Motorcycle Orienteering: Paper Maps and the Return of Discovery
Adventure Rider Radio – Motorcycle Podcast
Motorcycle Orienteering: Paper Maps and the Return of DiscoveryAdventure Rider Radio – Motorcycle Podcast · Jul 9, 2026
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Car
Yamaha FZ1S
The Yamaha FZ1S is a street motorcycle meant more for riding on paved roads. Here, it’s the rider’s earlier bike before they started doing more off-road and gravel-style riding.
The Honda Cross Runner is a motorcycle meant for mixed riding, not just smooth pavement. In this story, the rider changes the tires so it can handle gravel more confidently.
“70-30 tires” is a shorthand for tires that are mostly made for pavement, but still have enough tread to handle gravel or dirt. It’s a way to describe the street-versus-off-road balance.
Car
CF Moto 800 MTX
The CF Moto 800 MTX is a bike meant for adventure riding, not just commuting or highway cruising. In the segment, the rider says it’s their current bike and that it works really well for this kind of riding.
E-residency is a digital ID from Estonia. It lets foreigners use online Estonian government services, including paperwork like registering a vehicle in their own name.
Road tax is a fee you pay for using/keeping a vehicle on public roads. The host is saying Estonia used to not charge this for motorcycles, but now it does.
Mandatory motorcycle insurance is the legally required coverage you need to ride. The host is comparing how expensive that requirement is in different countries, and saying Estonia is cheaper.
Dual-sport bikes are made for both street riding and dirt riding. They’re set up to handle rougher roads and trails while still being usable on public roads.
An adventure motorcycle is meant for road trips and off-road detours. It’s usually comfortable for long rides and set up to handle different kinds of terrain.
Bush Pig Performance is a motorcycle parts shop in Canada. They specialize in parts for adventure and dual-sport bikes and focus on upgrades that actually help for the type of riding you do.
Car
DR650
The Suzuki DR650 is a dual-sport bike—part street, part dirt—that many riders choose because it’s tough and mod-friendly. The shop started by supporting this model with parts.
Car
DRZ400
The Suzuki DR-Z400 is a dual-sport bike people use for both street riding and dirt. The shop carries parts for it too.
Car
KLR650
The Kawasaki KLR650 is a dual-sport motorcycle that many riders use for long trips because it’s practical and has lots of aftermarket parts. This shop supports it with upgrades.
Car
XR650L
The Honda XR650L is a dual-sport bike with a big single-cylinder engine that’s popular for dirt and adventure riding. This shop carries parts for it.
Car
F900GS
The BMW F 900 GS is a BMW adventure bike designed for both highway and dirt-road riding. The shop says they even have parts for this model too.
Perley’s is a sock brand the host likes for riding. They’re made from special fibers (merino wool and possum fur) and are designed to feel good on your feet for long days.
IMS Products makes aftermarket motorcycle parts. In this segment, they’re specifically about foot pegs, which help you control the bike with your feet.
Engineered foot pegs are aftermarket pegs designed to improve rider control and comfort. In this segment, the host links peg design to how well you can operate the shifter and brake levers without losing the “feel” through your feet.
Term
watershed design
Watershed design is a pattern on the peg meant to help water and mud move away. That helps the peg stay grippy when the ground is wet.
GeoGuessr is a game where you try to guess where you are based on clues. The host is saying their event is different because you’re navigating in the real world on motorcycles.
Term
QR
QR codes are those square barcodes you scan with your phone. The segment says older orienteering events used QR codes as the way to find or verify locations.
Offline navigation is when your phone or GPS can guide you using downloaded maps, even if you don’t have cell service. You prepare the maps before you ride.
Term
car pay tablets
This sounds like a mis-transcribed phrase, but the idea is that some riders use dedicated tablets instead of just a phone. Those tablets run navigation apps and can store maps for offline use.
Term
GPS inside their head
They’re describing riders who don’t need a phone or screen to navigate. They can remember the route and estimate timing/directions well enough to keep riding without stopping.
An ambulance is the emergency vehicle that takes you to the hospital and provides first-aid treatment on the way. It’s especially important after serious injuries.
Term
helicopter ride
A helicopter ride in an emergency typically means air medical transport to a higher-level trauma center. This is often used when injuries are severe and the nearest hospital can’t provide the needed care quickly.
Titanium is a metal that surgeons often use for implants because it’s strong and works well inside the body. It can help hold broken bones in the right position while they heal.
The clutch is a lever you use to control power from the engine to the bike’s gears. If your hands hurt, it can be harder to shift smoothly or control the bike when you need to. The rider was concerned they might not be able to use it safely.
GPS tracks are like a log of where you went and when, recorded by a GPS device. Here, they were used as evidence to show the rider followed the rules and wasn’t speeding. It helped the police evaluate the situation.
