End of this year I'm riding from Abidjan to Banjul with some friends. As much as possible trying to hug the coast. At a number of points this may take us off the major roads. (attached a rough map)

I'm hoping we will be riding something similar to a Jialing 125 III.

I've ridden a DR350 from London to Cape Town down the west coast a few years ago. However sadly missed out these countries and went through Mali.

I'm unsure of the road conditions, does anyone have an idea of roughly how many kilometres one could do in a day riding on a 125cc bike?

I appreciate that different sections will be harder/easier (last time I averaged around 300km per day, although this went down to 50km in some areas and one day I did nearly 700).

I know its an annoying question but would appreciate any guidance!

Hi Jimmyha,

So in 2017 a friend and I rode from Ghana to the UK on x2 small little African 125s, so I can probably answer a lot of questions you may have. However, let me start by saying you are going to have a seriously awesome time. The route, people and roads from Abidjan to Banjul are great fun and even with small little 125 engines, you will love the riding. I’m jealous!

In terms of miles, it’s sort of up to you. In that it depends how long you want to be on the bike each day. We were not rushed for time so would take it easy. However, when we were trying to push miles we could only cover between 60 to 100 miles a day on the really bad roads (for around 6/7 hours driving). That said, the day would often involve constant stops for police/break-downs/directions (we didn’t have GPS except an iPhone)/lunch/river crossings etc… and this would obviously hamper progress. Also, we had more road style bikes and were not experienced riders. On the better (paved) roads, you can cover your max speed (which I doubt will be much above 55mph x the number of hours you are willing to drive). As a general rule, everything takes longer than you think it will.

In terms of road quality. The worst roads we found were in Western Cote d’Ivoire (Man to Tabou), all of Liberia except around Monrovia (however, we followed the coast rather than take the better roads that go in land), the Eastern side of Sierra Leone (from the frontier to Bo) and most of Guinea (except the area around the commercial mines). That said, so much road building work was going on. So maybe things will have improved. I posted some info on frontier crossings and road quality previously in the Hubb. Have a look at this link (http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...ithout-89519-2). It’s about half way down the page and was posted on 22/07/2017.

If you would like some information on places to stay / stuff to see / routes to take, I’m more than happy to help. We had an Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/moronsonmotos/) that will show you some photos if you would like to see.

Thanks,

Rory

Thanks Rory thats a huge help! I had actually found your instagram before hand, looks like you had an amazing trip!

Out of interest did you get searched much? I'm hoping to film the trip and ideally would like to bring a small drone, however I'm conscious that it might be confiscated if found.

So I think we were only searched once on the entire trip (on the Ghanaian Ivorian border, Ivorian side) and it was a very un-thorough search. Maybe we were lucky but it never seemed like they were interested in our stuff. Just don't get the cameras out near the border would be my advice!