A Kos ATV tour rides quad bikes along the dirt tracks and mountain roads of Kos in the Dodecanese. The tour is one of the Greece Tours on Greece Ville.
This post covers the machine itself, the Greek road rules for riders, the rocks of the island, its plants, animals and war sites.
Farms and crops, the best months and common questions come last. The sections include Kos ATV tours that can be booked online.
What is a Kos ATV tour?
A Kos ATV tour rides a machine whose story began with three wheels. In 1968, John Plessinger sold his Tricart three-wheeler patents to Sperry-Rand’s New Holland, which built it commercially. Honda’s US90, designed by Osamu Takeuchi, was in the works from 1967.
The first US90 had an 89 cc engine that made 7 hp. Its soft tyres broke easily on rough ground, so Honda switched to normal tyres on rims in 1975.
On a Kos ATV tour, the machine owes a debt to cinema. Honda’s early three-wheelers became popular through the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. The 1980 Avenger 400 quad had rigid suspension, a fibreglass body and a welded tube frame.
Suzuki’s 1985 LT250R QuadRacer was the first high-performance four-wheel ATV. Its LT500R, nicknamed Quadzilla, had a 500 cc liquid-cooled two-stroke engine and five gears.
On a Kos ATV tour, the pace is gentler than the records. A 1988 magazine test clocked the Quadzilla at over 79 mph, the fastest production quad ever made.
- EU class: Under EU rules, a light electric quad is capped at 4 kW.
- Side-by-sides: These can count as ATVs, but they lack the saddle seat and handlebars of a true ATV.
- Dakar: Since the 2017 Dakar Rally, side-by-sides have raced in their own class, capped at 1000 cc.
- Buggies: In the 1980s, the Greek maker Pan-Car built beach buggies.
Which road rules apply on a Kos ATV tour?
A Kos ATV tour must stay on the road network near water and wetlands. Greek law bars motor vehicles from leaving roads on lake and marsh shores, rivers, streams and brooks. The ban also covers meadows, pastures and footpaths in such areas.
Priority habitats listed in the EU Habitats Directive also count as protected land under this ban. Only trips strictly needed for disasters, accidents, fires or national defence are exempt.
On a Kos ATV tour by the sea, beaches have their own rule. Anyone who illegally reshapes a beach or the shore must restore it to its earlier state.
A passenger caught without a helmet is penalised too, not only the rider. A third helmet offence within 5 years brings a licence withdrawal of 1 year. The licence returns only after the rider passes theory and practical tests again.
On a Kos ATV tour, alcohol and drugs carry heavy penalties. At the highest drink-driving band, police also withdraw the vehicle’s registration for 180 days. A first drug-driving offence can cost the licence for 3 to 6 months, as a court decides.
- Repeat drugs: A second drug-driving offence within 5 years brings a licence withdrawal of 7 years.
- B1: The EU licence class for heavy quadricycles, B1, has a minimum age of 16.
- Optional: B1 is an optional class, so not every EU country issues it.
- Code 01: Licence code 01 means the holder must use glasses or contact lenses when driving.
Which rocks does a Kos ATV tour cross?
A Kos ATV tour up Mount Dikeos climbs the old core of the island. It is older than the Neogene sediments laid down around it. In the late Miocene, Kos joined Anatolia, the Aegean area and mainland Greece in one land mass.
Later, east Kos held a lake of changing size. There, the freshwater snail Melanopsis sporadum evolved into Melanopsis gorceixi.
On a Kos ATV tour, the sea ended that story. When the sea flooded the lake at the start of the Pleistocene, its local snails died out. Around the time of the Plateau Tuff, Kos broke away from Turkey’s Datça peninsula and became an island.
The first fossil rhinoceros known from Kos, of the genus Stephanorhinus, was found near Antimachia. It lay in Early Pleistocene river and lake beds of the lower Tafi Formation.
On a Kos ATV tour, the Plateau Tuff covers the ground. Its eruption was the largest explosive eruption of the Quaternary in the eastern Mediterranean. The tuff is chiefly non-welded rhyolite ignimbrite, rock laid down by pyroclastic flows. Those flows stayed hot even after crossing open sea.
- Ice age beasts: Other Early Pleistocene fossils include Homotherium, Anancus arvernensis, Equus stenonis and Gazella borbonica.
- Pumice: The first phase set pumice rafts adrift on the sea.
