off-road 2up
 

Looking for some words of wisdom:

Being a experienced off-road rider and a regular of Morocco, I'm about to leave in week or so for another trip there, but this time I'll go with my girlfriend (never been there...) on a R 80 G/S.
We will stay for 3 weeks and I would like to try some off-road pistes. After some brief study of the routes in the Morocco Overland, I selected some that I think we could manage:

MH 1, 4, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19
MA 5, 9, 14
MW 3, 4, 5, 7
MS 1, 2, 13, 14

What you say?
Doable? (weather conditions permitting)
Trying to come up with a itinerary...

Thanks,

Cheers

Being experience off-road rider as you say you are, I'm surprised you're considering this, unless we're talking only about gravel roads.

Good selection. These are the ones I'd try on an 80GS two up:

MH 1, 9 (bit boring imo), 16, 17, 18, 19
MA 5, 9 (great route, but maybe road it to Akka Ig), 14 (also vg)
MW 4, 5
MS 1, 2, 13, 14

All you have to do is go slowly to spare the shock, or ask her to walk for a bit.

The other ones you could probably manage too, but might require more frequent walking over the gnarly bits - or risking breaking something. Wouldn't want that on MW7.

Thanks for the advice :thumbup1:

I'll be back with some updates on the trip.

Last April,
26 days, 6900 kms, Lots of fun!!!


As for off-road routes:

The first we tried was MA 9, which was a good one to realize the differences between riding solo and 2 up (and to give up the idea of doing MW7…)
The weight is the major difference (as it is the all balance of the bike) and the shock must be in a much softer setting, otherwise is to hard to the pillion's back.

But we manage the MH4 from Nkob to the crossroad Dades - Iknioun (where the road begins) quiet well;
It’s tarmac all the way up to N30° 58' 11.0" W5° 49' 12.1” (14kms) but the remaining 35kms of track to the summit and down is easier than what I remember of it. The track is well maintained and there are works in the north side.

We also did the MH1 from Msemrir to Agoudal; that one was a bit harder at times with all the hairpins on the south side and some stream crossings near Agoudal, but we were lucky, the pass was dry.
Didn’t spot any auberge at Tizi n’Ouano.

We missed the MH19 because a local guide at Kasbah Chems told us that it was snowing at the peak, we was cancelling some hiking tour, so we tried our way west of Amejgag, the idea being to get to R307, the road to Demnate, or at least to Skoura.
There’s a road that ends 9kms after Amejgag and then it becomes a piste that is clear but with no recent signs of vehicles after the last village. At some point (32kms from Amejgag) there was a narrow descent, and we decided to turn back. If I was riding alone I think I could manage it, but with 2 on the bike the slope looked gnarly.
As it turns out, we were a 1km or so away from a regular used road / piste, or so it seems on the Google… will try it next time around!

MH18: tarmac all the way from Demnate to Tabant crossroad, and heavy construction works to asphalt it from here to the Azilal crossroad.
Amazing scenery anyway, one of the trip highlights. It was the first time I was in Ait Bougoumez area and it’s really incredible.

We ended up not doing any off-road at the Anti Atlas but we did parts of several MA routes, all of them great routes.
The amazing scenery of Morocco mountain and desert roads / pistes it’s always a surprise no matter how many times I go back there.