Early in 2020, we loaded a 1970s Ural sidecar and a Yamaha XT 500 onto a trailer and drove to the south of Spain for El Gringo, a three-day off-road ride by Fuel Motorcycles. Its motto: “A Ride to Desert, a Doorway to Hell.”
28 hours in a Chevy van
The trailer rode behind our Chevy Van G20. About 2,200 km and 28 hours later, we arrived at Fort Bravo in the Tabernas desert in Almería — one of the last remaining western film sets in an area where many 1970s spaghetti westerns were shot. The Tabernas is often called Europe's only desert, and it looks the part.
32 riders from Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and the UK met there, on scramblers, trackers and sidecar outfits. We slept at the fort, and the evenings ended in the saloon.
Into the Sierra Nevada
The XT 500 was out early with a total gearbox failure. The Ural kept going: on the first morning we covered about 100 km and climbed into the Sierra Nevada to around 1,800 m. On snow and tight, winding tracks, the Ural's switchable sidecar drive gave us an edge.
On one descent the Ural met a tree. The damage was only sheet metal, and we rode it back to the fort in third gear — on a flat tyre. Evenings meant a campfire and a glass of whiskey, though after days like these most riders were in bed early.
The drive home was 2,200 km again, non-stop except for eight fuel stops.
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El Gringo by Fuel Motorcycles, early 2020. First published on badandbold.com.