Herbert Schwarz Rides Through Central Africa – Part 1

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Every year, Touratech Executive Director Herbert Schwarz leaves the day-to-day running of his motorcycle parts and accessories business behind for several weeks and heads off the beaten track on two wheels to some of the most remote areas of the world. His reasons for doing this are quite simple: first and foremost, he is a free spirit and believes that he would "go crazy" if he wasn't able to escape by motorcycle at least once a year. Secondly, Herbert thinks that a business, which has been built by providing reliable and innovative solutions for adventure travellers, would not be credible if its owners didn't take part in the same kinds of activities. Thirdly, as new motorcycles are launched or updated, a whole series of parts and accessories are needed to accompany them. Herbert works closely with many manufacturers - especially BMW Motorrad - to ensure that owners can get the best out of their machines in the exact environments which they were designed for. Touratech Executive Director Herbert Schwarz likes to head off the beaten track on two wheelsNaturally, the design and development of these parts takes time and as they are often being sold to those riders who need them to perform in extreme conditions, then Herbert believes that these parts should also be tested in similar conditions. And there are few places that offer more extreme riding conditions than equatorial Africa! Recent trips have taken Herbert to Mexico, Namibia, the USA, Canada and Bolivia, but he was especially keen to return to central Africa. He'd had some involvement with BMW Motorrad on the development side of the new F 800 GS and had hoped to organise a pre-production machine to use out in Africa but it was almost impossible due to timescales and ongoing development work with this eagerly awaited new model. Therefore, he had almost given up hope when a phone call from BMW Motorrad changed everything. His new wife, Ramona picks up the story: "Herbert and I had got to know each other while filming the Canada to Mexico trip back in 2006. Prior to this I had been travelling around the world by motorcycle for six years and since returning home, I was looking forward to getting some normality back in my life - not to mention the fact that I was also six months pregnant with my first child! I was doing some gardening when Herbert rang up all excited. He said 'you won't believe it - BMW has got a bike for me', and then he told me we were going to Africa in 14 days time!" Due to the rather short notice, it wasn't possible to organise the usual film crew or photographers because they were all busy on other assignments, so the couple decided that they would look after this themselves, as Ramona confirms: "Without a producer, cameraman or photographer, we decided to ride the bikes, take the pictures, write the travel stories and even do the filming! Herbert was desperate to return to Africa again, so we organised transportation of the bikes (one G 650 Xchallenge and the F 800 GS), took the usual precautions against Malaria and - before we knew it - we were on the plane to Mombassa with the two bikes in the aircraft's hold." The route that the couple chose for this trip, taking in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and UgandaThe route that the couple chose for this trip was basically a loop around Lake Victoria (the largest tropical lake in the world), taking in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. As a veteran of at least 19 trips to Africa, with 32 countries visited and more than 150,000 kilometres ridden on this continent alone, Herbert's main purpose for returning was to see what had changed. "The history of some of these countries is interesting but also very cruel, such as Rwanda, which had the genocide in 1994. However, you can go everywhere now and it's changed very much - all to the positive. It's the same story with visas, where everything is becoming easier now. We needed to organise a visa in advance for Burundi, but all of the others we were able to get at the border, which is fantastic news for travelling Europeans." The next Touratech brochure comes out at the end of January, so Herbert also wanted a travel story about the new F 800 GS for this. Along with the two new bikes were a selection of various components and accessories that were being tested out in Africa. The locals were fascinated by sat-navFor the F 800 GS, these included an engine guard, skid plate, headlight guard, hand guards and a prototype pannier system. For the G 650 Xchallenge, Touratech has already developed about 45 products but Herbert's biggest regret was that the bigger tank he has designed wasn't ready at the time of the trip. "The G 650 Xchallenge is a fantastic bike with real long-distance capability when you fit panniers and the new big fuel tank. The one we have now developed makes a range of 500 km possible on this bike, which is excellent. We're going to be sponsoring an Xchallenge rider in this year's Paris-Dakar rally and this is the kind of range that you need to have just in order to be able to compete in the Dakar rally. I'm ashamed to say that because this tank wasn't ready when we went to Africa, we had to take some good old-fashioned jerry cans with us, which is a terrible thing to admit for someone who is working for Touratech!" According to Ramona, the reason for choosing their route was quite simple: "We wanted to do a manageable loop that took in desert landscapes, mud, dirt, gravel roads and basically a bit of everything that would test the accessories under extreme conditions. Because we only had a four-week long window of opportunity, we wanted to pack in as much as possible, including seeing Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya and also paying a visit to the mountain gorillas in Rwanda. But when we looked down from the aeroplane, we couldn't believe how many rivers we could see and we weren't sure we were even in the right place. As it turned out they weren't rivers - they were the roads we had to be on, but most of them were underwater! A taster of the real AfricaIn the end though, we still managed to ride more than 5,000 kilometres and it turned out to be an amazing and unique experience - and certainly one of the best trips of my life!" This was a view shared by Herbert, who certainly rekindled his love affair with the African continent: "Another intention of the trip was that we knew that we would be writing stories that would be published in various motorcycle magazines and we wanted to portray a different picture of the countries that are supposed to be dangerous. We didn't want to stay only on the tourist routes, but equally, we didn't want to put ourselves in potentially dangerous situations either. You can't really describe to anyone what Africa is like - you have to go there and see it for yourself, smell the place and talk to the people. To do it on these bikes made the experience all the more worthwhile."

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