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Honda knows dirt. Long before adventure bikes became Instagram fodder or pannier-laden bucket-list machines, the Japanese manufacturer was racing and winning where maps turn blank and the stakes soar. Its Dakar tally— eight victories spanning two generations, from 1981 and the dominant late-80s run to the back-toback triumphs of 2020 – 21 and again in 2024— explains why Honda’ s adventure models feel so deeply rooted in authenticity. But the company’ s off-road legacy extends beyond factory racers carving desert lines. It has seeped into a network of off-road training centres that quietly shape riders who will never line up at a rally start, but still yearn to push beyond the tarmac.
Those centres are scattered across Europe, thousands of kilometres apart, yet they are bound by a shared philosophy and the hum of Honda twin cylinders. In Aveyron, France, David Frétigné teaches adventure riders how to tame the terrain he once conquered professionally. Across the Channel, on Exmoor’ s rugged slopes, Dave Thorpe has swapped Grand Prix-winning speed for patient instruction. And in the farmland outside Piacenza, Italy, Marcello“ Bulldozer” Romano guides weekend riders through techniques forged in racing and refined through teaching. Their backgrounds are intimidating on paper— multiple world titles, Dakar stages, enduro championships— but the work they do today is not about reliving past glories. It’ s about meeting everyday riders where they are, and preparing them for journeys they never thought possible.
Frétigné, a multi-discipline champion whose résumé includes five French Enduro titles and victories in Morocco and the Trèfle Lozérien, admits the surprise he felt when he first opened his doors. Plenty of riders, he assumed, would arrive prepared. Instead, many needed help with the fundamentals— balance, body positioning, throttle control.
“ I had all this accumulated knowledge— motocross, sand, rally raid,” he recalls.“ The centre became a way to share it properly, in real terrain, with real people.”
Teaching, he discovered, is a different discipline entirely.
Thorpe, the three-time 500cc Motocross World Champion who remains one of Honda’ s most enduring racing figures, recognised the same gap in the UK. Adventure bikes are easy to fall in love with in a showroom, he notes, but far harder to understand when the gravel starts moving beneath you.
“ You can touch a bike in a dealership, but where can you actually ride it off-road?” he asks. His answer was to build an environment where riders learn without the pressure of improvising in the wild, where instructors stand ready not to judge, but to guide.
Romano’ s story follows a similar arc, albeit with Italian flair. His centre is structured like a journey: theory, then practice, and finally real-world terrain. The secret, he says, is putting those lessons into context immediately.
“ They learn on Saturday,” he laughs,“ and on Sunday they understand how to use it in the real world.”
The transformation is visible and fast. Over two days, he believes riders can unlock 75 percent of their potential, a launching point rather than a finish line.
What makes the three centres stand out is not their speed records, their history, or their Dakar proximity— it’ s their quiet dedication to individual progression. Each rider, Thorpe says, arrives as a blank sheet. Confidence levels vary wildly; instructors watch closely before deciding how to shape the session. Nobody is pushed, nobody is left waiting.
“ We don’ t want the fastest rider frustrated or the slowest rider pushed,” he explains.“ Free flow is the key.” Frétigné echoes that lesson learned over time. Early on, he admits, he trained like a racer and expected riders
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