A dash cam is a small camera that records what’s happening on the road. If something goes wrong and people argue about who did what, the video can help prove what really happened. The rider keeps one because it helped with the police in the past.
A stop sign means you must come to a complete stop before going through the intersection. In the story, the rider didn’t have to stop, but the other driver did—and they didn’t. That’s why the rider’s dash cam footage was important.
It’s a riding event where you follow step-by-step directions instead of figuring out your own path. Think of it like a guided route using a special set of rally instructions.
They’re talking about the Dakar-style way of riding—mostly about navigation and following instructions. Here, it means using rally-like navigation tools on your bike.
A tank bag is a bag that sits on top of (or near) the gas tank of a motorcycle. People use it to hold things like maps, but you may still need to stop to read them.
Moto orienteering is like orienteering, but on a motorcycle. You navigate to checkpoints and choose your own route instead of following turn-by-turn instructions.
LIVE
When we're going somewhere now,
we automatically think turn-by-turn directions.
In fact, you don't even think about it.
You just assume that's what you're using.
We don't look at the screen anymore.
It talks to us.
It tells us where to turn, when to turn.
And it's great because most of the time
it gets us where we wanna go,
usually through the best route.
And when it comes to dirt-orientated riding,
today it's all about GPX tracks.
We can download them off the internet.
We load them into our GPS or our navigation app,
and we look at the screen and follow the line
that someone else has made for us.
And that's also great because sometimes it takes us
to places we never would have found on our own.
But there isn't much creativity involved.
In fact, it's kind of one way.
You think about it, the track is guiding you.
If you wanna get to where you're going,
you're gonna have to stay close to that line.
But what if you only had a destination?
And there was no automated routing to get you there.
You had to look at a map,
consider the options, make your choices,
choose your route, and head off.
Now it might not always work out, of course.
There could be a bridge missing,
a river crossing that's too deep,
maybe a road's overgrown and not used anymore,
or some trees have fallen down.
But that would be an adventure, wouldn't it?
Well, that's what moto-orientering is all about.
In Estonia, in Northeastern Europe,
riders are using paper maps, checkpoints, route choices,
and a bit of technology to turn navigation
into a motorcycle event.
It's not about following the line on the screen,
it's about looking at the map, reading the land,
making your own decisions and choices,
and finding your own way.
And you know what?
You can do this at home, too.
I'm Jim Margin, this is Adventure Rider Radio.
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Clinton Smart, and you're listening to Adventure Rider Radio.
My name is Andre Tuch, I live in Tallinn, Estonia, and while my day job is in IT,
I also have a hobby as a motor-orienteering person.
Andre, welcome to Adventure Rider Radio.
Thank you very much.
Very happy to be here, Jim.
So how do you get into orienteering?
Well, honestly, just by looking for something else to do with my motorcycling hobby.
So I'd done trips on my motorcycle, I've kind of gone long distance.
I wasn't doing anything particularly adventurous at the time in terms of off-road riding or
gravel riding or anything like that.
I had just a tarmac-focused sport bike.
But I wanted to do something other than just weekend rides on the same roads that
I'd been riding for years.
And I came across this advertisement for something that was going on in my area.
Actually, it was advertised on our local biker forum.
So I decided to go.
And the first time I ever went motor-orienteering, I did absolutely terribly.
But I really, really enjoyed the process of it and enjoyed the event itself.
So I made sure to come back.
So you were riding street then.
You weren't into adventure riding.
This sort of brought you to it?
Yeah, absolutely.
At the time, the bike I was riding was, I think it was a Yamaha FZ1S.
So basically a one-liter phaser kind of sport bike, sport touring bike,
not an off-roading bike at all.
Then I progressed through to my next bike, which was a Honda Cross Runner.
I ended up putting 70-30 tires on that Cross Runner so that I could do a little bit of gravel
riding with a little bit more confidence.
And now I ended up buying an adventure bike, actually, this here.
What did you buy?
I got a CF Moto 800 MTX.
Oh, very nice.
And how are you liking that?
It is a wonderful bike.
And it is a wonderful bike as a platform.
So there are still things on it that need to be fixed.
So I've already bought two new windscreens for it.
And neither of them actually does what I need it to do in terms of cleaning up the buffeting.
So my next stop is to 3D print some things that the community have said that will help
with the buffeting.
And tomorrow I'm installing one of those CarPlay devices with dash cams and a set of extra lights on it.
So for those who don't know, what is Orienteering in general?
So Orienteering in general is something that is usually done as a running exercise,
where you get a map.
And on that map you will see a series of points.
And you're supposed to visit those points, usually in order in the Orienteering world originally.
And you're supposed to kind of mark yourself as present at each point and complete the entire track.
