Dirt, Dust, Drift

Words: Charlie Perring passage over the rocks and stones of the ravine beds, their rear wheels thrashing around like a salmon caught on a line, no fixed trail to follow and with only an approximate direction of travel.

IT DOESN’T start here, and it probably won’t end here, but most of the off-road motorcycle riding I’ve experienced in the past four years has been found along the dirt trails of the Serra do Caldeirão, the undulating, ravine-strewn frontier country that separates the Algarve from the Alentejo.

There are many differing forms of motorcycle riding and riders: those who like cruising their Harley ‘Softails’ along the meandering blacktop; the urban moped commuters; the fearless youngsters who seek the thrill of the jumps and bumps around the banked tracks of the motocross circuits.

And then there’s off-road trail riding, or as some would term it ‘enduro’ riding… and Portugal is one of the last bastions in Europe where trail riders can openly free-ride across the whole country.

Unless you’ve been riding this terrain since your legs could touch the ground, or have GPS tracks to follow, courtesy of seasoned locals, it’s impossible to describe in detail precise routes; they’re made up of a mix of fire breaks, rough tracks cut by carob farmers, hunter’s paths and ‘pastors’ routes, and sometimes even vague game trails that peter out into nothing and force the rider to about turn, a veritable spiders web of options that spread out to all points of the compass.

Motorcyclists are passionate about their travels, always looking to discover new routes that others would never get to see. For them, no trail is too challenging

It’s been said that there are over 10,000km of dirt riding trails across Portugal and that one can ride the length and breadth of the territory with just the minimal contact on tarmac, touching it occasionally when connecting the trails or leading the rider to a necessary gas station or coffee stop.

And on any given weekend, in the Serras that look down on the Algarve coast, one will find adventurous individuals or groups atop their two or four stroke dirt bikes, drifting the ridge-line trails or searching smooth

And therein lies the beauty of trail riding, as more often than not you’ve the choice to ride fresh ground, always exploring, discovering unknown terrain in a matter of hours that would take days on foot or be exhausting by pedal power alone.

Of course, there are pressures on the use of the combustion engine and, as technology evolves and the motorcycle world explores the transition to electric, there are soothsayers who say that the end is nigh for benzine. Well perhaps, but not for a while and for me, the rasp and roar of a dirt bike ‘fanging’ it through the hills is akin to a mechanic symphony.

Some people would have you believe that