When I first started touring, I would do my utmost to avoid revisiting old motorcycle roads. The world is so big, why would I waste time on roads I’d already conquered?
But recently, that word—conquered—began to play on my mind. Because I hadn’t conquered anything, I’d merely experienced. And the thing with experience is it can (and will) change every time you revisit it.
For me, these “conquests” include three of my favourite places in the world: the Vosges mountains, the Cormet de Roselend in the French Alps, and a small, winding road in Corsica.
The Vosges, with its endless forests and understated roads—quieter than the Alps but with just as much presence. The Cormet de Roselend, winding its way through the high Alps, offering scenery that is truly jaw-dropping.
I came to both of these places before, hungry to devour every turn and experience every bend. Back then, I was driven by a need to know it all and see it all — every hairpin, every viewpoint, every straight where I could pin the throttle.
And I did ride them all. Hard, fast, and always chasing the next bend. I ticked them off and moved on as if the experience itself was something to be consumed and then left behind.
But since then, I’ve been back. And the purpose of these subsequent visits wasn’t to conquer the roads. It was to understand them.
Revisiting Old Motorcycle Roads: The Quiet in the Familiar
There’s something about riding a road you already know. The first time, everything is a surprise. Each new bend is like turning the page and starting a new chapter in a good book. You’re tuned in fully to the road itself — the lean angles, the cambers, the patches of gravel that could catch you out.
But the second time — and every time after — the road becomes something else entirely. You’re no longer riding to figure it out. You’re riding to remember. To re-live the memory of the last time. To feel the echoes of the first time you rode it — the places you stopped, and the places you didn’t. The moment you realised you were grinning from ear to ear inside your helmet.
And because, this time, you’re not so focused on the tarmac, you start to notice the things you missed last time.
What You See When You Slow Down
On my return to these roads, I didn’t have the same hunger for speed. The need to prove something — to myself or to anyone else — had quieted. I’d already done the fast runs. I knew what that felt like.
This time, I found I could look up more. Let my eyes linger on the mist rolling off the Vosges. Watch the glaciers above the Cormet de Roselend. Feel the quiet of the lake cradled in the valley below.
I stopped more, too. Parked the bike at lay-bys I’d blown past the first time, just to listen to the silence. To feel the air shift as the clouds moved across the sun. These pauses became part of the ride — moments where the journey itself breathed in and out.
The Road That Becomes Yours
Revisiting old motorcycle roads again and again gives them a kind of intimacy. They stop being a pin on a map or a post on Instagram. They become a relationship that deepens every time you return.
In Corsica, the D344 was my daily commute to the supermarket—LeClerc in Ghisonaccia, 45 minutes each way through craggy rock formations and caves. I rode it like a local. Hard. Fast. Testing myself. Learning every bend.
I knew the first-gear bends. I clocked where gravel would fall from the crags above overnight. I knew where I would scrape my boot, and where I was pushing the bike to its natural lean limit. I knew where I’d have to start changing my body position if I wanted to stay on two wheels. And I knew where to slow down on the way back so the eggs wouldn’t crack in my top box. Again.
And in that repetition, something shifted. I stopped being surprised by the corners. I started to feel them instead. To sense the way the trees leaned back from the verge. The way the late-afternoon light turned the tarmac into a ribbon of gold. I could tell by the smell of the air whether rain was further up the road.
And I think that’s what we’re all really looking for — not just new roads, but roads we can return to. Roads that reveal something different every time we visit them, not because they change, but because we do.
The Rhythm of Returning
When you ride a road for the second or third time, it stops being about the ride itself and starts being about the way you meet it. The quiet confidence of knowing what’s next. The permission to slow down and let the place seep in. The realisation that this is the kind of riding that doesn’t need to be shared or shown off.
Because when you’ve ridden that road for the seventh time, or the fifteenth time, or the twenty-fourth time, the real journey isn’t in the miles. It’s in the way the same road can offer you something new if you’re willing to let it.
This is the difference between conquering and understanding. Between riding for the sake of the map and riding for the sake of yourself.
And it’s here, on these familiar roads, that I’ve found the deepest kind of touring. The connection that doesn’t need to be new to be worthwhile.
It’s the kind that grows quieter, and truer, every time I ride them.
If you liked this more introspective post, check out our Quiet Tour Chronicles: journal-style thoughts from the road.