Rihards Grunte didn’t buy a motorcycle because it was practical (or cool). He bought it because something in him was quietly falling apart — and two wheels felt like a way back to himself.

He’s the founder of OUTDURO, a Latvian adventure riding community that’s less about being the fastest in the pack and more about being the kind of person who’ll help someone else become a rider. The kind of rides where the day doesn’t end when the engine stops — it ends when the fire’s going, the pan is hot, and everyone’s contributed something (wood, food, a stupid joke, or a story they didn’t know they needed to tell).

The Spark: “I Didn’t Have a License or Skills. I Bought a Bike Anyway”

“As a child, I had friends with mopeds, and we’d ride them around wherever we could. Some of those mopeds didn’t even have brakes, and naturally, I was usually the one riding brake-free. That was the first time I felt the thrill of being on two wheels.”

Years later, Rihards was doing what a lot of us do when life happens: working, grinding at the office, trying to be responsible.

“I found myself working in IT and spending most of my days sitting behind a desk. I started feeling the urge to do something completely different, so I joined Zemessardze, the Latvian National Guard. There, I learned a lot of practical outdoor skills and started spending more time in the wilderness.”

He started hiking. He started camping. He discovered something that would later become a core OUTDURO ritual: food as a social glue.

“I knew I could sleep under a fir tree if necessary, but I also discovered how much a good meal could improve an adventure. It gave everyone a reason to sit together, slow down, and bond after a long day.”

But hiking had a problem.

“The downside was carrying all the equipment. A pan or cooking pot might not seem like much at home, but after a full day of hiking, every extra kilogram feels personal.”

So the dream shifted: what if the forest came with an engine?

“Around that time, I started dreaming about getting a motorcycle and exploring the forests on two wheels.”

But life intervened. Family responsibilities made another risky activity feel impossible, so Rihards put the motorcycle vision aside. Years later, after a major change in his personal life, he found himself struggling to regain direction and meaning.

A military friend invited him over. There was an old KTM 640 involved — the kind of bike that looks like freedom and behaves like a problem.

“He had that ancient KTM 640 with which he shared a serious love-hate relationship. He sat me on the bike and let me ride it down the road near his house. Almost immediately, I forgot how to brake, and the memories from my childhood came back.”

And just like that, the decision landed.

“It was the same feeling I had experienced on those old mopeds: the rush, the freedom and the excitement of being on two wheels. That was the moment I decided to buy a motorcycle.”

In true Rihards’ fashion, he didn’t buy the sensible one.

“One motorcycle stood out as a reasonable, beginner-friendly option: the BMW F650 Dakar. On paper, it was perfect. But when I went to see one in person, I felt nothing.”

Then he saw the bike.

“The ad showed a strange, glossy brown BMW G650 X Challenge with a forest behind it. It looked like some kind of premium enduro machine—aggressive, tall, and wild. I fell in love with it immediately.”

Except there was a bit of a technical detail.

“There was only one small problem: I did not have a motorcycle license, and I did not really know how to ride.”

His friend rode it home while Rihards followed in a car, staring at the bike like it was a new religion.

“During the entire journey, I kept looking in the rear-view mirror, because I couldn’t stop staring at the motorcycle. At one point, my buddy overtook me. As the sound of the exhaust thundered past the car, I got goosebumps.”

And the line that tells you everything you need to know about what was coming next:

“I still could not ride it properly, but I already knew that motorcycle was going to change my life.”

The Early Crashes: Stitches, Boot Laces, and a Two-Year Lesson

If you’ve ever learned off-road riding the hard way, you’ll recognize the pattern: enthusiasm and ambition first, technique later.

“While I was still going through motorcycle school, I was already riding with my friend in the evenings, learning mostly through trial, error, and deeply questionable decision-making.”

There was the classic deep sand front-brake moment.

“One of my first mistakes was grabbing the front brake sharply in deep sand. The front wheel disappeared beneath me, and I went flying over the handlebars. I landed on my ass, got up, and laughed it off.”

