The  August 2013 issue of Bike magazine (left) comes with a free supplement featuring the results of a competition for the best readers’ adventures from around the world.

And the winner is… ‘Boiling Point’ written by Michael Bentham from the UK. He took his 25-year-old XT600 on a 5000-mile round trip to southern Morocco, although from the heat he describes it sounds like he was out there sometime between May and September – not the best season for biking down there. Last year near Erg Chebbi a guy suffered heat stroke and actually died alongside his Varadero.

Michael gets on the dirt having just crossed the High Atlas from Marrakech where he sets off to reverse Route MH8 down to Askaoun and Taliouine (below right).

I’d have guessed that without a GPS or possibly a map, his faxed-over notes from Morocco Overland might have made that one a bit tricky in reverse. It took me a while to work out when I originally logged it. He  describes the nervousness of those first few yards on the piste when you think you’ll never survive  – until an hour later where you’re getting into the swing of it. In fact he made it to Askaoun and down the road to Taliouine without problems which just goes to show you can manage without GPS if you have a bit of navigating nous.

He then takes on MA7 over the Issil Plain and up onto Jebel Timouka – one of the best- but also the roughest tracks in that area, as he finds out on his hard-sprung XT.

After overnighting in baking Foum Zguid right at the door to the Sahara, he then makes what I’d consider a dodgy decision by heading off to Mhamid along Route MS7 (MS8) alone. Winter is fine out here but last time I ran this route in April (in a car) it was too hot to dash out barefoot onto the sand for a quick pee.

And here close to Mhamid, for Michael dehydrated and low on water, things get a bit desperate for a short while. Read it and all the rest of the readers’ adventures in Bike.

As for many of us, my first venture into the Sahara was a similar catalog of occasional blunders but also made a great story in retrospect. Above all I learned a lot of what not to do and what I didn’t need. On his recent trip Michael clearly showed that you can manage Morocco as a first timer with no GPS, but it was made a lot harder by riding solo down there in summer. Me, I’d say November is a fine time to be there ;-) Still, he now has a great souvenir of something that took him 12 years to finally achieve. And who knows, perhaps even some sort of prize too.