Madagascar or bust!

Motorcycle tour on Madagascar: Adventure calling.

The twelve finalists for the Touratech project “United People of Adventure” have been selected, including mate of the Overland team, July Behl!

Some are amusing, some are deep, some are arty and creative, some biographical, but they all have one thing in common: a passion for travelling on two wheels. We’re talking about the 200 or so videos that motorbike enthusiasts from all over the world submitted to apply for an adventure trip to Madagascar. Under the motto of “United People of Adventure”, the Niedereschach-based touring accessories supplier Touratech is inviting one rider per continent on this expedition.

Touratech

 

The island of Madagascar lies off the eastern coast of Mozambique, and delights visitors with its amazing and unique flora and fauna, impressive landscapes and cultural variety. However, this motorbike trip, which takes place in April, is anything but a package holiday. It’s about exploring, a spirit of adventure and team spirit. So the riders must possess a healthy dose of unflappability, openness and the necessary equanimity to enable them to cope with entirely unfamiliar situations.
And in order to find these special people, Touratech put out a call for video applications. CEO Herbert Schwarz and his wife Ramona then had to make the decision and choose just twelve candidates – 2 for each continent – from the submissions, to come to a selection weekend in Niedereschach between 25 and 28 February. They will then see who are the best matches for the “United People of Adventure” team.
The twelve finalists, who include three women, are aged between 25 and 58 and all enthusiastic bikers for whom taking part in “United People of Adventure” would be a dream come true. However, the dream will only come true for one biker per continent.
“Out of all the applications, there isn’t a single rider we wouldn’t love to take on the trip with us,” emphasise Ramona and Herbert Schwarz, clear confirmation that making their decisions was anything but easy. They expressed their particular gratitude to all the entrants for the fabulous videos, the amount of time and effort everyone put into them, and for their tremendous interest in being part of “United People of Adventure”.

July Behl says “I’m really looking forward to the get together at Touratech HQ at the end of Feb and am hoping to get selected in the final 6. Wish me luck!”  We do, mate!
And here are the finalists from whom the six travellers will be chosen:

Africa: Ismail Kirumira (30), Uganda; Omar Mansour (42), Egypt.

Asia: Taro Mitzutani (50), Japan; July Behl (34); India.

Australia: Robert Davies (52), Western Australia; Andrea Box (25), Victoria.

South America: Gunther Fischli (39) and Rosa Freitag (46), both from Brazil.

North America: Benjamin Myers (38), USA, California. Claude Auchu (47) Canada, Québéc.

Europe: Gudmundur Björnsson (58) and Inga Birna Erlingsdóttir (37), both from Iceland.

UPoA_Finalists