Detour

View Original

The Trans Euro Trail is an Epic Two-Wheeled Tour

Photo BMW

Did you know you can ride for more than 60,000 miles across 30 countries from the Arctic Circle to the edge of Africa without touching tarmac?

The Trans Euro Trail has two legs: East and West which can be linked together for one massive motorcycling adventure. The Eastern route goes through Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria, before heading to Turkey. It then goes to Greece and runs up through the Balkans, to Italy and France where it goes via Andorra, Spain and Portugal to the sourthernmost tip of Europe at Tarifa on the Straits of Gibralatar.

Meanwhile, the Western route heads from Finland, downs through Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Low Countries, the UK and France and then picks up the final section south.

The Trans Euro Trail is almost entirely made up of dirt tracks, with only a small number of normal roads needed to link it all together. You’ll have to tackle gravel, sand, grassy fields and rivers to make it through, and, while some sections would in theory be wide enough for a 4x4 car, in many places four-wheelers are forbidden.

What’s all the more amazing about the Trans Euro Trail is that it has been devised by a team of volunteers, known as Linesmen and Lineswomen. “We started out with idea of creating a wiggly line of adventure but we’ve come to realise that this wiggly line has many threads. A sense of excitement and community,” explains Founder John Ross.

Details of the routes and downloads for GPS are available for free on the Trans Euro Trail website and there’s also no charge for riding the trail. What you will need is plenty of time if you plan to tackle it all!


See this gallery in the original post