- Kefalos domes: Dacite and rhyolite domes on the Kefalos peninsula record volcanic activity before the great eruption.
- Rock types: Samples from Kos include monzodiorite, diorite, actinolite schist, cataclasite and slate.
Which plants line a Kos ATV tour?
A Kos ATV tour crosses an island with more than 1,000 native plant species. No plant that grows only on Kos has been found so far. The castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is not native, yet it now grows everywhere on Kos.
Onopordum majoris, a thistle, grows only on eastern and southern Aegean islands. They are Samos, Ikaria, Fournoi, Kos, Karpathos and Crete.
On a Kos ATV tour, the Dikaios Natura site has a short legal story. It became a Special Area of Conservation in 2011, after a 1996 proposal. Native Mediterranean pine forest covers about 636 hectares of it.
Salt meadows of sea rushes cover more than 41 hectares, and oleander and tamarisk thickets more than 10. Oriental plane woods cover just over 1 hectare. Rock-crack plants hold more than 4 hectares of limestone slopes.
On a Kos ATV tour in early spring, lion’s leaf comes into flower. Leontice leontopetalum carries yellow flowers from February to April. The IUCN Red List of 1993 rated it Endangered in Greece.
- Rare trio: Papaver nigrotinctum, Galium recurvum and Allium olympicum are rated Rare in Greece and in Europe.
- Nigella: Nigella arvensis subspecies glauca is endemic to Anatolia and the East Aegean islands.
- Psalidi: Reed beds of common reed and reedmace stand in water all year at Lake Psalidi.
- Neromana: Reeds, poplars and oleanders grow around Neromana, the small lake near Pyli.
Which animals meet a Kos ATV tour?
A Kos ATV tour enters the only Dodecanese home of the European glass lizard, a legless lizard. Also called the sheltopusik, it can reach 135 cm including its tail. The gecko Mediodactylus kotschyi kotschyi lives only on Kos in the Dodecanese too.
Rhodes and Kos are the only Dodecanese islands with the eastern tree frog. The biggest Kos population lives at the Alikes salt lake.
On a Kos ATV tour, snakes keep to their own ground. The European whip snake is commoner along wet coasts. The black whipsnake keeps chiefly to hilly inland ground, and it can grow longer than two metres.
The javelin sand boa, the only boa species in Europe, lives on Kos. In the Dodecanese, the leopard snake lives only on Kos, Rhodes and Chalki. Inside Greece, the green lizard form Lacerta diplochondrodes diplochondrodes lives only on Rhodes and Kos.
On a Kos ATV tour, one snake deserves respect. The Ottoman viper is the only Dodecanese snake with venom dangerous to people. Vipers bite only when threatened.
- Blanus: The rare reptile Blanus strauchi lives underground in sand or soft soil.
- Green lizards: The Natura file counts 1,001 to 10,000 green lizards of the Lacerta trilineata group on Dikaios.
- Bat: The bat Rhinolophus mehelyi is named among the notable mammals of the Dikaios site.
- Birds: Stone-curlews and common terns breed at Psalidi–Alyki, and two grebe species spend the winter there.
Which war sites mark a Kos ATV tour?
A Kos ATV tour passes ground fought over in 1943. In September that year, about 3,500 Italian soldiers of the 50th Infantry Division Regina held Kos. On the night of 14/15 September, 120 British paratroops dropped onto ground spread with straw and hay.
The British chose a second airstrip site at Lambia, north of Kos town. At Antimachia, the ground was too stony to dig into, so gunners slowly built blast walls.
On a Kos ATV tour near Antimachia, the airfield is the key site. It was finished as an Italian military airfield in 1941, with the code 804. Village records were printed in two languages until 1937, and from 1938 Greek was dropped.
One German battle group was to land near Mount Eremita and seize the guns south of Platani. The Germans had 1,500 men ashore by midday on 3 October and an estimated 4,000 by evening.
On a Kos ATV tour past the Tigaki salt lake, Alyki, a darker story waits. Of 148 Italian officers captured on Kos, 103 were shot there between 4 and 7 October 1943.
- Escape: About 11 officers and 100 men escaped capture, and the SBS took them off in small parties.
- Graves: In February 1945, 66 bodies from eight mass graves near Linopotis were reburied in the Catholic cemetery.
- Memorial: A memorial to the massacre stands in front of the Agnus Dei Church.
