Trevor and Diana, the duo behind Tales From The Bike, didn’t grow up riding muddy trails or chasing adventure.
Until a few years ago, neither had any meaningful off-road experience. Yet by October 2025, they were standing at the start of the Smugglers Route on the Trans Euro Trail (TET), deciding whether to commit.
The weather was clear. The trails were dry. They went for it.
That decision can be traced back to Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, and their first ABR Festival.
A Love Affair That Started in the Pyrenees
Diana’s relationship with motorcycles began long before Tales From The Bike existed.
She earned her motorcycle licence in 1995 while living in Germany. But it was a year later, in 1996, that everything changed. While in Spain, she rented a small 250cc bike, packed a backpack, and rode into the Pyrenees. That solo trip through the mountains ignited a deep love of motorcycle travel.
Then life happened.
Work, responsibilities, and shifting priorities pushed riding to the sidelines for nearly two decades.
Fast-forward to August 2019. Diana jokes that the “midlife crisis” hit, and she bought a used 2007 BMW F650GS. Trevor, initially sceptical, soon found himself signing up for his IBT (Initial Basic Training which is the Irish equivalent of the CBT). By October, he had passed and bought his first bike, a Triumph Tiger 800XC.
Trevor hadn’t always been convinced. When Diana talked about returning to motorcycling, he was protective. Both of them are scuba divers, and Diana tried to explain it in terms he understood: “Riding a bike feels like being underwater, you hear nothing but your own engine, and everything else just falls away.”
Whether it was that explanation or simple curiosity, Trevor went to his first IBT session. The grin on his face afterward told Diana everything.
Discovering the ABR from the couch
The ABR Festival first entered their world during a difficult time.
In 2022, Diana developed a shoulder injury that kept her off the bike completely. Riding was impossible. Weekly physio appointments and too much time on the couch left her frustrated and restless.
YouTube became her escape.
She immersed herself in adventure bike content, living vicariously through other riders’ journeys. Again and again, one event kept appearing in conversations and videos: the ABR Festival.
She started watching videos from the festival and got more excited with each one. Sometimes, she’d shout over to Trevor from the couch, “We need to go to that festival! We absolutely have to check it out!”
By the time tickets for the 2024 event went on sale, she didn’t hesitate, snapping up Super Thursday tickets, Trail Passes, the works.
An all-inclusive adventure escape
Living in the west of Ireland has its perks.
The Wild Atlantic Way is on their doorstep, offering endless views and sweeping roads. But when it comes to off-road riding and test rides, options are limited. Land is mostly privately owned, and test ride opportunities are scarce. Even servicing their bikes means long journeys.
For Trevor and Diana, the ABR Festival felt like an all-inclusive adventure escape.
Test rides and off-road tuition were the main draw. They had no real idea where to begin when it came to off-roading. The chance to try multiple bikes, on varied terrain, in a controlled environment was huge.
Trevor was also drawn to the music and the buzz that only a festival can bring. Diana was excited about meeting travellers she’d followed online.
The first taste of dirt
A session with Phoenix Trails at the ABR Festival marked their first proper introduction to riding off-road.
They had tackled the occasional non-tarmac stretch before, but nothing that demanded deliberate technique, balance, or controlled body movement. In fact, they joke that the Irish backroads they were used to, riddled with potholes and grass growing up the centre, had often felt more challenging.
They arrived at Ragley Hall at 7:30am on the Thursday, set up camp by 10am, and headed straight to the Phoenix Trails Off-Road Zone, becoming some of the first riders out that morning.
During the 30-minute session, they were introduced to the fundamentals: body and attack position, smooth clutch and throttle control, effective braking, weighting the pegs, and the importance of relaxing and looking ahead rather than fixating on obstacles directly in front of the front wheel.
They also sampled Triumph’s Adventure Riding Experience, practising skills such as bunny hops, hill recovery, and slow-speed control.
Both sessions acted as a gateway, giving them the knowledge and reassurance needed to approach off-road test rides with growing confidence.
From training ground to test fleet
With that grounding in place, they moved straight onto the off-road test rides.
They began on smaller machines, building familiarity and rhythm before gradually stepping up in size. Over the course of the weekend, they rode everything from lightweight 250cc models to heavyweight adventure bikes, including the likes of the Harley-Davidson Pan America and BMW R 1300 GS.