Find your way back to the start and then kind of mark yourself finished.
So whoever completes the track the fastest with the fewest mistakes wins.
And then Moto Orienteering is a version of that, but with a larger area covered by the Orienteering.
And the idea of Moto Orienteering is that you get a paper map based on some kind of topographic
map of the area, so a fairly detailed one, not just a Google Maps kind of map.
And on it you will see a series of points marked with numbers.
And you have to reach as many of those points as you can before the time runs out.
And at every point you have to mark yourself in the app that we have, a smartphone app.
And a lot of the time you will also have a question that you have to answer at that point.
So it makes it so it's not just a riding exercise, but also an exercise in finding out
things about the place that you live in or the place that you're visiting.
So that you have to actually look around, look at local landmarks, read the plaques,
read the memorials, find out a lot of things.
So the one that you do in Estonia, what is that about?
So actually the, this is called, so it's called unseen Estonia.
So the idea is not just to ride around and get yourself into trouble or find good roads,
but to also see things that you wouldn't normally see as you're just riding through.
Basically what you're saying is, is that you're getting a point on a map
and you're saying you have to get to that point, but you have to figure out your own route.
Because if you think about like a rally type event, for instance, you'd be getting, you know,
you drive this far and you make a right, you go far, this far and you make a left,
watch out for the washout, that sort of thing.
This is different. It doesn't give you those details.
It gives you a point on a map and you got to figure out, get there however you want.
Exactly. That is the primary challenge in this kind of event,
that you get the map and the map will tell you generally things like, you know,
this is where the road goes and it will show you, this is a asphalt road, a tarmac road,
this is a gravel road, this is just some kind of single track forest road, that kind of thing.
And it'll tell you that this is where the point is and you have to figure out
both how to get there and how to build the sequence of your movements and sequence of the
points that you have to go and claim. And yeah, how to get from one point to the next one.
You have to do all of that by yourself. And the map will show you generally the hardness
classification of the checkpoint. So it'll show you, is this a checkpoint that is just,
you know, get there and see it immediately. That's usually marked with a circle.
Or a triangle is something that you have to work a little bit harder to get to. Like on an asphalt
category, triangle will be something that's down a little bit of a gravel road maybe.
And then a square can be something that you have to go, either go down a long gravel road
or a difficult gravel road, something that sport bikes or regular street bikes will struggle with,
or something that you really have to get off the bike and walk around, run around,
maybe climb around something and actually really work hard to answer the question and to figure
out where you can claim that checkpoint. So when I show up, how long do I have to figure
this out before I actually get on the bike and ride? Well, as soon as you get the paper map,
that's where your time starts. Your time starts when you have to press the start button in order
to get to the map. And then you have six hours to complete the track. And you have one hour
to start. And from that point, you have exactly six hours. So how do you win or how do you lose?
You get points for every checkpoint that you claim. And they have a difficulty rating. And
sometimes there are other ways that a game is run. So sometimes it penalizes checkpoints
that a lot of people reach and gives you some bonuses for reaching checkpoints that not a
lot of people have gotten to. And then you also have fines. You have fines for speeding. You have
fines for being late. You have fines for wrong answers. So if you answer the question wrong,
but you were in that spot anyway, and you've proven by GPS that you've been on that spot,
then you might get half points, third of the points, whatever. And then whoever gets the most
points wins. And if it's a tie, then it looks at your time, your finishing time.
How do you know somebody's speeding? Well, the other part of the orientation event other than
the paper map is the smartphone app. And this is something that was designed specifically for
this event. It's actually can be used for team events, kind of corporate team building events,
things like that as well. And that app tracks you constantly by GPS. And it's actually quite strict.
So as I was saying that it's very inadvisable to be late, it's also very, very inadvisable to
speed. And you can usually, you know, catch yourself from being late, you can have time
awareness, but it's very hard to have speed awareness. And generally, the kind of fine
is that if you exceed the speed limit for 10 seconds, then you lose one check point's
worth of points. Yeah, that is strict. Yes. You're in Estonia. What is Estonia like for an event like
this? Estonia is actually a very good place to do this kind of thing. Because Estonia is a country
in northeast of Europe. So we like to think of ourselves as a Nordic country. Other people would
call us a Baltic country or an East European country. But we like to think ourselves as
very nearly Scandinavia. But we have no mountains at all. It's a very, very flat country. Our highest
point is about 300 meters above sea level. It's a swampy country. It's a very forested country.
So the population density is actually quite low. And over half the country is forest. So we have a
lot of asphalt tracks, asphalt roads out in the middle of nowhere, where the traffic is quite
light and twisty roads and so on. Lots of country roads, lots of gravel tracks, lots of forestry
in this country. So we have a lot of forest roads and a lot of kind of small single track roads,
access roads, farm roads, etc. I do find some irony in this because this event is run off of
the paper map that you said. And we'll talk more about that. But doesn't Estonia bill itself as
the world's most digitally advanced society or something like that? Yes, absolutely. That's
what we like to tell other people about ourselves. So this is the country where you don't need to
interact with the government in any way or with a real person, let's say in government.
