Ride Safe. Prepare. Or Stay Home.
I need to say something that does not fit neatly into the adventure narrative.
What I do on this page involves genuine life danger. Not the marketing version of danger — not "extreme" in the way that word gets applied to ice cream flavours. Actual danger. I have ridden very dangerous roads at night, in storms, with failing lights and a displaced collarbone and a stomach that had stopped cooperating. I have ridden up to sixteen hours in a single day, sometimes longer, in areas with no medical assistance, no mobile signal, and no help within a hundred kilometres.
In the last four weeks alone I heard of several crashes involving experienced riders on long-distance tours or classic Vespas — riders with decades of experience. Some ended up in intensive care. One was in genuine danger of not coming home.
What This Is Not
This is not a page where I tell you to do what I do.
Too many people have contacted me during their own trips — with severe problems, with breakdowns they were not equipped to handle, with situations that had spiralled well beyond their preparation level. They had seen the photos and the stories and decided they were ready. They were not.
Scooter adventure travel is something you grow into. You do not hop on a Vespa, watch three YouTube videos, and declare yourself prepared for Siberia.
What Preparation Actually Looks Like
I speak several languages. I had years of military training, survival training, and first aid courses before I ever left for a serious tour. I have been wrenching on scooters since I was sixteen — not perfectly, but well enough to keep a machine running roadside at midnight. I have slept hundreds of nights outside, with and without a tent, in temperatures from -14°C to 46°C. I have some martial arts background and know my own body and its limits reasonably well. I have ridden millions of kilometres across cars, trucks, motorcycles and scooters over decades.
And with all of that preparation — I was still enormously lucky to come home alive. Multiple times.
I am not a smaller, slightly overweight Chuck Norris on a Vespa, whatever some people say. I was very, very lucky.
What To Actually Do
Check your tyres before every serious ride. Check your brakes. Do your maintenance — not when you feel like it, when the schedule says to. Carry a basic medkit on every tour, not just the long ones. Know your machine's weak points before you leave, not when you are standing on the side of a road in a country where nobody has heard of a Vespa.
Go out. Look for adventure. Test your limits. But test them progressively — not by jumping straight to the deep end and hoping for the best.
Research. Prepare. Build up to it. Bring the right gear. Tell someone your route.
And if your mother, your partner, or your common sense is telling you that you are not ready — listen. The road will still be there next year when you are.
Big hugs to all the riders out there. Ride safe.
— Markus