I wasn’t meant to be on this trip. Up until just a few weeks before, I knew very little about it, but then the call came, and the torment set in. Could I just up and vanish from work, from home, my kids and wife for 12 days straight? Well, it turns out I could… just a few weeks later, my plane touched down at Tirana Airport, the capital of Albania, the host nation of the event’s 1300km endeavour. The next question was if I’d be able to go the distance and not look a proverbial nob in the process. It was a tall order, made more unlikely by the fact I’d not so much as sat on a GS for more than a year, with my last outing being at the UK’s GS Trophy qualifier event. Despite the odds and having not ridden a GS for seven years prior to that, it'd gone alright; I somehow scored sixth out of the initial 250 entrants, from whom the top 10 (…minus myself, because I was a journo) scrapped it out for the three lucky places on Team GB, bagging their ticket to this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Truth is, I didn’t know a thing about the guys who had made the cut, aside from their names and that they were landing a few days after me. As for Albania, that was another unknown. The transfer to our base camp was enlightening, passing scenes 1 just hadn’t expected. I saw kids working scythes in the fields, some of the roads were so battered they made the moon look smooth, and it seemed the norm to take your rubbish to the verge and set it alight. It was an eye-opening journey, and the surprises didn’t stop coming.
We pulled up at a beach gracing the lapping, turquoise beauty of the Adriatic Sea; my new home. This was base camp - a few Soviet-era bunkers and a massive gazebo that would prove to be the hub of the location, where we'd eat, chat and get absolutely steaming drunk, as it transpired… but all in good time.
Throughout the day, more and more journos arrived, branded MRPs (Media Representative Persons) by BMW. There were 15 male teams in all, comprising three riders a piece, and six female pairings that would take on the exact same route and challenges. Add logistics staff, marketeers, medics, marshals and many more folk into the mix and you’ll begin to appreciate the magnitude of the undertaking. It was mind-blowing. We even had our own helicopter for medial cover, plus ambulances, and no less than 19 support vehicles in the shape of Ineos Grenadiers.
And then there were all the bikes. Locked away behind a reed-walled compound were more than 100 GSs, each identically kitted to what would be known as Trophy-spec machines. Among other things, it meant they featured added crash protection, saucysounding Akrapovic end cans and some much-needed Metzeler Karoo 4 rubber. They also had our individual names, numbers, and blood groups plastered on the front cowls. They looked the nuts, and after a hearty search I eventually stumbled across my very own workhorse - number 190.
We stopped in a nice hotel that night and I liked the luxury very much, although it somewhat contradicted the ethos of the event. It’d been a few years since I last undertook an off-road adventure, so maybe I was just out of touch with the modern rigours of this way of life. I wasn’t complaining. Reality hit a little harder when we returned to the camp the following morning and underwent a whole host of presentations, prep work and a thorough warning about the bears, snakes and scorpions said to litter our route. The day’s agenda largely revolved around media rider training, which I was grateful for. The other journos arrived with an air of confidence and stories of the riding they’d done in readiness for the Trophy. As for