All government services are online. It used to be that you could do everything except get married
and buy a house online. But during COVID, the notaries public actually needed to start selling
property over Zoom calls. So now the only thing that you have to be there in person to do in terms
of government services is get married. But you can get divorced entirely online and you don't have
to meet your other have to get divorced. Wow, that's pretty neat. And does it work all the time?
Because I can just imagine like you think of dealing with the government here for us, it can
be very frustrating. Yeah, absolutely. It does work. So we have kind of a government ID system,
digital ID system. So everybody in the country has a national ID card that has a chip in it.
And it's a secure chip that lets us identify ourselves pretty securely and kind of all
online dealings with the government. These days we do it on mobile phones. So we actually even
have online voting. We've been online voting for quite a few years now, I think decades even.
And yeah, it means that we have this secure way to identify ourselves in government dealings.
And everything just works. It's just something that we're really used to. And it's quite a shock
sometimes to go abroad, even go inside Europe to other countries and just figure out that, hey,
there are some things that we take for granted that don't really work that way in other countries.
So for example, my partner is Lithuanian and Lithuania is just two countries over. And it's
also a Baltic country. And we are quite culturally similar. So it's very easy for me to assume that,
oh, well, things will work out the same way in Lithuania as they do here. Sometimes, you know,
I tell my partner that, well, you can just go online and do this thing that you wanted to.
And she'll say that, no, no, no, this is not Estonia. I actually have to show up. I have to
actually go to a government office. What's Estonia known for as far as for the world?
Well, in terms of motorsports, we have a rally driver who was a world champion a few years ago,
Oit Danak. Estonia is also the place where we had one of the longest running tourist
trophy motorcycle races. And actually, this is the place where Joey Dunlop, the famous
motorcycle racer, unfortunately lost his life. And this was many years ago. But there is still a
memorial ride every year on the anniversary of his death, where hundreds of local motorcyclists
get together at the place where he died, where there is a plaque, a memorial plaque right now.
And we do a circle around the old Kalev trophy track here in Tallinn.
Is motorcycling big in Estonia?
It is surprisingly big in Estonia, actually, considering that we are quite far up north.
And the riding season in Estonia is, let's say, normally four months if you're quite lucky.
And the winter, the people who ride off-road, they'll even get
studded tires for their motorcycles and go out and ride on frozen lakes.
For foreigners coming to visit Estonia, is it a destination for riders, especially adventure riders?
I think it's a destination to ride through. But it's definitely something that you would
enjoy coming and visiting. So obviously, local tourists from nearby places like Finland, Latvia,
Sweden, they do come here and they ride here quite a lot. We have a very good section of the
Trans-European Trail here in Estonia. You have basically three options around the country,
which one you want to take. It's quite a good riding destination. And because we have low
population density, there are sections of the country where we have really, really good asphalt
roads as well. So you can come here on a street bike and really enjoy yourself as well. But quite
a lot of the motorcycle tourism population that we have here are people on their way up to North
Cap. Right. But actually, you were asking about Estonia's digital solutions and about motorcycle
tourists. And one interesting thing about Estonia is that it was possibly one of the last, if
possibly not the last country in the European Union, where you could come and register a motor
vehicle, including a motorcycle in your name, without being an Estonian resident or a European
citizen at all. So foreigners could come in and buy a local motorcycle on local plates, get it
registered in their name. They could take it across any border they wanted. So before the Ukraine
war, a lot of people went into Russia and started out here on their way across the Silk Road or
going out to Mongolia to Vladivostok and things like that. And the Estonian digital solutions
meant that if you got an Estonian digital card, which you can do as a foreigner, we have a thing
called e-residency where you can get the digital card that lets you connect to all the Estonian
government services. So if you did that, then you could actually register the motorcycle in your name
and go anywhere in the world. You said was though. Is this no longer the case?
No, this is still the case. You could still do it. But it used to also be very advantageous for
people because we didn't have motorcycle taxes. We didn't have road tax. And now we do. But also
because traveling into Russia is a lot less convenient. Now it's not as much of a market and
there's a lot less interest. What about insurance? Insurance is pretty cheap. Insurance costs are
wildly different across Europe and in Estonia they're really, really cheap. So when I read about
things like insurance in the UK, when I go to Horizons and Limited forums and I read about
people complaining about insurance costs there, I'm comparing it to Estonia where I think my
mandatory motorcycle insurance and my brand new CF Moto for this year is less than 100 euros for
six months, something like that. Yeah, that's interesting.
