About Us & the Team

West38Moto transforms your off-road riding skills, giving you more tools to enjoy your adventures.

 We’ve been there…you know, that tenacious intention to get off-road someday but not knowing quite where to start. Adventure means something different to everyone. Whatever your adventure is, we want to help you experience it by developing your riding skills and boosting your confidence.

 West38Moto offers an experience unlike other off-road motorcycle training and guiding companies. We recognize that not everyone functions well outside their comfort zone, while others want to be pushed out if it. People learn at different speeds, in distinctive ways, and will reach individualized goals. Because everyone has to start somewhere, our focus is on teaching off-road fundamentals at your pace and expanding the size of your comfort zone.

 This is your training. We are here to help you succeed in your own way.

 Besides developing off-road motorcycle skills, you’ll also find yourself networking, building valuable relationships, and experiencing camaraderie that can’t be found in places other than on the trail or around a campfire. West38Moto aims to help you ride safely and skillfully and, better yet, discover things about your environment and yourself that you never thought possible.

  • Founder, Off-road Instructor & Guide


    Having grown up doing all the outdoorsy stuff Colorado is famous for, Dusty later joined the Navy and spent his early adult years in San Diego. When he returned to Colorado, Dusty attended college and enjoyed a successful career in marketing and sales. Inevitably, he rediscovered his passion for motorcycle adventures and began to rethink the idea of “success.” Dusty ambitiously made the leap from climbing the corporate ladder and pursued the ideal position of creating his own success out of his passion for adventure bikes. After logging thousands of hours and over 200,000 miles of riding, motorcycle camping, immersing himself in training, and exploring new trails on so many different bikes that his wife stopped trying to keep track, Dusty found a natural fit in the adventure motorcycle industry.

    In 2014, Dusty Roads MotoVentures was born and, over time, transitioned into what is now West38Moto. West38Moto provides everything from foundational riding skills and advanced riding techniques to unforgettable tours and shared experiences with new friends. Since the beginning, Dusty’s goal has always been built on bringing together the folks in the riding community and being a catalyst for new riders. There’s no better way to come together than to spend days riding and evenings around a campfire with good food and even better company.

    As business owner and program developer, Dusty offers not only essential training, but experiences that go well beyond the typical paths well-traveled. Besides being an instigator of campfire camaraderie, Dusty is also a host for the popular YouTube channel MOTO-TREK, where he shares his passion for adventure riding through helpful tips and skill building exercises for beginner, intermediate, and advanced riders.

    When he’s not training or guiding a tour, Dusty can be found fly-fishing across the west, scouting new routes, camping in the backcountry, riding the remote deserts of the southwest U.S. and Baja, or discovering the next best small town to convince his wife to live in. He’s given up on believing his dog, Zeppelin, will be a riding companion.

  • Off-Road Instructor and Guide

    It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.

  • Off-Road Instructor and Guide

    Dave started riding motorcycles at age 14. Back then, every bike was a road bike. And every bike was an adventure bike. You strapped on army surplus backpacks as panniers and life was simple. Getting lost on back roads was a favorite pastime.

    He survived childhood, chose a career in engineering, and ended up working for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Missile Defense Agency as a civil servant. The most interesting part of that progression was working as a Mission Flight Control Officer for rocket and missile launches from Cape Canaveral. (Every little boy’s dream—he was paid to blow stuff up.)  His avocation was aviculture, breeding exotic parrots, including an endangered species. The hobby evolved into a business, eventually paying for college tuitions and occasionally shipping birds internationally.  

    Through all of that, his interest in motorcycles remained and eventually bubbled back to the top. After moving to Estes Park, Colorado in 2004, he soon gravitated to the GS. Now retired, he also enjoys camping, hiking, and kayaking, and recently acquired a solo canoe for multi-day river trips. Backpacking and an involvement in search and rescue transferred well into packing for motorcycle camping trips.  

