Dark Motorcycling!

[XTreme]

Talking to a client the other day who's in the Tourist Industry and she commented about the abandoned railway stations and villages as she'd seen them on FB. I told her that I wasn't aware of anybody else who was doing anything similar within the motorcycling fraternity.

And she said that there's actually a whole genre of holidays and excursions that are put together to cater for these unusual type of places.......it's called Dark Tourism. And the destinations would be places like Death Camps, sites of natural disasters, or man-made disasters like Chernobyl etc. Interesting concept for sure!

She suggested that I start a Dark Motorcycling tour business running trips to these grim and bleak places. Because nobody else does it. I told her there's not a hope of me doing something like that.......which essentially is dragging a bunch of fucking dickheads across Southern Spain, arranging accommodation , translating etc. 

The whole premise behind going to these places is to totally escape, and be in complete solitude with nobody for miles around. Not pandering to a bunch of selfie-taking twats who would just ruin the atmosphere of the whole thing like they're now doing on the rail tracks at Auschwitz.

However, it's an interesting business concept for somebody......though whether people would stump up the dosh to make it worthwhile I'm not sure.

But the upshot is that I seem to have created a new genre of biking.......Dark Motorcycling! You won't get this shit on Buttrider you know! Tell 'em @Tym

[Tym]

Word! 

[XTreme]

16 minutes ago, Tym said:

Word! 

I'm sure I remember many years ago that you did some sort of ride report visiting spots where there'd been mass shootings and murders?

And some place where they dump dead hookers?

[yen_powell]

I thought you did damp motorcycling, or is that just inside the trackies?

By the way, is that a mirror in the middle of the shelves or a doorway?

[XTreme]

Just now, yen_powell said:

I thought you did damp motorcycling, or is that just inside the trackies?

By the way, is that a mirror in the middle of the shelves or a doorway?

It's a doorway.....possibly a time portal as well. If I could guarantee I'd get 1973 I'd be through it like a shot.

Knowing my luck I'd get something like the time of Kennedy's assassination or Pearl Harbour!

[Earache]

 

Dark Tourism is a big thing here as well. Loads of supposedly "haunted" places that the geeks tour. Dunno if I'd wanna take them along on a bike trip though.

 

I'd love to do a regular touring business on bikes though - would be fun and I know all the good places to go.

[Sir Fallsalot]

10 minutes ago, Earache said:

 

Dark Tourism is a big thing here as well. Loads of supposedly "haunted" places that the geeks tour. Dunno if I'd wanna take them along on a bike trip though.

 

I'd love to do a regular touring business on bikes though - would be fun and I know all the good places to go.

If you did it for a living it would probably become a chore very quickly. i know it would for me, bikes are strictly for pleasure

[XTreme]

27 minutes ago, Earache said:

 

Dark Tourism is a big thing here as well. Loads of supposedly "haunted" places that the geeks tour. Dunno if I'd wanna take them along on a bike trip though.

 

I'd love to do a regular touring business on bikes though - would be fun and I know all the good places to go.

From my experience, based on having clients who've done it, is there's not much money in it.

The only outfit that I know of, who appear to be doing OK, is Rawhyde!

[XTreme]

18 minutes ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

If you did it for a living it would probably become a chore very quickly. i know it would for me, bikes are strictly for pleasure

Exactly! When your hobby/interest becomes your living it changes everything.

[Pedro]

We disagree. That would be true if the main thing in motorcycle tours would be motorcycling, but it's not. The main thing in motorcycle tours is to hold the hand of hopeless people that are too afraid to tour even a civilized western country on their own, motorcycles are just the vehicles in that business.

[Tym]

1 hour ago, XTreme said:

 

And some place where they dump dead hookers?

Actually, thats where i crashed back in 07 

[Earache]

2 hours ago, Pedro said:

We disagree. That would be true if the main thing in motorcycle tours would be motorcycling, but it's not. The main thing in motorcycle tours is to hold the hand of hopeless people that are too afraid to tour even a civilized western country on their own, motorcycles are just the vehicles in that business.

Pretty much sums it up.

