Riding on the edge: 100 Colls with the Battlax T33
On paper, the 100 Colls challenge looks simple: in 48 hours, ride over as many mountain passes as possible in southern France and Catalonia. In reality, it’s an all-out endurance test for both rider and machine. 100 Colls isn’t your average organised tour, it’s a kind of motorised mountain game for diehards, tacticians, road addicts and riders who live for the unexpected.
We took on the challenge aboard a BMW R 1300 GS Adventure, rolling on Bridgestone Battlax T33 tyres. And that choice turned out to be more decisive than we ever imagined.
Rain, sun, cold, heat
When a thunderstorm wakes you up at 5:30am and you find yourself riding into lightning-charged fog hours later, you realise: this is where your tyres earn their keep. The T33s performed flawlessly. Wet tarmac, gravel, hairpins, aggressive descents – the tyres kept delivering stable, reassuring feedback. One moment still sticks with us: a sharp reaction on a zebra crossing could’ve turned ugly, but the tyre – and the BMW’s electronics – held it together.
Chasing points, chasing bends
With a map full of mountain passes, ranked green to black by difficulty, efficiency is everything. But ultimately, it’s still all about the ride. Some stretches, you find yourself in perfect rhythm, bend after bend, on fresh tarmac still smelling of oil. Other times, you give chase – like when a Ducati Streetfighter V4 S flew past me on the Col d’Ares. What followed was an unplanned sprint, and the big GS, with its Bridgestones, danced down the mountain like a bike half its size. No wobble, no drama. Just pinpoint precision, even with full panniers and a hot pace.
Foxes, adders and rally-driving Kangoo vans
Between the climbs, the Pyrenees offer surprises. Empty villages, deer crossing out of nowhere, and even a fox guarding a mountain top like it was his own. One hairpin later, there’s an adder sunbathing in the apex. And then that one moment we’ll never forget: chasing a first-gen Renault Kangoo through flower-lined bends, sparks flying from its exhaust as the driver channelled his inner rally ace. All I could do was laugh inside my helmet and keep up. In moments like that, you realise just how much you rely on what’s beneath you. The T33s? Utter confidence, in every gear, on every surface.
The clock stops on Sunday, but the ride lives on
At 13:00 sharp, you’re meant to reach a designated checkpoint. At the end of the third riding day, we rolled in with… seven minutes to spare. Still buzzing from a last-minute fuel stop and one final on-road battle with an ageing Honda Accord. The closing ceremony? Dinner in a restored monastery, tall tales, shared laughs and a room full of exhausted but elated riders. The real prize, though? That deep, lingering satisfaction of pushing yourself across three days of relentless riding – corner after corner, pass after pass. And through it all, riding on tyres that simply never flinched. No fireworks, no fuss. Just a sport-touring tyre that gets the job done so effortlessly, you forget it’s even there – until the moment you really need it.
Curious about our T33 tyres? Dive into the specs here.