    He became involved with West 38 Moto after riding with Dusty to Overland Expo West in 2014 and he hasn't looked back. He began with a keen interest in developing the skills necessary to remain upright, but it didn’t take long to discover that the best part of any West 38 Moto event is meeting and riding with new friends who share the same passion.

  • Off-road Instructor & Guide

    Tom Thompson grew up in the small mountain town of Salida, Colorado, where he began riding motorcycles at an early age. Starting on a Honda SL70 at the age of 12, Tom learned early on that he’d have to work for his interest in motorcycles as he paid off the $60 purchase one dollar at a time by watering the neighbor’s lawn. While young Tom wanted to race motocross, his parents were not on board. So one day, while riding the trails around Salida, he stumbled upon some trials riders. Trials riding instantly became his calling and it didn’t take long for Tom to begin competing. Through his late teen years, Tom consistently ranked in the top five in the Expert division for Colorado.

    As an adult working for his interest in motorcycles, watering lawns wasn’t cutting it anymore. Tom’s journey from being an aircraft mechanic to a master plumber moved him to Georgia and back to Colorado again. Over those years, his competitive spirit lured him into hare scrambles, enduro racing, trials competitions, and later adventure riding. In 2010, he purchased his first adventure bike, a Triumph Tiger 955I, which he later traded for a BMW R1200 GSA. In 2014, while immersing himself in the adventure riding community, Tom rediscovered his passion for trials riding – but now on a big bike. With his success as a competitive trials rider, Tom was a natural in the GS Trophy Challenge and had the adventure of a lifetime representing the 2018 GS Trophy team in Mongolia.

    Tom and his wife are now enjoying his retirement in Arizona. Their daughter is married and currently finishing her PhD in Colorado. Though they spent years raising Morgan horses and surrounding themselves with various four-legged companions, they now give all their attention to one rescue dog.

  • Off-Road Instructor and Guide

    Kelly Goertzen was raised on the gravel roads and mountain trails of Idaho, bouncing along on the back of his dad’s and mom’s trail bikes. A fourth-generation rider, Kelly grew up steeped in the culture of two wheels, and the legacy continues—his son is the fifth generation, and his grandkids are well on their way to becoming the sixth.

    Kelly has spent his life camping, hunting, fishing, skiing, mountaineering, surfing, and mountain biking—but nothing compares to the joy he finds in motorcycle touring and trail exploration.

    With over 40 years of professional experience in public speaking, training, and project management in national account sales, he turned his focus in 2019 to coaching and guiding at West 38 Moto.

    “Meeting people and making new riding friends is always exciting for me. Whether teaching a new rider the fundamentals, or helping seasoned riders dust off old skills and learn new ones, I love to watch that light bulb moment when it all comes together and their confidence soars.”

    When he is not standing on the pegs, Kelly and his wife enjoy RV travel, exploring beaches, hiking the Western U.S., and spending time with their three grown children, seven grandchildren, and three grand-dogs.

  • Off-Road Instructor and Guide

  • Off-Road Instructor and Guide

  • Off-Road Instructor and Guide

    Barak is a professional photographer, videographer and video editor and operates his multimedia company StarTrails in New Mexico. Early on, Barak discovered the high potential for adventure abroard dual sport motorcycles and has been traveling, photographing and riding around the world since 1987. As a military search and rescue helicopter pilot, Barak gained a skillset that has been instrumental in shaping his personality, life and career in addition to feeding his hunger for adventure. 

    Since 2004, Barak has been involved in staffing, documenting and leading motorcycle tours in the US and abroad. He has led tours in Mexico, Cuba, South America and Israel and also coaches rider adventure training immersion tours in the American Southwest.

    Barak spent much of his adult life roaming around the world, on every continent on assignments, specializing in travel-adventure documentary production. His adventures took him to the far reaches of the earth, from rafting expeditions on remote, exotic rivers, trekking to Everest basecamp and the North Pole, and filming and promoting motorcycle adventure travel world-wide.