And then there was the Latvian forest, moss, and a hidden tree.

“When the front wheel hit one concealed beneath the moss, it slid sideways and once again sent me over the handlebars. This time, I landed directly on a tree stump.”

He wasn’t wearing proper gear yet.

“The stump tore through my thin multicam trousers, and when I stood up, I discovered a piece of flesh hanging loose above my knee. I pushed it back into place, covered it with a cloth I normally used to clean my helmet visor, and tied it down with one of my boot laces.”

Then he did what riders do when they’re still young enough to think pain is a minor inconvenience—picked up the bike and rode to the hospital to get stitches.

He laughed with the doctor. He learned to carry a first-aid kit. He kept riding.

Then came the moment that stopped everything.

“One evening, I reached a section of forest where a perfectly good trail had been destroyed by a forestry harvester… two deep, water-filled ruts, with a narrow-raised strip of ground between them.”

Rihards looked at it and thought:

“‘I’ll simply ride along the middle. That way, I won’t have to go through the water.’ What a brilliant idea, you buffoon.”

The bike tipped. His foot went down into nothing. The impact landed where it shouldn’t.

“I tore one of the most important ligaments in my foot, and that accident brought my riding to its first real stop. It took nearly two years before the foot felt truly normal again.”

And the inevitable conclusion:

“Needless to say, I bought proper protective gear after that.”

Riding as medicine (and sometimes something darker)

Rihards doesn’t romanticize motorcycles as a cure-all. He tells the truth: it helped — and it also gave him a way to flirt with not caring.

“The best thing about riding a motorcycle is that there is no space for intrusive thoughts. You have to be present and focus on the trail ahead. For me, riding became the antidepressant I desperately needed.”

But it didn’t always work.

“Sometimes I would push the bike to its maximum speed with the dangerous thought that whatever happened, happened… Sometimes I was testing the motorcycle, but sometimes I was also testing how much I cared about what happened to me.”

When the adrenaline faded, the questions arrived.

“Where was I going? What was actually important? Would anyone miss me? Was I happy with the life I was living?”

And slowly, those questions became something else.

“With time, those thoughts began turning into goals.”

He jokes about what came next, but you can hear the edge in it.

“I started drifting into what I jokingly called the bum lifestyle. I drank too much, slept wherever I happened to end up and stopped caring whether I shaved or looked presentable.”

Then the trail started doing what trails do: offering a direction when you don’t have one.

“I started filling my head with images of distant places and long roads that I could explore with my new friend Bruno - my G650 X Challenge.”

Latvia changed shape under his wheels.

“The Latvian Trans Euro Trail linesman showed me a version of Latvia I had never seen before: forest roads, forgotten tracks, and trails that connected places I might otherwise never have discovered.”

And for the first time in a while, something different started stirring within.

“For the first time in a long while, I felt that the road beneath me was leading somewhere.”

The Border Ride: 1,800 km, a Map Full of Pins, and the Missing Ingredient

Like a lot of riders, Rihards started dreaming big: Nordkapp, Iceland, Portugal.

Then he did something smarter: he started to go big by going home.

“During one of our conversations, the Latvian TET linesman told me about riding around the border of Latvia. The idea immediately caught my attention.”

He opened Google Maps. He placed pins everywhere. He overplanned — as we all do.

“Naturally, I added far more places than I could ever realistically see during one trip.”

But the point wasn’t a record.

“The purpose of the roughly 1,800-kilometre journey was never to collect as many locations as possible. The goal was simply to ride, experience, and enjoy Latvia.”

The trip became social almost by accident.

“What had originally been planned as a solo journey gradually turned into something more social: several other riders joined for a few days or for individual sections.”

And then he says the thing that’s basically OUTDURO in one paragraph:

“A seemingly boring location becomes memorable when everyone starts joking around. A simple rock in the middle of a field becomes part of a fascinating historical story when someone knows what happened there. The land mattered. The stories mattered. The people mattered.”

But, according to Rihards, there was still one important ingredient missing.

