Riding the 2016 BMW Motorrad International GS Trophy Across Thailand with Team USA

I was never so happy to see a washed-out road. It was hardly a road at all, really, just a rocky trench with the occasional decay of a tire track visible. Two things were clear: One, we weren't going to ride down the mini canyon to certain failure, and, two, others had faced this same problem and bushwhacked through the woods running alongside the road. The result had become lovely single-track trails splitting trees and tumbling over roots, meandering through the forest shadowing the road's ghost. My BMW R1200GS idled calmly down the trail, foliage slapping my helmet and branches tugging at my shirt. "This," I thought, "is what ADV is all about."

And that's the idea of this event, the GS Trophy, which for 2016 cut a seven-day loop through northern Thailand along every type of road imaginable. An epic ride. Why "trophy," then? It's also a competition, between as many nations as BMW can round up, for the entirety of the week and over a variety of conditions. This time around it was 19 teams—57 riders total—representing 25 countries and every continent north of Antarctica (not to mention the staff, ride marshals, and locals hired to help facilitate hundreds of people moving locations daily).

That included 20 journalists, who had boarded planes all over the world and, if they were anything like me, had been trying not to think about the fact that the only time they remembered hearing the term “embedded” was for a war correspondent. This wouldn’t be war, surely? Just an R1200GS in the woods. My fears of it being too rough-and-tumble were cooled the first night in Chiang Mai, with all of the contestants, reporters, and staff put up in a luxury hotel downtown. Everyone was treated to a welcome feast and promises of rugged enduro riding.

Upon arrival at base camp the size of the event started to come into focus. A cool hundred GSs lined up in rows, all with individual rider names and numbers attached (and blood types, worryingly) via sleek sticker kits. The tropical, open-air facilities were a hive of activity, with dozens of BMW staffers and contractors making last-minute plans in German, Thai, and hand signals. What also became apparent was that the plush hotel room on the first night was an anomaly. We pitched provided tents the night before the competition began, as we would for the eight following nights while traveling.

Day one was crackling with energy. A strong brew of excitement and jetlag had some riders up as early as 4:30 in the morning, singing in different languages and putting on armor and boots hours before the ride was set to kick off. And when you think what people have gone through to get here, it makes sense. Each rider competing went through at least two days of qualifying-event tests, graded on performance and poise, proving better than all but two others from their country (or region). Then they waited months on end (some through the heart of winter), receiving invite reminders and teasers of the journey to come. One rider told me he set up and broke down a mock campsite—from tent, to contact lenses, to full gear—no fewer than five times in the back room of his house to prepare for Thailand. Very. Excited.

Then there were the new friendships. Most teams had been acquainted before, but the winning three riders making up each nation’s team were bonding and scheming over everything from strategies for the event to bikes back home. My Yankee squad was no different (Charles from Virginia, Dennis from California, and Tom from Ohio), all avid enduro riders and wholly ready to be challenged. Or, in Dennis’ words, “I came here to get my ass kicked.” By the terrain, that is, and the multiple special tests that BMW arranged to include in each day’s riding.

Sadly, the first day’s ride was rerouted due to heavy rain making the mostly clay roads hopelessly slick, but even still we were pounding up a dirt road before we knew it. Hard-packed from the rain, dust free, and soon littered with wild, slithering tracks that could only come from Metzeler Karoo’s struggling for traction. No highsides that I saw though. Either a sign that BMW’s off-road traction control was very good or the talent pool was deep at the Trophy—both were true, as it happened. The road led deeper into the hills and eventually settled at what would be the first special test of the event.

A massive concrete bridge, once spanning a 100-foot-wide river, lay collapsed in the mostly dry bed, looking foreboding and apocalyptic. One particular slab of concrete (about 30 feet long and the width of a road) lay buried in sand and shallow water at one end, with the other ramped up slightly and leaving a 3- or 4-foot drop at the far end, followed by another of a few feet. The objective: Charles, Dennis, Tom, and I had to get two bikes through the shallow water, up the slab, down the two drops, and another few yards up a hill, using engine power but without anyone riding the bike.

We planned while we watched the first few teams struggle through. The slope of the fallen bridge was scattered with dirt that soon became mud, which led to lots of walking-while-clutching mishaps and GS crashbar checks. Teams anxiously muscling their bikes over the first drop always started with the gravelly crunch of skid-plate-hitting concrete, usually followed by tense moments where the 550-pound machine was on its nose with rear wheel churning, team members barking at each other and trying not to be underneath when it came down. The crowd of peers cheered, then gasped, then cheered again. Some of the more responsible BMW employees could be seen with one palm over their mouths, eyebrows perpetually raised.

Team USA decided it was experience over exuberance that would win the task, so we went for slow(ish) and steady. Nursing the GS up the snotty slope we dragged the bikes down the cement cliff without breaking any lights or blinker stalks (more than some teams could say). As I gripped the bars and steered the second bike off the final bridge platform and on to the dirt, I felt the left cylinder head crush my lower leg against a rock. I waited for it to hurt, but it didn’t. Lesson learned: Enduro boots are as safe as armor as they are awful as shoes. Across the line with a respectable time, we high-fived and clapped each other on the back. It was humid, sweaty, and we were having fun. The following six and a half days of riding saw more of the same, surprise challenges and tests sprinkled into long rides of every kind. In the afternoon of day one, a slow race up a dirt parking lot. Then set up your tent in time to eat. Then sleep.