Music
Bush Pig Performance is a Canadian rider-owned shop for dual sport and adventure motorcycle
parts. They're based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Now they started with the DR650,
but Bush Pig Performance has grown well beyond that with parts for the DRZ400, the KLR650,
the XR650L, the Tenere, even the F900GS I see on there. And what I really like about Bush Pig
Performance is the thinking behind it. This doesn't feel like another giant online catalog where
you're scrolling through thousands of parts, wondering what fits, what works and where it's
actually coming from. Bush Pig Performance focuses on practical upgrades, proven parts,
and helping riders build bikes that work better for the kind of riding they actually do. They
carry well-known brands and they even make some of their own parts. They ship from their own
warehouse in Vancouver. And helping riders with questions is just part of how they do business.
Whether you're working through a build, looking for a specific upgrade, or trying to make your
bike just more capable, start with Bush Pig Performance. BushPigPerformance.com. Anytime
you're dealing with them, make sure you tell them. You heard them here on Adventure Rider Radio.
BushPigPerformance.com.
Perley's Possum socks are the official sock of Adventure Rider Radio, and it's not because
they advertise here. I gave them that title because after a lifetime in the outdoors and a
whole lot of time in boots, I've never worn a sock that impressed me like Perley's. In fact,
before Perley's, I didn't think you could be impressed with socks. Our feet take a beating on
a ride. They're jammed into the boots all day, moving around, sweating, getting rubbed, taking
abuse as we stand there and go through the rough stuff. And usually at the end of the day, when
your boots come off, they feel like they've been in boots all day, tired, damp, beat up, wanting to
get out of that boot. That's not what happened with Perley's. Last year, I rode Perley's for a
week straight riding in warm summer weather, long days in riding boots. Day after day, every night,
when I pulled my boots off, I expected that usual feeling, that feeling of my feet wanting to get
out, but it never came. My feet still felt good. And that really surprised me, not just day one
either. I mean, it was day two, day three, day four, it was the whole week. And as I got further
into the week, I was more impressed with these socks. That's why I talk about the socks the
way I do. Perley's are made from a blend of merino wool and possum fur. They are designed
by riders and they just plain work. Perley's possum socks.com. Anytime you deal with them,
make sure you tell them you heard them here on Adventure Rider Radio, Perley's possum socks.com.
You know, you can spend a pile of money chasing performance on a motorcycle and overlook one
of the parts that affects your control the most, your foot pegs. That's where IMS products comes
in. IMS makes engineered foot pegs for adventure riders. They've got different models to suit
different styles of riding cast certified 17 for stainless steel features like watershed design
and designed to give you control without compromising the feel for your shifter and brake
levers. It's hugely important. IMS products.com as a website. Anytime you're dealing with them,
make sure you go to your way to tell them you heard them here on Adventure Rider Radio, IMS
products.com. Well, back to the orientation with the bikes here. So I mean, it's interesting that,
you know, you've got this paper map. Is it novel for you guys to be in Estonia and you're digital
to use the paper map? Well, we're also kind of an old culture. So we're a very book,
we're a very kind of book oriented culture as well. We're very proud of our unique language.
We're very proud of our literature, our songs and so on. So we, we do use paper as well,
still for a lot of things. And yeah, using the paper is definitely something that is part of that
combination of digital and offline orienting. Because, you know, this is not
GeoGuessr that we're playing. We're going out into the real world and we're really doing things.
We're putting our motorcycles and our bodies on the line. And so the physical aspect of it is
definitely something that's important for us. And there were actually the first,
the first orienting events before we got the smartphone app. They were based on just QR
codes. When you found the checkpoint, you had to scan the QR code and email it to the organizers
essentially. It sounds very complicated running with the the map and you've got the app that
you're running and everything. How much does it take to put something like this together?
Well, it depends on how much you want to invest in it. Some people have
dedicated bikes that they trailer to the start line. And some people like me, you know, we have
our everyday bikes that we just ride up there. And for the paper map, you know, it's a pretty
small investment. Usually you'll have something like a RAM mount or some other kind of mount
that you will just have something like a cutting board or a clipboard that you connect to your
handlebars so that you can look at the map while you're riding. That's kind of a little bizarre
looking in itself. Oh, it looks very bizarre. It looks very awkward. And it's definitely something
that lets you pick out an orienting competitor when you're out on the road. Yeah, it's definitely
a weird look. But other than that, you'll basically just have your smartphone somewhere
accessible on your handlebars or something like that. So you can have Google Maps or
Osman or offline navigation, things like that. But there are people who run very complicated
setups. So people will run like car pay tablets, dedicated tablets for orienting software or
offline maps, things like that. So you can definitely spend a lot of money on this hobby
if you want to, but you can also start out fairly cheaply. It certainly sounds like a lot of fun.
