I’m Mark Halliday, and will be working with Bill to offer beginners and intermediate level riders, a chance to experience Trail Riding around Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. 

At-a-Glance Trail dates for 2009

6th & 7th June - Grade 1 & 2 trails around Derbyshire.  Aimed mainly at riders with large road going Traillies - TransAlps, Africa Twins, KTMs and GS sort of things.  Small group size, some riders already confirmed.

18th to 23rd June - long weekend tour in Iceland -  riding KLRs and V-Stroms to the barren interior on the longest dauy of the year.  24 hour daylight.  Som epaved sectiosn to start with, then largely unsurfaced roads.

Offroadtours Big Trail Bike weekend - 6th & 7th June 2009

I live just 5 miles from Bill in the Nottingham area and have been involved with many forms of Motorcycling all my life; from Road Racing RD350LC’s back in the early 80’s, to Formula 2 Sidecar Racing since the early 90’s. In 2000 I took up a new challenge, the Isle of Man TT Races. The fastest newcomer that year on a Sidecar, I have now been 5 times in all with a personal best of 12th in 2006 and a fastest lap of over 105mph in 2007.

I’ve nearly always had a Trail bike of sorts, for road use, ever since my early 20’s but I started to take it seriously about 7 years ago when I bought my Honda CRM 250 Mk 3, to begin Green-laning.

As a TRF member, I believe in preserving the Legal rights of way for everyone to enjoy; both walkers and vehicle users alike.

I’ve participated in;

-    Trail Bike Rallies in Wales

-    TRF organised point to point course marking for the horse and pony clubs

-    Geraint Jones Training school

-    12 hour Dawn till Dusk enduro

-    4 hour T-Bec Enduro

-    Pit crew for Weston Beach Race team

-    Numerous Trail Biking days & Weekends in Derbyshire, Yorkshire Dales and The Lake District

-    Thailand Trip 5 day Adventure

-    Morocco Trip 7 day Adventure

I get real pleasure from leading a group, map reading and organising trips.

My real passion however is to encourage new people to get involved and experience this exciting and ever popular form of Motorcycling. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see the amazement and joy on someone’s face when they discover the thrill of riding in the beautiful countryside with no traffic, on legal rights of way with no tarmac. They learn new skills, gain confidence and improve their motorcycling ability too.

I can offer guided trail riding in South Derbyshire between Ashbourne and Buxton where I have had a number of great days out on legal Green-lanes of varying difficulty to suit your needs and I would definitely be interested in putting a route together to help you improve your confidence, technique and experience.

My portfolio of knowledge will be expanding to include comprehensive guided Trail-Riding in;

-    Leicestershire (The Viking way etc) 

-    North Derbyshire (North of Buxton)

-    The Lake District

-    Yorkshire Dales

Key features available are to include;

-    Professional service

-    Back up. Trailer for recovery etc

-    Gate man, aids the flow of the group on trails & sorts recovery with minimum delay

-    Small groups, max 5 customers, not to cause offence to any other lane users

-    Lunch

-    I am a Qualified and registered First Aider

-    I am an Qualified Mechanical Engineer and experienced Motorcycle mechanic

-    Advice on bike set up

-    Coaching on Technique

-    One to one tuition if required

-    Trips tailored to your needs 

-    One day or weekend Trail riding tours

-    Adventure trips. On and off road, ideal for road based bikes

-    Big Trail bike tours, BMW GS, Triumph Tiger etc     

-    Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays  

It doesn’t matter what you ride I will tailor the tour to suit you and your motorcycle. 50cc to 1150cc

I personally grade all the lanes in my portfolio after riding them myself from;

Grade 1 – Easy

Grade 2 – Trickier

Grade 3 – Challenging

Grade 4 – Difficult

Whether you’re a total beginner, rusty intermediate or more experienced rider wanting to know if you’re ready for that big adventure abroad, I can advise on the next step for you after a trip with me.

So dust down your motorcycle and get in touch, either E-mail Bill at Bike Tours UK or give me a ring direct on 0773 4056674 it’s that easy.

 I look forward to hearing from you,

 Mark

UPDATE - Mark has his own website now, click here http://www.offroadtours.co.uk/index.html

Keep an eye on this Web page as we hope to add new material every week.

We'd like to catalogue some of the easier trails as well; a bit of "soft adventure" for the big adventure type machine.  There are some trails we know of that can be done on a road bike - but a hybrid type machine is just perfect for them.

Click here for detail.

Bill has begun to write up the story of our Dirt Bike adventure in Morocco.  It will probably fill 20 or 30 episodes, and will be published, in stages, in the articles on the right hand side of this page.  Each article will have a picture, which may have some bearing on the story alongside it.  For some inexplicable & mysterious technical reason, some photos do not display properly in the small thumbnail size images - despite them all being jpegs and all taken on the same camera.  Click each photo to see it properly.  All photos taken by Bill or Dave on the same Salam Maroc tour.

Morocco story still not typed up, but in th emeantime, read this... (pic shows Bill & Clare at the start of the adventure)