The Mobile Kitchen: Burgers, Horseradish, and the Taste of a Place

“This is where we arrive at what I believe is the most important ingredient of any great adventure: sharing it with fellow riders.”

He’s not talking about gourmet meals. He’s talking about participation.

“It’s not even the food itself that matters most. It is the joy of making it together: someone gathers firewood. Someone builds the fire. Someone starts chopping the ingredients… It’s not one person doing all the work while everyone else sits around drinking beer.”

And then the line that hits like a truth you didn’t know you needed:

“This seemingly simple ritual brings people closer together. By the time the food is ready, everyone has invested something in it, and that makes the first bite taste better.”

His first trip? He overdid it, of course.

“On that first journey, I completely overloaded my large Enduristan duffle bag with every kitchen utensil, pot, and pan I could find.”

Later he learned the real secret: one cast-iron pan, endless improvisation.

Burgers became the favorite because they’re a blank canvas for whatever the local countryside shop decides you’re having.

“When you are deep in the countryside and the only available option is pork, with horseradish as the sauce, that combination becomes the taste of that particular place.”

And then he asks the question that should probably be printed on a T-shirt:

“Can a memory have a taste? Absolutely.”

Culinary disasters happened too — because of course they did.

“Have you ever dropped something frozen or wet into hot oil?… Now imagine pouring a full bag of frozen French fries into a large pot of boiling, cheap oil hanging directly over a campfire.

Within seconds, the pot transformed into a fire-breathing monster. All we could do was step back, stare at the chaos and start singing, ‘Fire!’”. The fries did not survive, but the story certainly did.”

Gear That Doesn’t Interrupt the Adventure

Rihards’ Enduristan connection didn’t start with a marketing plan. It started the way most real gear loyalty starts: someone you trust shows you something that works.

“One of my friends followed Lyndon Poskitt and his Races 2 Places series. Through those stories, he discovered Enduristan and introduced me not only to Lyndon’s adventures, but also to the Enduristan brand. So when I needed to choose luggage for my own motorcycle, Enduristan felt like the obvious choice. The bags did exactly what I needed them to do: they were waterproof, lightweight, and they looked badass on my bike.”

Then reality happened: mounting points giving up the ghost, bags moving around on the bike on gnarly terrain encountering sharp edges, and a two-week trip approaching fast.

“I wrote an email to Enduristan explaining who I was, what I was planning, and why I needed reliable luggage for the trip. At the time, I did not have a large following. I still do not.”

But the follower count didn’t matter: what mattered was the story - and Rihards became Enduristan’s ambassador.

What he appreciated most about the gear was simplicity.

“The duffle quickly became the centre of camp life: by the second day, my riding companions were already removing it from the bike, opening it, and distributing the cooking tools themselves. Within the entire setup, there were no unnecessary layers of straps, buckles, or complicated fastening systems. At the end of a long day, when everyone was hungry and eager to start the fire, that simplicity mattered.”

And this is the line that quietly sums up Enduristan values without trying to sell anything:

“The luggage did not interrupt the adventure. It simply helped us get on with it.”

His gear “stress test” is equally unglamorous — and therefore real: rivers, wet sleeping gear, and the chaos that happens inside bags.

“Sometimes luck is not on your side, and the motorcycle ends up lying in the middle of the river. When that happens, a luggage system that is not waterproof can turn the entire evening at camp into a drying operation.”

He still double-protects what matters (because experience teaches you humility).

“Even though my Enduristan bags are waterproof, I still pack important items inside additional dry bags… For sleeping equipment, double protection is essential. Here’s how I learned my lessons: I once had a beer bottle break inside one of my waterproof bags. The inside of the Enduristan bag was easy to clean. I rinsed it in a stream, let it dry, and continued riding the following day with only a mild aroma of beer left behind. A broken jar of jam was even worse. Jam manages to reach places that should be physically impossible – but again, clean the bag and ride on”.

OUTDURO: Built for the People at the Back of the Pack

Rihards’ project OUTDURO didn’t come from a desire to be seen. It came from being supported when he needed it most.

