The best rides usually start with someone else's obsession. This one started with Balaji — a wonderful gentleman I'd recently met who had just bought a GS310 and was on a personal mission to put 1,000 km on the odometer before year end. He'd been up to a place called Al Suhub rest area several times by car: a new picnic spot perched above Khor Fakkan beach, where people camp overnight just to catch the sunrise. He proposed we do it on two wheels. I proposed we pretend I wasn't scared of the mountain roads. Deal.
16 Degrees and a Generational Wardrobe Gap
We rolled out on the 21st of December at 6 a.m., into a crisp 16-degree morning. I was dressed like a man who reads weather forecasts: winter jacket, thermal liner, dignity. Balaji showed up in a summer jacket with a t-shirt underneath, radiating the body heat of the young and free. That, right there, is the difference between generations of riders. One of us was living out a dream; the other was living out a dream with appropriate layering.
The run to the coast was easy highway until the Hajar mountains rose up — and then the tunnels began. A whole barrage of them, long and beautifully lit, punched straight through the rock. I'd driven these in a car before and felt nothing. On a motorcycle they're an event: the light changes, the temperature drops, the exhaust note bounces back at you in stereo. Unmatched.
The Viewpoint — and the Hidden Tour Guide
We started slightly too late and missed the sunrise itself, but the climb from the Khor Fakkan hotel up to the Al Suhub rest area made up for it — a gorgeous, curvy ascent that I'd later come back to attack properly in the five-tunnels-six-hairpins episode. At the top: the entire coastline laid out below, a long unhurried walk, and a genuinely nice restaurant where breakfast tasted the way breakfast only tastes after a cold ride.
Then, on the way home, Balaji revealed his hidden characteristic: the man is a professional tour guide trapped in an IT-guy's body. We stopped at point after point — including a spot by Hatta Dam where he explained the old rail track that climbs to a viewpoint, and the dam crossing barely 100 metres away — each stop with history, context and what the tourists do there. I just stood there nodding like a student on a field trip. What a pleasure to ride with him.
Then Balaji's sense of adventure woke up: there's an off-road that goes all the way to the Oman border, he said. We don't have off-road tyres. It'll be fine.
The Bonus Adventure
So we took the dirt detour. It was honestly a gentle one — packed track, a few patches of loose dirt and gravel that spiked my heart rate — and riding behind Balaji's calm lines gave me borrowed confidence. I did not fall. This time. We slipped back to Dubai through Balaji's secret mountain routes, and I went home already planning the next East Coast run. If you only ever do one scenic ride in this country, put Khor Fakkan on the shortlist — the full route notes live in our best UAE roads guide.
⏱ Key Moments in the Video
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