Cory Hanson, owner of Camel ADV Products stumbled upon his passion for adventure riding in 2009. Since then, he's visited 30 countries, put thousands of kilometres on his adventure bike, and continues to compete in off-road motorcycle competitions. Cory lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Here is his story.

 

THE LURE OF FREEDOM

After getting his motorcycle license and riding his first bike, a VFR, for only a year, he never quite got the attraction of riding. Cory sold his bike in 2002 and didn't expect to ride again.

In 2008, he watched "Long Way Around" and enjoyed it with a friend who wanted to do a similar trip, but wrote it off as something that rich, sponsored people did. A year later during the recession, Cory's industry was deeply affected and he found himself without work. After one terrible job interview, he ordered a 2009 F800GS from the local BMW dealership, called up his friend, Tim Dzaman, and said, "Hey, you know that trip you keep bugging me about? Let's do it. I just bought a bike."

Two months later, Cory and Tim were on the road. Dubbed "Terra Nova Expedition", they chronicled the trip highlights in a blog, discovered the world and awakened wanderlust. 19 countries, 118 days, an untreated double leg fracture and 30,000 kilometres later, Cory Hanson had completed his first big motorcycle trip.

In 2010, Cory did his second extended road trip on his adventure bike. A 6 month round-trip tour brought him down the Canadian west coast, through the US, Mexico and throughout all of Central America.

 

OFF-ROADING and COMPETITION

Cory is no stranger to off-roading or competition. He built and raced off-road trucks for 15yrs and was invited to compete in FourWheeler Magazine's invite-only "Top Truck Challenge" competition. He won both the Canadian "WERock" rock crawling championship and competed in the WERock World Championships in Las Vegas in 2006.

Since starting to ride adventure bikes, Cory has raced the in the ADV class at the Desert 100 in Odessa, Washington 7 times, twice ending up on the podium with a 1st place finish is 2014 and a 3rd in 2013. He has also raced the famous Virgina City Grand Prix in the ADV class.

 

2014 BMW MOTORRAD GS TROPHY

Cory focused on qualifying for the 2014 GS Trophy. He competed and won the Ontario GS Challenge in June 2013, securing a spot on Team Canada for the 2014 GS Trophy. Cory's good friend (and now Camel ADV shop foreman) Matt Wareing qualified for the team as well by winning the Rocky Mountain GS Challenge in Alberta.

 

Growth of Camel ADV Products

The company has continued to grow rapidly. The business was in Cory's residential garage for the first 7 years then moved to a commercial bay in Oct of 2020. A mere 4 months later, a second bay needed to be leased and two more staff hired. Camel now has 4 full-time employees and one part-time person.