- 1944: The Jews of Kos reached the Haidari camp on 1 August 1944. They were later sent to Auschwitz.
Which farms and crops does a Kos ATV tour pass?
A Kos ATV tour crosses farmland that once fed a tomato industry. In 1960, tomatoes were the leading crop on Kos and the island’s main export. The AVIKO pulp factory had capacity for 400 tons of tomatoes a day.
Kos once had up to eight tomato factories. AVIKO was the largest industrial complex ever built on Kos. From 1965 to 1975, the tomato industry employed the bulk of the islanders. The thin local vergaki, or lainati, tomato has thick flesh and little juice, ideal for paste.
On a Kos ATV tour, the lettuce link is famous. Romaine, or cos lettuce, grows a tall head of sturdy dark green leaves. Unlike softer lettuces, it tolerates heat. Italians call it lattuga romana, because it reached Western Europe through Rome.
After 1945, livestock farming grew fast, reaching 29,000 sheep and goats that made 70 tonnes of cheese. In 1962, Kos and Rhodes had the largest farm output in the Dodecanese.
On a Kos ATV tour past hives, honey is a local craft. About 50 families keep bees, producing around 200 tons of honey in total. They make pine, heather and thyme honey, and also sell pollen and royal jelly.
- Grape: Mavrothiliko, a native Kos grape, was nearly extinct until its revival in 2007.
- Boreholes: Boreholes supply the bulk of the island’s water, and private ones irrigate farmland.
- Platy: The Platy reservoir holds 342,000 m³ of useful water for drinking and irrigation.
- Messaria: The Messaria reservoir holds 225,000 m³ and serves irrigation only.
Which months suit a Kos ATV tour?
A Kos ATV tour in summer rides through near-total drought. From June to September 2022, the meteo.gr station on Kos logged only 0.6 mm of rain. June 2019 and June 2022 stayed completely dry.
The hottest reading of 2022 was 33.6 °C, on 25 July. June 2020 brought 27.6 mm of rain. On 4 November 2023, the station still reached 27.5 °C.
On a Kos ATV tour in winter, the tracks meet real rain. January 2019 brought 351.8 mm, the wettest month from 2013 to 2023. December 2014 brought 207.6 mm, and December 2020 brought 207 mm.
Yearly rain at the station ranged from 394 mm in 2016 to 906.4 mm in 2019. Yet December 2015 brought no rain at all.
On a Kos ATV tour in autumn, heavy rain is possible. September 2015 brought 127.6 mm of rain, and October 2015 another 135.4 mm. March 2017 brought 160.8 mm.
- Coldest: The coldest reading from 2013 to 2023 was −1.6 °C, on 8 January 2015.
- Frost: On 24 January 2022, the station dipped to −0.1 °C, the only other reading below zero.
- Spring heat: On 1 March 2016, the station already reached 23 °C.
What do visitors ask about a Kos ATV tour?
A Kos ATV tour raises questions about age, permits, transport, emergencies, people and wind. At the 2011 census, Kos had 33,388 residents. Almost 60% of them live in the town of Kos, the island’s capital.
What age rules apply on a Kos ATV tour?
Greece lets learners drive a car from age 17 if a supervisor rides along. The supervisor must be at least 25 and hold a B licence for 5 or more years. Driving alone from 18 needs an accident-free supervised period.
What is a driving permit on a Kos ATV tour?
An International Driving Permit is a grey A6 booklet, 148 by 105 mm. It is a little larger than a passport. Its last two inside pages are in French. The term first appeared in a motor traffic convention signed in Paris in 1926.
How else do people move around on a Kos ATV tour?
Kos has over 15 km of bike lanes and is called the island of bicycle. Cycling is the main way tourists get around Kos town. The town has 11 city buses, and 22 more buses serve the rest of the island.
Which numbers help in trouble on a Kos ATV tour?
The municipal visitor page lists Kos Hospital on 22420 54200 and 22420 22126. The ambulance line is 22420 22300. The pan-European emergency number 112 also works on Kos.
How has the population changed on a Kos ATV tour?
Kos had about 11,000 people in 1821 and 21,170 in 1931. By 1971, the count had fallen to 16,650.
Which winds blow on a Kos ATV tour?
The municipal tourism site says steady side-shore summer winds suit windsurfers and kitesurfers of all levels. Along the eastern Aegean coast, Etesian winds push cold deep water to the surface. The upwelling starts 24 to 48 hours after the wind begins.