It gets you out doing something that isn't a race. But I like the aspect of that there's
some thinking in here because you mentioned about the checkpoints. You get to a checkpoint,
you have to answer a question. For instance, you've got a story about birch trees in a greenhouse.
Talk about that. Yes, absolutely. So this was actually earlier this season. And it was one of
my favorite questions to ask, because you see the question long before you get to the checkpoint.
So when you're done with one checkpoint, you select the next one, you pick the number that
looks closest on the map or more appropriate for you to go to next. And then you see the question
immediately. And so for the five, 10 minutes that you have to write to the next checkpoint,
you're actually thinking about, hmm, this implies what I will see when I get there. So what am I
looking for? Am I looking for a windmill? Am I looking for a bridge? Am I looking for a plaque
or something like that? And this was a question where it was basically saying, look for the
greenhouse and tell me what's growing inside the greenhouse. And the questions were, is it cucumbers?
Is it tomatoes? Or is it birch trees? And of course, the organizers will have fun with the
questions. And I'm thinking, oh, you know, they're just having fun and throwing in some
ridiculous answers just to make me smile a little bit and distract the people while they're reading
the questions and make sure that people are not just randomly poking buttons in there.
I thought, oh, it's probably, yeah, it's a greenhouse. And we can see through the glass
what's growing on here. And it is a little bit difficult, you know, it's a little bit of an
effort to look inside and figure out, hmm, is that a cucumber plant or is that a tomato plant?
It's not impossible, but it takes a little bit of thinking. So I drive over to the place and I
realize that it's down a gravel road and down a road that looks mostly disused. And I keep looking
for a greenhouse. And I see that there's an old abandoned farmhouse. And there's a little greenhouse
next to it, mostly destroyed. And growing through that greenhouse, literally through its roof,
are a couple of really tall birch trees. So actually, that was the correct answer. And you
would not think that when you're looking at the question first. Right. So they have a little fun
with it as well. Yeah, absolutely. They do have fun with it as well. But sometimes the questions
can also be misleading. And sometimes the organizers will have one vision of what the
competitors are doing and competitors will get there and do something completely different.
Right, nobody gets it sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. So I had the case in one of the recent events where
the question was find the memorial stone and tell us what is the year on the memorial stone.
Okay, typical enough question. I think I can figure out it's probably some war memorial from
World War Two or from Estonian Independence or something like that. And I get there and it's
an old schoolhouse. And in the courtyard of that schoolhouse is a giant stone memorial,
a very prominent, very obvious. And I run up to it. And I see that it has a list of names. And
these are people from this village who have perished in one war or another over the centuries.
And I'm looking around and nobody has their birth dates or death dates. There's no year at all.
And I'm trying to figure out, well, what the hell? And I have three options for the year, you know.
And I looked around all of that stone, I looked maybe under that stone even. And I took photos of
it just later on for later on. And I picked one of the answers. And I figured that, well,
if I pick one of the answers and I'm in the wrong place, well, the app will say you're not in the
right place to submit an answer. It'll say something like, oh, you're five kilometers away from the
right place or one kilometer. Basically, it follows you on GPS. It knows where you're standing when
you're answering the question. Yeah, exactly. And you can only submit an answer whether it's wrong
right. You can only submit an answer where you're in the right place. And if you're far away, then
it will tell you, oh, you're 100 meters away, 500 meters, kilometer, five kilometers. And I submit
a random answer for this rock. And it accepts the answer. And it won't tell me immediately if my
answer was right or wrong. But it says, well, yeah, you're in the right place. You submitted the
correct answer. And okay, I move on to the next checkpoint. But once I finish, I go up to the
organizers and I say, hey, what the hell was with this rock? I mean, I'll show you the photos. You
tell me where did I miss the the year on this rock? And they look at it and say, that's the wrong
rock. There was there was a completely different rock somewhere near the schoolhouse that had the
schoolhouse's construction year on it. And it was close enough, within, you know, maybe 20 meters,
that it's still counted. But I didn't know to look for another rock because this one was so obvious
from the road. And the organizer never actually expected anyone to go into the courtyard of the
school or start looking around any further than the first rock they saw. Right. So is that frustrating
for you? It is frustrating, of course. It's especially frustrating when you look at the
results of your run after after the award ceremony and after all the results of public and you start
calculating, hmm, I answered wrong here. But if I if I got this answer right, I would have maybe
been one place higher in the final standings. And that's that's really annoying when you when you
know that you could have done just a little bit better and gotten a better place. Are there are
there people that are very serious that are there to win that you're competing against?
Yeah, absolutely. So generally, I don't really compete for podium places or for wins. I know that
I'm not that dedicated to it. I just really, really enjoy it as a hobby and as a way to
see new roads and ride in new places that I normally wouldn't get to.
