Behind every successful adventure ride story, conquered trail, or crossed continent, every beautiful Instagram reel and every cool drone shot, there’s usually a side of… mishaps, miscalculations, and mistakes that seem funny when you look back at them — but pretty disastrous when you’re in them.

You know the ones I’m talking about. Those moments that rarely make it to social media: the times you’re sitting at some obscure border crossing as the realization that the long queues are due to the fact that it’s Christmas is dawning on you (true story). Or that brilliant instance of confidently riding into Patagonia wearing summer gear because, hey, “South” America must be warm, right?

But here’s the thing about spectacular ADV disasters: they’re not just embarrassing stories to share over beers (although they’re excellent for that). They’re the textbooks of adventure riding, written in mud, sweat, and occasionally, hypothermia.

The Greatest Hits of Catastrophe

Let’s start with my crown jewel of poor planning: The Great Patagonian Season Switcharoo. Picture this: a relatively inexperienced rider on a 150cc bike, meandering through South America at a pace that would make a sloth look hasty. I was so focused on the “going slow” part that I completely forgot about the “seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere” part. Or rather, it didn’t even occur to me, because South America.

This brilliant oversight led to me battling the Garibaldi Pass in Tierra del Fuego during a snowstorm, resulting in a case of hypothermia that would make a polar bear wince. The lesson? Nature doesn’t care about your geographical assumptions. Weather is weather, seasons are seasons, and maybe, just maybe, we should check these things before heading out.

The Case of the Vanishing Chain (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Basic Maintenance)

Picture a rain-soaked coastal road in Argentina. There I am, a few months into my riding career, when suddenly my bike loses all power. The throttle works, but nothing else does. Being the mechanical genius that I am (spoiler: I’m not), I immediately jump to the most complicated conclusion possible: “Must be the gearbox!”. Mind you, I had no clue about basic bike maintenance back then, and so I figured, if I have no power and the gears don’t work….Right?

I sat, perched on the only dry spot left – my seat – refusing to get off and check anything because, well, rain. I was deep in the rabbit hole of catastrophic thinking when a group of Argentine riders stopped to help. Try to imagine my face when they struggled not to laugh while pointing out that my chain had simply fallen off due to lack of maintenance.

The best part? When those riders stopped and approached me, I tried to play it cool: “Oh yeah, I think it’s the gearbox…” Pro tip: When you have no idea what you’re talking about, maybe don’t try to sound like you do. Then again, making yourself look like a complete idiot is a great ice breaker when abroad, so perhaps not all was lost (except for my dignity – and, nearly, the chain).

Read the Terrain (And Your Ego)

As you evolve as a rider, your disasters evolve with you. Take my recent adventure in the Gorafe Desert, Spain, just a few years ago. Having raced there during the Hispania Rally on a nimble KTM 450 previously, I thought, “Hey, why not recreate those tracks on my fully-loaded DR650?” Hispania Rally 2020 was all about dry riverbeds, so I figured I could follow them on my adventure bike and see what happened.

Well, here’s a fun fact about riverbeds: they change – especially with heavy rain. What was once a playful track for a light dirt bike in rally conditions becomes an entirely different beast when the riverbed becomes, you now, a river… and when you’re piloting what essentially amounts to a two-wheeled apartment, no matter how light you think your luggage is. While I survived the Gorafe, getting stuck in mud every few miles or so wasn’t exactly on the agenda.

The lesson? Terrain changes, light dirt bikes and loaded dual-sport beasts are a different thing, and sometimes what worked in the past might try to kill you in the present.

Why Disasters Are Your Best Teachers

These moments of spectacular failure do more than just humble us (though they’re excellent at that). They create the kind of lasting memories that no “everything went perfectly” ride ever could. Think about it: do you remember that time everything went according to plan? Or do you remember that time you had to MacGyver your way out of a situation using nothing but zip ties and questionable decision-making skills?

But there’s more to ADV disasters than just fun stories – they’re also lessons. Here’s what I’ve learned from my own two-wheeled misadventures:

• Check the basics (seasons, maintenance, terrain) before getting too creative with your disasters. Bonus points if you also check your assumptions and your potentially misguided optimism.
• When in doubt, get off the bike and look (yes, even in the rain)
• Accept that your best stories will come from your worst moments
• Remember that every adventure rider you admire has probably done something equally stupid – they just might not admit it

Embracing the Adventure in Misadventure

The beauty of ADV disasters is that they strip away our pretensions. They remind us that we’re all just humans on bikes, trying our best to figure things out. Sometimes we succeed gloriously, and sometimes we end up explaining to helpful locals why we think our perfectly fine gearbox is broken when our chain is lying off the sprocket in a puddle of rainwater.

And you know what? That’s exactly as it should be. Because adventure riding isn’t about being perfect – it’s about being resilient, adaptable, and maybe just a little bit crazy. It’s about learning to laugh at yourself while simultaneously figuring out how not to make the same mistake twice (or at least not three times).

So here’s to the disasters, the mishaps, and the spectacular fails. They’re not just teaching moments – they’re the stories that make us who we are as riders. And if you’re currently in the middle of creating your own ADV disaster story, take heart: at least you’re not trying to explain a missing chain to bemused Argentine riders in the rain.

What’s your best ADV disaster story? Share it in the comments – we promise not to laugh (too much).

Photos by Egle Gerulaityte and Actiongraphers

Author: Egle Gerulaityte

Riding around the world extra slowly and not taking it too seriously, Egle is always on the lookout for interesting stories. Editor of the Women ADV Riders magazine, she focuses on ordinary people doing extraordinary things and hopes to bring travel inspiration to all two-wheeled maniacs out there.