Never understood why someone would want to pay for a "tour" when it's just as easy to set out on your own and wander around....and lots cheaper, too.

[alfalfa]

5 hours ago, Earache said:

Pretty much sums it up.

Never understood why someone would want to pay for a "tour" when it's just as easy to set out on your own and wander around....and lots cheaper, too.

In countries where you dont speak the native language, it can be a great help. Same goes with unfamiliar areas when you have limited time. Sometimes it is not knowing where to research points of interest.  I've taken two Edelweiss Tours, both of them well run, fun and great motorcycle roads experienced.  Have also done two tours with Ride in Tours, which is a one man outfit (Laurent Dozias) who knows France inside and out, as well as a couple of other countries.  Laurent has very reasonable prices and is freaking crackup to be around.  Looking forward to one next year that takes me back to Spain!

 

[XTreme]

I was thinking about the whole concept of Dark Tourism and the popularity that it seems to have.

So I reckoned that grabbing the domain that reflects the Motorcycling equivalent may well be worth a punt!

Cos you never know whether this could become something of value as time goes on!

Here it is......and redirected to this forum for the time being: www.darkmotorcycling.com

[boboneleg]

You're absolutely right Pete. 

I had this conversation with a mate of mine when I was made redundant about 10 years ago.  He suggested that we start up a trail riding business leading peeps around Salisbury Plain etc.  I knocked the idea on the head straight off as you would end up getting sued by some 'hooray-henry' who thought it might be a jolly good caper but fell off on the first bit of mud and blamed me.

Plus what Fred said, it would just become a chore

[Tym]

Trains, off-road..dark! now i remember, i was going to work on this topic for some pics, i forgot... 

 

Cant think of much darkness around here, property costs to much it doesnt sit long.

 

[XTreme]

I've uncovered a rather sinister bit of info about the abandoned village I'm going to search for on Sunday.

You may remember that with all these villages the reason so far for them being empty is economic. Because people moved to the bigger towns and cities to get work.

But not with this one.......because the residents were made to leave and their homes demolished! And there's a pattern of villages being forcibly depopulated throughout Spain during the years of the Franco dictatorship up to 1975.

In this case, the creation of the Cazorla-Segura National Hunting Reserve in 1960 required a change in the usage of large tracts of land, land that contained a number of villages and hamlets. So the residents were evicted in order that the state could take their land.

This is Dark Motorcycling for sure!

[Pedro]

Franco wasn't cool.

[Earache]

I think a tour of the ghost towns, haunted areas and old gold mines around here would do well. There are lots of local ghost tours that are popular . The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park is one of the more famous ones: https://www.stanleyhotel.com/night-tour.html . It's the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write "The Shining" .

But there are loads of ruins, etc that could make up a week long riding tour.

[Earache]

45 minutes ago, Pedro said:

Franco wasn't cool.

Didn't hang out with the coolest people , either

[XTreme]

13 minutes ago, Earache said:

Didn't hang out with the coolest people , either

Apparently Hitler said (after meeting Franco) that he never wished to meet him again! Coming from Hitler that pretty much says it all.

And as far as I know, no other leader of a country has ever asked other countries to kill it's own citizens as in the Bombing of Guernica.

[Pedro]

2 hours ago, XTreme said:

Apparently Hitler said (after meeting Franco) that he never wished to meet him again! Coming from Hitler that pretty much says it all.

Maybe he just didn’t like the food served, damn Hitler and his manners

[Earache]

2 hours ago, XTreme said:

Apparently Hitler said (after meeting Franco) that he never wished to meet him again! Coming from Hitler that pretty much says it all.

 

How much of an asshole do you have to be for Hitler to hate you!?!?

[XTreme]

In terms of abandoned villages Belchite is the most striking.......and by far the darkest with 3000 dead in the Spanish Civil War.

[yen_powell]

5 hours ago, Earache said:

Didn't hang out with the coolest people , either

Look at the starch on those lapels in the middle. How ever were we on the winning side in WW2, Churchill looked like Wurzel Gummidge in comparison, no two pounds of him hanging straight!