Usually out of maybe 50 people riding street bikes or riding an asphalt class and 100 people
riding in the dirt class, there'll be, you know, maybe five people who are there really chasing
podiums. And these can be either people who are really dedicated to it and are riding to up, for
example, so rider and pillion, which is entirely legal. So they'll obviously have the advantage
that one person is riding the other one is navigating at the same time and thinking about
where to go next. Or there are some people who just have a brain that is really, really
suited to reinterring. So the people who get really good results will take wins and podium
places are people who just kind of have the GPS inside their head and will just know that, okay,
I have to ride for three minutes and 30 seconds in this direction and I can just
swipe the answer. I don't even have to stop. I can move on to the next one and I can just
string that together, whereas I'll stop and put in the next destination into Google Maps and so on.
So yeah, there's people who are really, really serious about it and we have some
sponsor prizes, but the prices are not really something that is of any significant monetary
value, but it's mostly for bragging rights and people do take it quite seriously and
put a lot of effort into winning the annual standings as well, the season standings as well.
The one thing that stands out to me is your use of the app, because I think the app really
builds some safety into it by docking people for speeding, which I think with this type of event
is very, very important because it's easy to get carried away with that sort of thing. And I know
you've had an incident with yourself running this event, even though it's be controlled.
Can you tell that story? Yeah, absolutely. So this was my second or third event and it was
being run on Sarima on the big island in Estonia, which is again, one of the great riding destinations
and lots of motor tourists go there for good reasons. But yeah, this was on the island and
I had gotten a lot of speeding fines in my previous orientation event and I saw how many
points I lost and how far down the standings I'd gotten. So I was very, very careful about the
speed. So I was riding down a main road in perfect sunshine, perfect visibility, just focusing on
my next checkpoint, thinking about where I have to go next. And a car blew through a stop sign from
a side road, a road right in front of me. It didn't have time to break. And yeah, I crashed into it
and woke up lying on the road with people around me and ended up being ambulance to the local
hospital where they couldn't really do much for me other than stabilize me. So I got a
helicopter ride to the big regional hospital, had three surgeries, ended up with a titanium in
my arms. They kind of put together my forearms out of Lego, essentially Lego shaped pieces of
bone. And I had two months of both of my arms and casts. But and of course my motorcycle was
completely destroyed. And you know, I have my own memories of it and my own story of it. But there's
also the stories that I heard from the organizers who were following progress and they're, you know,
back at the base where everybody camps and everybody has their beers in the evening.
And they're tracking everybody in real time because the app will let them do that. And they're
seeing that at some point, I'm just not moving anymore. And they're also like checking the news
and they see the news that there's been a motorcycle crash on the island. And they're like, Oh, it's
not one of ours, is it? So they hop in the car and they drive down to where they can see me on
there, you know, on the map. And the police stop them. And the police says, don't go in there.
It's too gruesome. You don't want to see that. And there's some newspaper photos of my bike.
And my bike is in, you know, 1000 pieces. I was in the hospital for, you know,
a few weeks and out of motorcycle riding for definitely the rest of the season, half of the
next season. But I made it a point. And I absolutely knew that I had to do it. And the next season,
returning to the event that was being run on the same island and finishing that event,
because I knew I had to do that to not get into my head too much and to not let it get to me
so that I could keep riding my motorcycles. Was that hard getting back on the bike and
getting back to that event, the same place? It was a little bit. I didn't buy the first
bike that I wanted to because I kind of didn't feel like my body was up to it. My hands were
still aching. I wasn't sure I could operate the clutch. I wasn't sure I could, you know,
hold the bike upright if anything went wrong. So it took me a while until I got back to it.
But yeah, it was definitely quite an ordeal. But it took me a while to get back there. But
I'm very glad I did. And yeah, the organizers said that it was quite gruesome for them,
but they made the point out of giving the police my GPS tracks and proving that I was not speeding
and proving that I was not doing anything wrong. And I actually had a dash cam on my motorcycle,
which also helped a lot with the police. And that's why I still have dash cams on every bike I buy
ever since then. So with the road you were traveling on, did you have no stop sign or did
you already stop and then pull out? No, I didn't have a stop sign. I was on a main road. And it
was just somebody on the side road just blowing through a stop sign. And you could literally
see them on the dash cam just going through the stop sign. Were you distracted at all by the map
and by the event, etc? Is that why you didn't see them? Or is it just one of those things?
