The Northeast Backcountry Discovery Route Launch Event

Back on March 1 we joined forces with Bridgestone Motorcycle Tires to help celebrate the launch of the Northeast Backcountry Discovery Route.

This 1,350-mile route stretches from the PA/NY state line all the way up to the Maine/Canadian border—and we couldn’t be more excited to get out of Dodge and ride it this summer.

We sold out all the available seats and had a packed (pre-COVID) house full of people to watch the route expedition documentary, win free raffle swag from the event sponsors—including a grand-prize new set of Bridgestone tires—and take a virtual ride along the route via the BDR’s 360 VR-Goggle experience.

The NEBDR is the 10th such route put together by BDR, a phenomenal non-profit public-service organization that’s become the Johnny Appleseed of fully marked adventure motorcycle routes in the United States. Most of its routes thus far have covered more remote and wide-open areas in the West, and so we’re excited to finally have an East Coast entry—one that’s possible to access from New York City in just a couple hours.

Thanks to Johnny Puetz & Co for documenting the event and compiling this wrap-up video + "unofficial" trailer for the NEBDR.

Not only is the new Northeast route the longest in the BDR catalog, but it’s also the next-most challenging—second only to the Colorado Rockies.

The NEBDR is comprised of a mix of graded dirt roads, more challenging unmaintained forest roads, and some twisty tarmac sections to connect it all together. It’ll take a week to complete the whole thing from tip to tail, and if you’re interested in making a run at it there’s no better primer than the 90-minute expedition documentary film that the BDR folks have put together.

An unfortunate mixup with some of the route coordinates through Maine means we’ve had to suspend map sales while we wait for the map to be re-printed, however we are taking pre-orders now, and the first 7 of 8 sections are good to go, and free to download at RideBDR.com.

Big thanks to Bridgetone tires for sponsoring the event. The company’s new AX41 tire is ideal for the challenging terrain of the NEBDR.

We also used the March 1 event to highlight the Bridgetone “AX41S” Scrambler tire. To complement the off-road VR feature at the event we mounted a set of these scrambler tires to a BMW 9T and rallied it around New York with a Go Pro Max 360 camera.

If you have a set of VR goggles, cue up this video edit by our own James Chupka and go for a virtual joyride to see how the tires did.

Last but not least, thanks to our friends at Max BMW for bringing some bikes down—a brand new farkle'd out 850 and an OG R80 G/S, both shod in the new AX41 60/40 Bridgestones. Max is the official shop of the new Northeast BDR, and with four locations dotting the route they’re a great resource for anyone tackling the NEBDR this summer.