Westwind Moto is now the first and only motorcycle luggage brand ever to enter, and test, its gear in the Dakar Rally, bolted to a Malle Moto race bike and fully loaded for total autonomy.
Quite literally, with Ultra Dakar and Tiziano Internò, Westwind Moto has changed the game forever!
-Ultra Dakar: Back to Where Dakar Was Born-
The Dakar is officially a race, but at its core it has always been something deeper: a journey;physical, emotional, spiritual. That is exactly what Italian rider Tiziano Internò wanted to bring back to life with Ultra Dakar: to relive the Dakar as it was in its heroic days, when riders left from Paris and carried their world on the bike, not in a truck.
So he chose the hardest way possible.
Not just the Originals by Motul (Malle Moto) class, already the purest format of Dakar, with no external assistance; but a step “beyond Malle Moto”: leaving the iconic red trunk empty and loading everything on his KTM 450 Rally.
• No mechanics.
• No spares waiting in the bivouac.
• No safety net.
Every tool, every spare, every drop of oil, everything needed for the challenge; everything travels on the bike, inside a minimalist rackless luggage system. Just like the early pioneers, Tiziano decided that the journey starts at home, not on the start podium.
This is where Westwind Moto enters the story.
To make Ultra Dakar possible, Tiziano needed a luggage system that could:
• Mount on a pure race KTM 450 Rally (not a travel bike in the traditional sense and for which no luggage solutions exist).
• Carry all tools, spares, and basic gear directly on the bike.
• Survive every liaison, every special stage and every fall, day after day.
Westwind Moto took the Ranger Wilds Rackless system and reshaped it around this radical idea, creating a tailor-made solution that respects the same design philosophy and materials but fits perfectly on a Dakar rally machine that was never designed to carry luggage.
On the left, a bag dedicated to tools and lubricants; on the right, the spares and, essentials for life between stages; On the tail a RW3 pouch to carry the basic tools often needed for quick repairs during the stages, snacks and additional hydration.
From his garage in Brescia, Tiziano fired up his race bike already loaded with Westwind bags and headed to the spiritual birthplace of Dakar: Paris. Under the Eiffel Tower; the same Parisian symbol that saw the original Dakar caravans depart, he drew the invisible starting line of his personal Ultra Dakar, not as a logistics move but as a statement: this is where the dream begins.
From Paris, the journey turned into a long, demanding prologue:
A solo ride across France and Spain, avoiding highways in favor of secondary roads and rural stretches.
More than 2,000 km to reach Barcelona, including over 200 km of mountain passes in the Pyrenees, with the full Ultra Dakar load on the bike.
This is not a factory fairytale. Tiziano is a strong rider with a serious rally background, but he is not a paid professional backed by a multinational budget. He runs companies, finds his own sponsors, fuels his Rally POV media project through crowdfunding, and pays for Dakar with the same determination that ordinary riders use to fund their big trips. That is precisely why Westwind Moto sees him as “one of us”: a real rider, with a real life, chasing a dream that is bigger than his comfort zone.
-Why Westwind Moto Had to Change the Game-
Westwind Moto was born from riders who travel far, break things, learn, and then build better gear so others can go even further. “Yes, we know adventure riders” is not just a tagline; it is the reason the brand exists: to be the quiet, unbreakable supporting actor in other people’s stories.
That is why, in 2025, Westwind partnered with Andrea Gava on his own ride-to-rally project to the Rallye du Maroc in Malle Moto: leave from home, arrive at the rally on two wheels, race without assistance, and ride back with a head full of sand and stories. https://www.westwindmoto.com/blogs/news/yes-we-know-adventure-riders-the-andrea-gava-story
It was a natural first step, a proof that Westwind luggage can stand up to a full rally raid and a long approach journey in one continuous adventure.
But once that bar was cleared, there was only one place left to go: Dakar.
Not in the comfort of service trucks and hotel rooms; but in the one class that strips everything down to the bone.
The reasons for embracing Ultra Dakar with Tiziano are crystal clear:
• The hardest test on earth. Dakar is a high-intensity endurance rally in extreme environments, where riders and equipment are pushed to the limit for hundreds of kilometres every day. Any weakness is exposed, punished, and remembered. If Westwind wants to build the best possible luggage, it cannot avoid the toughest arena.
• Never getting comfortable. Comfort is the enemy of progress. Westwind consciously chooses challenges that make the team uncomfortable, that risk failure, in order to learn faster and improve products beyond normal expectations. Dakar, especially Ultra Dakar, is exactly that kind of challenge.
• Supporting “one of us”. The brand exists to make the dreams of everyday riders come true, not just to decorate factory riders’ bikes. Tiziano finances his own Dakar, has a day job, and races out of passion, not salary. In him, Westwind sees the perfect embodiment of the customers it serves: riders who value emotion, exploration and self‐challenge over status.
• Doing what nobody else has done. There are many brands that say their luggage is “adventure ready”. Very few are willing to prove it where nothing can be faked: in Originals by Motul at the Dakar, with everything on the bike and no nightly rebuilds in a team awning. Westwind Moto is, today, the first and only ever Dakar‐tested luggage.
By choosing Ultra Dakar, Westwind Moto has sent a clear signal to the entire motorcycle luggage world:
From this moment on, anyone else who tries to put their bags in Dakar in a similar way will have to accept one simple reality: they are following, not leading.
The benchmark for “adventure ready” has changed. If the gear can thrive in Originals by Motul with everything on the bike and no nightly rebuilds, it has earned the right to call itself truly adventure‐proof.
Every rider, from weekend explorer to world traveller, benefits from what is learned on Ultra Dakar, materials refined, attachment systems improved, ergonomics tuned; not in a lab, but in real desert battle.
Right now, as Tiziano fights through the 2026 Dakar stages in Saudi Arabia, Westwind luggage is doing what it was built to do: disappear into the background, work flawlessly, and let the rider focus on the only thing that really matters: riding, navigating, and living his dream wide open.
For adventure riders everywhere, the message is simple:
If your next journey is not as extreme as Ultra Dakar, and almost nothing is, you can trust gear that has already survived the hardest race on earth.
Westwind Moto. First and Only ever Dakar-tested luggage.
We changed the Game!
Follow Tiziano's Ultra-Dakar adventure with our luggage on:
https://www.youtube.com/@RallyPOV/videos
https://www.instagram.com/rally.pov/?hl=en 