For riders who rarely get access to test rides, let alone off-road demos, the opportunity was invaluable. It allowed them to feel the differences in balance, power delivery and weight distribution across a wide range of machines, all in a controlled environment.
Hungry to improve further after the ABR Festival gates had closed, Diana and Trevor booked two days with i2i Motorcycle Academy in Spain. That training was mentally and physically more demanding, but the taster sessions and off-road tests they’d completed at the ABR Festival had planted the seed.
The festival environment also played its part. Surrounded by thousands of like-minded riders, encouraged by instructors and manufacturers, trying something new felt normal rather than intimidating.
The experience of those sessions had proved transformational, as Trevor explained: “For us, it changed the way we now travel.”
The ultimate whim
Before the ABR Festival, the Trans Euro Trail hadn’t been part of their plans. It felt like something for seasoned adventure riders.
But inspiration works quietly.
While visiting Diana’s father in Spain, they needed to travel from Empuriabrava back to Bilbao to catch a ferry. They had already endured a 760km motorway slog in one direction and really didn’t want to repeat it.
Diana remembered a YouTube video about the Smugglers Route section of the TET. The idea had lingered in her mind.
They were underprepared. The tyres on Diana’s Honda Africa Twin, which had been fitted at the ABR, had over 12,000km on them, and the KTM 1290 Adventure R that Trevor had recently bought, had road tyres.
If they’d planned properly, they would have fitted fresh, terrain-appropriate tyres, packed tools, and downloaded maps with GPX files.
Instead, they went with instinct.
At Port de Cabús in Andorra, they checked conditions. The weather was dry. The trails looked manageable. They decided to commit.
The experience was new, exhilarating, and occasionally intimidating. The views were stunning. The challenges felt real, but achievable. Conversations with fellow riders along the way added to the magic.It became one of their favourite riding memories.
After that first day, Diana felt mentally done with off-road riding, even though Trevor was still energised. They chose not to push it. Instead, they rode to Vielha, stayed overnight, and tackled another section the following day. It was rougher, slightly more technical, but still within their limits.
Not planning the TET in detail may have helped. Without expectations, they simply rode what felt right.
And somewhere between Warwickshire and the Pyrenees, the ABR Festival’s influence became clear. The mindset of trying something new.
The people. The spark. The return.
When asked about their biggest ABR Festival highlight, the answer comes easily: riding.
The off-road test rides took them back to why they started riding in the first place. Talks with the stars lit an adventure spark. The Exhibitor Village tempted their bank balance. But above all, it was the ABR community that made it special, as Trevor explains: “Thousands of like-minded people in one place, all there for the same reason, sharing stories, laughs and a beer together. It’s a hard feeling to top.”
It wasn’t just a weekend away. It was a shift in mindset.
By the time they stood at the start of the Smugglers Route in October 2025, Diana and Trevor weren’t seasoned off-road veterans. They were two riders who had once sat watching videos about the ABR Festival wondering if they should go.
They had gone. They had learned. And when the TET opened up in front of them, they said yes.
They hope to return to the ABR Festival this summer, though exam commitments at home may mean waiting until 2027. Either way, Ragley Hall will always be the place where a new chapter began, the point where off-road riding stopped being something other people did, and became part of their own story.
You can see how their story unfolded here…
The people. The spark. The return.
When asked about their biggest ABR Festival highlight, the answer comes easily: riding.
The off-road test rides took them back to why they started riding in the first place. Talks with the stars lit an adventure spark. The Exhibitor Village tempted their bank balance. But above all, it was the ABR community that made it special, as Trevor explains: “Thousands of like-minded people in one place, all there for the same reason, sharing stories, laughs and a beer together. It’s a hard feeling to top.”
It wasn’t just a weekend away. It was a shift in mindset.
By the time they stood at the start of the Smugglers Route in October 2025, Diana and Trevor weren’t seasoned off-road veterans. They were two riders who had once sat watching videos about the ABR Festival wondering if they should go.
They had gone. They had learned. And when the TET opened up in front of them, they said yes.
They hope to return to the ABR Festival this summer, though exam commitments at home may mean waiting until 2027. Either way, Ragley Hall will always be the place where a new chapter began, the point where off-road riding stopped being something other people did, and became part of their own story.
You can see how their story unfolded here…
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