Dakar Rally 24

A quick update whilst our bikes get refueled and washed at the Total garage in Zagora that has a garden and Wifi! (only place I can get my phone online!). Another good day today! (And possibly another stage win in our class!) and much shorter and easier than yesterdays ‘Sea of Dunes’…

Paul and Toby at the top of a dune (with cover over phone lens!)

Yesterday we had a crazy 4.30am rise for the day in the dunes. 320km with nearly 100km liason (ride to/from the start/finish) made for a long tough day. The course was 2 laps of mostly sandy tracks, small dunes and big dunes. Toby and I caught Paul in the dunes as we rode through, Toby’s navigation frame broke at the mounts so we had to use zip ties to make a quick repair (that will probably last the week), The big dunes weren’t too bad once we found a rythm but we all dropped or crashed at some points or just plowed into soft sand and got stuck up to the axles in seconds!

Quick Guide to Dune Riding:

There’s a skill in riding the dunes that we honed by gunning the bikes at an angle up the dunes so as not to approach the crest head on as the other side is unknown and can be a drop-off. It’s a balancing act as you need enough speed to make it to the top (in soft sand), if you fall even a few feet short and run out of speed and power you won’t make the top, it’s impossible to push up hill in sinking sand so you have to turn around accelerate downhill (to stop the front sinking in and going over the bars!) and have another run at it. It’s not easy and Toby came over one dune a bit quick and went over the bars the overside and landed badly on the shoulder he crashed on a month before. I stopped on the other side of the bowl at the top (never stop at the bottom of a dune bowl) and saw him in agony at the bottom. The NPO Rally helicopter was overhead filming the action and I was waving at them for help fearing that Toby had broken something when the bikes proximity alarms starting going off warning us that something was coming just as a car crested the dune and narrowly passed us. I helped Toby who recovered well (his shoulder popped out and then back in again!) and like a true trooper was able to carry on. Whilst signalling to the helicopter that we were OK, the proximity alarm bleeping, Toby’s iphone was ringing and the Iritrack tracking device started saying “Bonjour!” as someone was trying to contact us to see if we were OK (atleast we weren’t short of company in the middle of the desert!)

The rest of the lap was OK and we were OK within our time limit this time (unlike day 2) so we could do the 2nd lap. The second lap was harder as we were tired and the tracks a lot more churned up and soft from the cars and trucks, but the navigation was easier. One section that Toby and I really enjoyed was about 20km through a dried sandy river bed. The sand was firm (if you didn’t follow any tracks) and it was a twisty undulating (sometimes jumpy) course that you could do most of at full whack around 90 to 110kph in the sand creating your own tracks and lines. I was whooping in my helmet as we carved up the course and raced another quad through the turns! AWESOME! It was just like a computer racing game (but without power-ups and more consequences if you crash )

Today we had a more reasonable start and we were out for about 4.5hrs in a mixture of rocky and stony mountain passes with sheer drops (which tends to improve concentration on riding!) to gravel tracks with dry river bed crossings (which are more like trying to ride over boulder fields!). The day went well and apart from a few spills and low speed drops was thankfully not too eventful. We kept up a good pace and had minimal stops at checkpoints to refuel. (We also nticed a few other Enduro Cup guys having problems and turning back for fuel so are hopefull of a good result today!)

(Note on Enduro Cup – Toby and I are in the Enduro Cup Class which follows the same course and everything else as the Production or Super Production Classes that the professionals are in but simply has more fuel stops to allow you to use a normal Enduro bike (and tank size) with the extra navigation gear added. You don’t look as cool as thr riders on their ‘proper’ rally bikes (with the extra large tanks in the long fairings) and their bikes a bigger, faster and better, but our bikes are smaller and lighter but we loose time filling up 2 or 3 times more than them around the course.

We finished by 1pm so after a quick dip in the pool it’s time to get the bikes sorted, do our roadbooks and prepare for tomorrow – the final day! Tomorrow is all in the dunes :-{ 4 laps with minimal navigation (GPS directions unlocked?) so track me on the Iritrack website (see link in the post below) and see how we get on!

Cheers

Jago!