“Back when I was learning to ride and struggling with depression, my friend kept pulling me outside for rides. At that time, that support mattered more than I probably realised.”

He tried group rides. He didn’t love the race vibe.

“The fastest riders disappeared at the front while everyone at the back tried desperately to keep up. That style of riding was not for me.”

And he’s fair about it — some people want adrenaline and a quick return to normal life. That’s valid. It just wasn’t what he needed.

“For me, something important was missing.”

He wanted the part that happens after.

“The best part of an adventure was not only the ride itself. It was the tranquillity around the campfire afterwards; laughing about the mistakes; sharing a meal together.”

So he made a place for that kind of adventure to exist.

“I eventually created an Instagram account to show the kind of adventure I believed in… I wanted a name that combined the two things I cared about most: the outdoors and enduro riding. That is how OUTDURO was born.”

And then the best part happened: other people recognized themselves in it.

“I quickly discovered that I was not the only person looking for this kind of adventure.”

OUTDURO became rides, camps, cooking, and a culture of support.

“It was also about making sure that anyone new to the outdoors, adventure riding, or both had the support they needed to grow.”

And the mission statement, plain and clean:

“The goal was not simply to create better riders. It was to help people become riders who felt supported, included, and part of something bigger. Part of a community.” 

For a long time, many of these moments were something Rihards experienced alone.

“Years later, I met my new adventure companion—who is now my wife. Today, I get to share the campfires, improvised meals, long rides, and quiet moments with someone who understands why they matter. Solitude helped me find myself again, but sharing the adventure with the right person gave it another dimension”.

The #1 Mistake off the Beaten Path (And the Advice for Anyone Stuck)

When Rihards talks about survival skills, he doesn’t start with gear. He starts with mindset.

“A large part of adventure riding is psychological.”

Rain is his example — because rain is always the example.

“You can complain about it for the entire ride, or you can accept it completely: feel the drops hitting your helmet, notice the smell of the wet forest, and appreciate that you are experiencing the landscape in a way most people never will.”

And then, for anyone who’s stuck — anyone who keeps waiting for the “big trip” to feel alive — he offers something better: permission to start small.

“You do not have to ride to Morocco or Ushuaia to feel adventurous. Even riding to the sea for an evening swim at dusk can create that feeling. The real question is whether you can give yourself those two hours.”

He suggests sleeping outside — not as a heroic expedition, but as a simple reset.

And then he lands the whole thing with a line that feels like the point of OUTDURO, and maybe the point of riding in general:

“Sometimes the adventure is not about how far you travel. Sometimes it is about becoming quiet enough to find yourself again.”

The Kind of Influence That Matters

Rihards isn’t an influencer in the traditional sense. He’s a builder — of routes and events, yes, but more importantly, of people. The kind who remembers what it felt like to be new, scared, under-skilled, and quietly not okay… and who chooses to turn that memory into a community where nobody gets left behind in the dust.

If OUTDURO resonates with you, take it as a sign: you don’t need a passport stamp, a rally tower, or a perfectly optimized setup to start living a little more awake.

Start smaller. Start closer. Give yourself two hours for an evening ride to the sea. Sleep outside once — in your backyard if that’s what it takes — just to remember what silence sounds like when it isn’t interrupted by notifications. Find one person who rides at your pace, who doesn’t treat a group ride like a race, who’ll stop when you stop and laugh when you drop it.

Then build from there.

And if you’re the experienced one reading this: be the friend who “kept pulling someone outside for rides.” The one who shares what they know, gives people room to learn, and makes the campfire feel like a place you’ve earned — not a place you have to prove yourself in. That kind of influence doesn’t rack up likes. It changes lives.

Because the real magic isn’t in the highlight reel. It’s in the unglamorous moments: wet boots, smoky hands, a burger that’s slightly burned, a story that only exists because you were there to witness it. It’s in gear that doesn’t demand attention — that stays simple, stays dry, and lets you get on with the important part.

The ride is the doorway. The community is the point. And if you’ve been waiting for a sign to start: this is it.