It's one of those things. And you know, obviously, I try to blame myself a little bit and try to
figure out, Hey, could I have stopped this? Could I have avoided this? And you want to
learn from it, right? Yes, and definitely up to this point, you know, I still treat
tea junctions with side roads with a lot more care. And I always make sure to move away,
move down to the center line of the road so that if there's somebody there that I can't see that
I'd have a better chance of avoiding them. But I don't know, I think that maybe I could have,
but I'm not sure if I could have. And certainly the police did not think that there was anything
I could have done or added the police said it was entirely the car drivers fault.
Well, lucky in the end, you're okay. I mean, I'm sure you've got issues from it, but
lucky in the end overall, you're okay. Is it is the app only for Estonia or is this an app that
can be used from somewhere if somebody wants to set this up in their own country?
No, the app can be used absolutely anywhere. So it uses kind of Google Maps and GPS settings.
So you can do it absolutely anywhere you live in the world. You can go in and use that app.
It's called Nutty Loggy. So I'm not connected to it. I don't get any profit from it. But
it is the developers of it are people who we work with quite closely and a lot of the features
that they develop, they develop because we ask them to. But you can just go to nuttyloggy.eu
and you can find the contact information there and pay them a pretty minor fee to just use
the app and set up your own event anywhere in the world that you want.
And the app you download on an iPhone and Android?
Yeah, it's available for both Android and iPhone.
Have you actually put one of these events together yourself?
Not so far. I keep thinking that I should do it and I should kind of get involved, especially
in the asphalt class where I usually run. And also, we've been doing it in Estonia. It's
wanted to expand into Lithuania, Finland, etc. And we keep talking with the organizers that we
should do one of these events where we translate the questions into English so that we can have
visitors from further away come and participate as well.
Well, that brings me to my last question that I want to ask you. Is it possible to fly into
Estonia, rent a bike, and run one of these events?
Absolutely. Yeah, you can rent a motorcycle here. There's places where you can rent one.
You can even probably go to one of the people who do adventure ride experiences here and rent
an off-road bike and go really seriously into the dirt. And you just need to contact us in advance
and ask us where there are these events that you don't necessarily need to know Estonia for.
And if there's one where we've translated it into English, then you can just set it to English in
your app. Yeah, you can definitely come and enjoy one of these motor-orienting events or
you can enjoy one of the couple of road book rally events that have grown out of this series.
And you can do it in a full kind of Dakar experience. People build their navigation
towers, they have their Dakar style tablets, things like that. But you can also just do it
with a smartphone. And there's a version of the some of the apps that they've been using that gives
you a Dakar style kind of navigation environment with a roadbook on your phone. Or you can just
get a GPX track and kind of treat it as a as a test section, but just one that you do with
a timer on a specific date with a lot of other people around you. Yeah, that's completely
different though from from the style that you're talking about with the orienteering. Because
the orienteering, as we said, you get your point and you have to figure out your own
route. Whereas with the roadbook, you're following the route. It's telling you this far to your turn.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it is a different experience. But the advantage there is that you don't really
need to know a stone. Yeah, right. Oh, I see. Oh, that's great. Well, we're going to put the link
in the show notes to that app. And we're going to have we have some photos from you showing what it
looks like to have your map on the bike, which I've never done before. I've had maps out in a
map book before on my on my tank bag. I don't use a tank bag much anymore. So I've done that. But
it's useless while you're riding. Yet you have to stop and look at it. The idea of the board
is interesting to say the least. So you'll have to drop by the show notes. So yeah,
Andrew, thank you very much. That was great. And we learned about Estonia and we learned about a
nice way to make an event to get out there and have fun on our bikes. Thank you very much. It
was a pleasure to share this hobby with your listeners. That was Andrew took from his home
in Tallinn, Estonia. And we've got some photographs from Andre showing what moto
orienteering looks like, including that paper map set up on the motorcycle. Well, we're checking out
also some links in the show notes for this episode on our website, adventureriderradio.com.
This episode was brought to you in part by green chili adventure gear at greenchiliadv.com,
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radio, we sure hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we did making it special thanks to our
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you next week. Hi, this is Elspeth Beard and you're listening to adventure rider radio.
About this episode
The discussion contrasts turn-by-turn GPS and GPX “follow the line” riding with moto-orienteering’s more creative, map-reading approach. Andre Tuch explains how Estonia’s “Unseen Estonia” event uses a detailed paper topographic map, numbered checkpoints, and a smartphone app for verification and questions at each stop. Riders must plan routes, manage time (six hours after map start), and earn points based on checkpoint difficulty—while GPS tracking enforces strict penalties for speeding and lateness. The episode also highlights Estonia’s flat, forested terrain as ideal for mixing asphalt, gravel, and single-track exploration.
In a world of GPS tracks and turn-by-turn directions, motorcycle orienteering brings riders back to paper maps, route choices, checkpoints, and discovery. Andrei Tuch explains how moto-orienteering works in Estonia, and why finding your own way can still be part of the adventure.
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