Day two saw a pop quiz in the morning, adjacent to an abandoned Huey helicopter, a race across a dry riverbed without using the bridge, and a push-and-reverse test where each team had to push their bikes to the end of the lane, stop with front wheels touching rears, and then push the bikes backward to the start/finish line, all without tipping over or touching the tape. Then sleep, eat, and break down your tent.

Climb a tree and memorize a code as a team. Then in the afternoon a braking test where each team member has to stop the front wheel exactly in an outlined box. Grueling, but all in good fun, and the teams were lapping up the competition of accumulating points for each challenge.

Through all of it, there was stunning riding—in and out of thick forest, along spiky ridgelines, and through rural villages. Some of it was pleasant and relaxing (as long as you remembered to stay on the left side of the road), like the final 40 or so miles from Pai to Mae Hong Son, which were paved and perfectly twisty. The dirt-oriented Metzelers were not great for blacktop, but it was still a great ride. Other parts were slightly more technical riding in the form of single-track trails running alongside washed-out roads or across pastures.

Ride up a low, fast-moving creek as fast as possible while looking out for flashcards posted along the riverbed and delivering the message to the marshal at the end. Then, lift one of the team’s GSs over two huge pieces of fallen tree in the shortest amount of time. Then eat. Then drink more water. At the end of the day’s ride, a convoluted trials test where teams had to take turns riding one machine around tennis-court-size area, performing menial tasks with one hand while riding with the other. Eight points for Team USA here, 12 points there.

More great riding in the latter half of the week, dipping in and out of the jungle and emerging on a beautifully laid and horribly dusty dirt road following the Thanlyin River that divides Thailand and Myanmar. Then, we cut inland via a creek bed intersecting the main river, riding through polished river stones and axle-deep water. A mile or so of that was nearly as cool as gazing up at the bottom of houses, propped up by stilts above the water—a good reminder that the river route probably wouldn’t be possible in the monsoon season. The next day, as the sun dipped toward the hills, we rode a stellar dirt road running up the spine of a nearly bald ridge, giving us panoramic views of the cloudless sky and bright, green farmland below.

But always in the back of your mind: Don’t get lost in the beauty. Focus on the challenges too. A U-turn relay race in a crowded thicket of shrubs (14 points for Team USA) and a scramble on foot up a rocky brook while navigating via BMW GPS (13 points) tested the teams on day five. Eat. Sleep. Then tow a dead bike up a hill with a running bike, around a barrel and come back down, without crashing each other (zero points)—oops. Then change three front wheels on three different GSs as fast as possible (15 points). Then set up your tent again, eat again, sleep a little, and do it all again. It might be hard to convince a family member that it would be fun, but if you love riding motorcycles it’s also difficult to imagine a better way to spend the day.

The final day and the final Special Test of the event: a massive trials course taped off in and around a slightly overgrown motocross track near start/finish of the event. Mostly it was bumpy turns and awkward climbs, but there was also a log crossing and a mandatory “trials stop” on a steep downhill (meaning riders had to bring the bike to a complete stop and hold for one second). Most diabolical, three tires hanging from the back of three GSs waited about 15 feet from a bamboo stake in the ground; each rider on the team had to grab a tire with their right arm then drop it over the stake to avoid a five-point penalty.

The crowd of competitors cheered their rivals through the whole course, sensing that the experience was coming to a close and summoning the last bit of energy and communal spirit. Team USA ended up eighth of 19 teams at the 2016 GS Trophy—enough for hoots, hollers, and high-fives. Team Germany and Great Britain scrapped and bested each other all week in an effort to catch a young and capable team from South Africa, but it was nothing doing. The Trophy is nestled in the southern hemisphere for the next two years.

After being embedded in the midst of all of this energy for a week and a half, I can’t help but be a little inspired. And let’s be clear: Motorcycling is full of inspiration. Whether it’s off-road daredevils trying to clear an insane gap or the artists of the custom world chopping and welding creations that bend our reality of what a motorcycle can look like, there are lots of interesting people trying new things in motorcycling. But when it comes to adventure touring, or ADV, the inspiration is usually pretty superficial. Brochures and ad copy fill the consumers with grandiose ideas of romping across a desert-scape or exploring some unseen wilderness. But if you test the limits of ADVs by riding them down single-track and jumping down OHV trails, the same manufacturers often raise their eyebrows and look at you like, “What were you thinking?!” (Don’t ask how we know.)

The biennial GS Trophy is the opposite of this philosophy. BMW cannot take all of the praise for encouraging its ADV bikes to be taken on actual adventures, but the Bavarians should get a great deal of credit for hosting one of the boldest spectacles in the world, and providing bikes for everyone to abuse. This is reason number one to love the GS Trophy: What other manufacturer would watch its customers drop $20,000 flagship models off a collapsed bridge and then clap them on the back and say, “Well done,” at the end of the day?