Fire and ice: Michael Martin's world tour with a BMW R 1200 GS

Fancy a ride through the volcanic deserts of Iceland? Or how about the ice deserts of Northern Siberia? Motorcycle adventurer and desert expert Michael Martin will be doing just that this year, as he tours the world’s major ice and volcanic deserts in a project called “Planet Desert”.
Martin’s vehicle of choice for his tour is the BMW R 1200 GS, after also have travelling deserts in Asia, Australia and America.

The trip will become a kind of documentary as Martin focuses on the people who live in the extreme conditions of these areas, and the changing climactic conditions of the world.
Martin is geographer and will go to some regions he has already visited, while also travelling to the Patagonian desert, the Tibetan Chang Tang desert and other places, before heading to the ice deserts of Antarctica.
The final destination on the “Planet Desert” tour will be the south pole, in an epic journey that should finish sometime at the beginning of 2012.

The BMW R 1200 GS Adventurer will be mostly a standard model with a few added features for extreme conditions such as a pannier system, ceramic clutch, GPS, long-distance headlights and oil pan guard.

The Planet Desert project is sponsored by the Royal Geographic Society, UNCCD and BMW Motorrad.
To follow the journey and see information on Martin’s tour dates, visit the Michael Martin website at www.
michael–martin.
de.