Adventureride.co.uk

19/03/2026

I don't usually post personal stuff on social media but today I'll make an exception. My dear friend and motorcycling mentor Pip Higham passed away yesterday after a difficult year-long battle with cancer and whilst I'm devastated by his loss I'm very relieved the pain and suffering is finally over for him. He had a torrid time of it but always remained stoic, optimistic and, as ever, cheerful throughout.
If you enjoyed a day out with AdventureRide during the Gas Gas Pampera era, the chances are Pip built the motor. Pip, who built many engines for me including the motor for my Laverda endurance racer and my Lancia Fulvia used to (I think!) enjoy building the simple Gas Gas two stroke engines because he admired their rugged simplicity. He certainly built plenty of them and they were always beautifully built and 100% reliable, like all his engines.
The pic shows Pip (L) and his brother Bill (Centre), also sadly no longer with us, taking part in the Route of Five Thousand Curves event in Spain a few years ago. Happy days.
I consulted with Pip almost daily on a wide variety of technical issues and he always had endless patience with my often simplistic questions and I'm not sure how I will manage without his guidance and technical help. Pip was a brilliant engineer, generous spirited and patient and a very talented racer, look him up on Google if you want to know more, suffice to say he was inducted into the UK drag racing Hall of Fame a few years ago. He was a slight in stature but a giant of a human being. Ever the pragmatist, when Pip learned of how serious his condition was, he gifted me his beautiful Ducati Scrambler with the words. "Who else am I going to give to?" I will cherish it forever and hopefully my lads will too.
Tonight I will have a few glasses of vino to celebrate a wonderful friend and listen to Tom Petty, one of Pip's favourtite bands. I'm sure Pip would approve. I'm gonna miss him.

26/06/2025

Just a quick note to thank everybody who generously donated to the AdventureRide Just Giving page, at the moment we're just £40 short of the £1000 target and so if you haven't already donated please consider giving a small amount to help get to the target.

21/06/2025

Well, what a day we had! Although l'd hoped a few more people could have joined us on the ride this was more than compensated for by the quality and generosity of the riders themselves.
Big thanks to John, Andy, Gaz and Jon who helped turned the ride into one of the best we've had in a long time. Lunch on the terrace at the lakeside terrace in Llandindrod was a real treat as was our inadvertant participation in the Welsh Two day enduro (long story). We'll do it again. Final tally for the Air Ambulance was £750 give or take including gift aid. If you'd like to make a small donation to help meet the £1000 target please drop me a line [email protected]. Finally a shout out to AdventureRide regulars Alan C. and Mark J. for their generous contributions even though they couldn't join us on the ride.

19/06/2025

Hello Folks, It appears that Facebook have been disabling the link to the charity page I set up. It's not clear what they object to but their AI systems have been preventing it working and unfortunately they didn't bother to tell me this is what has been happening. Very frustrating. The ride is going ahead as planned and if anybody would like to donate something please email me at [email protected] and I'll send you the link.
Thanks, Bob

17/06/2025

If you aren't able to come out with us later this week on our fundraising ride to support the Midlands Air Ambulance please consider making a small donation to the my fundraising page. Please click on the link below to make a payment which goes direct to the charity. Any donation would be most welcome and vital to help the Air Ambulance service continue their valuable work.
Thanks in anticipation,
Bob

08/06/2025

There are still some places left on the Longest Day charity ride in aid of the Midlands Air Ambulance Service. It's only £50 to take part in a fantastic trail ride along the Marches, one of the best trail riding areas of the UK. The ride is on June 20th and the route is suitable for adventure bikes. More details can be found at the top of the page. If you can't attend please consider donating £5 direct to the Just giving page. The video was taken on yesterday's ride and shows the kind of scenery and trails you'll see on the ride.

11/05/2025

My good friend John has been building a very interesting replica of a Laverda/BMW prototype which Laverda built for BMW in the late 1970s. With a little help from the bike's original creator Sandro Todeshini and a local fabricator in Bishop's Castle, John's bike is an intriguing taste of what might have been had BMW built a simpler less sophisticated version of the GS. The bike weighs less than a Honda CRF 250 and so l was curious to see how it perfomed. It's really nice off road, and not at all as unwieldy as a modern adventure bike. There's still a lot of work to do but first impressions suggest this could be genuinely great dual purpose bike which is fast and comfortable enough to cover 200 miles + on the road and still light enough to be a fun trail bike.

01/05/2025

See previous post for more details or contact me at the email address in the pic.

30/04/2025

Without wishing to sound melodramatic I probably wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the swift intervention of a crew from the Midlands Air Ambulance Service and I'm forever in their debt. Motorcyclists and in particular trail riders are involved in a relatively hazardous pastime often in remote, inaccessible areas and the emergency cover provided by the Air Ambulance service is something we should never take for granted. It's a volunteer service and with this in mind I'd like to raise some funds for them by organising the first of what I hope will be a series of trail rides with all the proceeds going to the Midlands Air Ambulance service.
The initial ride will be The Longest Day Ride on June 20th 2025. If you want to participate in the event all you need is a suitable bike and to make a minimum donation of £50 to the Midlands Air Ambulance Service on my Midlands Air Ambulance Just Giving page. Numbers on the ride are limited to 18 bikes so please let me know on [email protected] if you're coming so I can reserve your place. If you can't attend the ride but would like to contribute please donate whatever you can, any level of donation would be welcome. The target for this inaugural event is £1000

Help Rob Dixon raise money to support Midlands Air Ambulance Charity

29/04/2025

It was a pleasure to welcome Adie and Stephen over from Northern Island this week. Both are experienced riders but new to off road and so we started off on some easy trails before progressing to more challenging stuff. One of the Alps threw a curved ball by refusing to start after Adie had a minor off. Andy heroically traced the fault to a build-up of electrical resistance in one of the starter motor connections which was causing the solenoid to trip out. After a quick scrape and clean of the offending connection we were on our way. Despite the hiccup it a very enjoyable day in glorious weather.

05/04/2025

Another day of great weather and another great ride. Lee brought along his fiesty sounding Husky and Chris and Russ used the Alps. Chris is fairly new to motorcyling and had never been off road before but took to it like a duck to water, as you see from the fairly 'sporting' way he tackled the river crossing (rider 3).
Fingers crossed this run of weather continues.