilization. We need to find some kind of hunter's cabin or shepherd's camp to try and lock ourselves away from the bears and the wolves. Unbelievable. At the ends of the earth, we come across five Albanian shepherds. At least that's what it looks like. We're properly lost, stuck, everything. But as they say, safety in numbers. So see how they put all their goats in these pens at night and then they have dogs on every corner. That's for the bears and the wolves. Hi mate, are you good? Are you happy? Wow, big day. Something's not right. Turns out these Albanians speak Greek and were once living in Greece for work but are now seemingly hiding out in the mountains. Ephthymis is suspicious. Nobody knows we're here. We can't contact the outside world and our bikes are worth a lot more to these guys than our lives would be. We've got two choices. Spend the night locked in a cabin with five Albanians or ride into the darkness and try and find our way out of here through the bear and the wolf forests. The most important thing I've learned on my travels is that it's safer to be moving than to be a sitting duck. We've got 100 kilometres of fuel range left so we're braving the bears and wolves and getting the f**k off this mountain. I've told Ephthymis we're not stopping for nothing so just focus and ride. Like swimming through open ocean waiting for a shark to collapse your rib cage. Visions of a bear or pack of wolves spearing out of the bushes is absolutely freaking me out. Stupidest and scariest thing I've done in a long... If one of these bikes broke down in there we're in big trouble. Trying to fight our way out on one bike. I was ---- scared for quite a while. I don't know about you. Yeah, definitely. Now I don't mind about anything. We just go grab a beer and recruit. It's 10.45pm. We are safe but we will keep going until we find a beer and a bed for the night. We're good to go. Let's get out of Albania. One thing's for sure, I'll never forget Albania. It's beautiful, it's wild but I get the feeling these are some bad lands. Four days, two and a half thousand kilometres later we've hit the border of Greece. We have survived the Balkans. We have conquered some of its mountains. We have nearly perished on others. The 1290 is still holding a perfect 35 psi and while we are pumped with our efforts we are not out of the woods just yet because this is adventure. Throwing yourself into the unknown with little or no plan. Whether you're travelling alone or with a friend don't be scared to fall because it will happen. Pick yourself up, keep moving forward and don't make a drama out of nothing because too often I see people fall short of their destination fall short of their goals because they've wasted so much daylight worrying a situation into something much bigger than it actually is. You're not in trouble until you're in trouble. So remember, if you're planning a big ride don't make a heap of boxes to tick and turn it into an itinerary. Tick two or three out of ten then just go. The adventure will take care of the rest. Thanks for watching my movies everyone. If you like this stuff share it with your friends hit the subscribe button and the notification bell because I've got all kinds of crazy adventures coming your way.