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Pretty cool video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1kDIyTFo3s[/youtube]

It looks like I am the only one that this video got going

More seriously, I have been watching the Dakar rally since I was a little kid growing up, dreaming about the adventure those guys embark on. Obviously, what we see on TV is somewhat romanticized, but I cannot stop to wonder how much...

Like every January/February, I talk my wife's ear off with rally stories and living the adventure through others but not really myself. While I know that the Dakar is out of reach, I do believe that some smaller rallyes are within reach. Now, like a lot of people I have been pretty good about making excuses for not going after a dream and choosing the statu quo of life. Bad timing, money, not the right bike, etc.... But this February things were different, when I got a new bike, a year and a half ago, I went after something that could be rally capable and I had already started to set it up toward rally. This was also the moment I came across the https://www.norra.com/cortez_rally.php being organized in Mexico that would have a lot of Dakar like features. I had read about Scott the organizer a few years ago as he was attempting to race the Dakar on a Harley! After having watched Lyndon's video, It did not take him very long to convince me that it was something I had to do!

So here I was I had entered a rally, I had 0 navigation experience and the closest to dune riding I had done was to ride down the Cimmaron sandy river bed from Garden City to Ingalls... I only had a little bit over a couple of months to get that figured out.

As luck would have it I had some meetings at the end of February in Phoenix so I decided that I would use those as an opportunity to do some desert riding on the side.

Fast forward to the end of February, Scott hooked me up with some Roadbook training route in the Death Valley area and I found the perfect partner in crime to join me in a cross country adventure with minimum notice. Thanks Robert!



After a long and somewhat eventful trip, Robert and I make it to the Dumont Dune area on the East side of California.





First day, it is mainly to get our feet wet with navigation and experiment a little bit with dune riding!







On day 2, we attempt to follow the roadbook through the dunes and go onto a longer route in the afternoon to enjoy some of the vast open desert riding!
















http://gagnaou.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/ ... &k=XbPB4F3

Awesome Luc! Do you have more info or pics from the Rally?

Savage wrote:Awesome Luc! Do you have more info or pics from the Rally?

Working on it

Like I said before I gave a lot of phone calls to some people I knew were competing and sure enough soon I had figured out a way to get down to the rally and how the support team was going to work thanks to Scott from Freedon rally team.

You get to meet some pretty good people at those events. I did not know any of those guys prior to the event, but logistics brought us together and I had a lot of fun with those guys, prior, during and post event.



We got to do a couple of days of riding prior to the event just across the border, here is Jason showing how to handle the dunes on the BMW






Right before scrutineering Bill working on his bike



CR with the mighty KTM rally!



Jason and the unstoppable BMW!



Then it was on to riders' meeting and navigational school

Dave explaining how to read a road book



Scott and Darren talking about the next day route and the different safety pieces of information.



I do not remember exactly what they talked about but I remember feeling much better after having listened to them, I thought that maybe I had a chance of finishing day 1

I did not sleep much that night, I was up way early going through everything in my head making sure I did not forget to do anything really obvious.

Start was delayed a little bit the first day so we go to chit chat and look at everybody's set up



Prior to start Jason and I! I was pretty stressed out by then but knew Jason was going to start ahead of me so that I could bank on his experience at least during the liaison.







After a couple of traffic light I caught up to Jason and a group of 4-5 of us is heading to the first special. This gives me the chance to re-familiarize myself with the roadbook, making sure the ICO is working properly etc. Then we are on to the beginning of the first special.

The first part of the first special is pretty straight forward. If I remember right, it is double track type roads that gets pretty whooped out in places. I caught up to Jason before we start running parallel to the fence for a while. As I ride beside the fence, Dan caught me up like I was standing still and pretty soon disappear ahead of me. As I am going by irrigation pivots and ponder the economics of irrigating sand fields, I go by 2 or 3 guys by the fence. I am not sure if they were working on the irrigation pivot and taking a break, or if they were up to something else.

Later as we got near the gravel pit, navigation gets a little confusing to me and as I slow down to figure it out Jason caught up to me and leads the way. Pretty soon we start the Hors Piste section and I take a couple spills over the bar in those dunettes. Hey are not necessarily that hard to cross but they typically have sharp drop off and I managed several times to bury the front wheel as I slow down way too much. On the plus side the landing is soft and I did not have any bad surprises on that part. By then Jason is long gone and I navigate as well as I can, I love those WPM that Scott created they let me know that I am on the right track and let me reset my odo. I surprised myself as all a sudden there are 2 riders behind me that I did not know were there. Time to fix that and screw up the navigation to let them go by

Not sure how I managed to do that, but here is what happened. Roadbook sent us to fence to a WPM then follow fence before taking another heading after the next way point. Somehow my roadbook vibrated and I got confused as I follow the fence I see note that says I should be following heading 240 from memory but that is not the heading I am on... Now I am seeing that I am heading toward a WPM but I am not going to let common sense get in the way so I decide to turn around to go to last known correct WPM, managed to get buried as the sand is pretty soft, get to previous WPM and realize my mistake... So back around I go and manage to make it to the end of the stage without too much drama.

On the liaison Scott Spears from the Freedom rally racing team caught up with me at a gas station and gives me some water. Thanks Scott it was very much appreciated. I almost the last one to start the second part of the stage going through some dunes, this is going to be fun!

Stage 2 of day 1 was a few sandy fast track to start with if I remember right, a section of dunes and then some Hors Piste before getting back on some fast gravel road toward the bivouac.

I do not remember very much of the first part except that I did not really like how much the back end of the bike was moving right and left, but eventually we got in the dunes and somehow they were easier than the first part of the day. Luckily for me I caught up to Jason and Phil and they took some pretty cool shots and video of the dune that had a WPM right on top of it.



https://www.facebook.com/jason.adams.16 ... 248675111/

There was another HP section wiht a lot of brush and grass in the sand, it was kind of fun, each one of us taking turn to lead until Phil took off and left us behind.

Soon after he was stopped to help Dave who ran out of fuel, at first he thought he needed a water bottle but they had everything he needed. Soon after Bill was stoped on the side of the road with some fuel issues as well and no water. I gave him some water and took off as he able to get his bike restarted. It did not take him long to catch up with me and leave me in his dust. As I got to the finish line I was delighted to have made it to the end of the day without too many drama. Bike ran flawlessly and I never felt like I was lost without knowing how to get back on track so that was a positive!




Plus I was in plenty early that I had time to change my oil and air filter with plenty of time to spare

Day 2 was going to be a loop around the bivouac with only one gas stop in the middle. The intimidating part was that the second part of the special was going to be about 60 miles in the dunes with at one point one cap heading for 22 miles.


I believe this is the start of stage 2



Like the day before ended, we started with some fast sandy roads






At one point the road was following a rail road tracks and it was a lot of fun, fast flowing with a few jumps. I had to be super careful as for some reasons I could not read the turns very well. We eventually made it to the refuelling





Soon after the refueling I realized that somehow my GPS was not loaded with the WPM, which means that I will have to do the last part of the special without a perfect confirmation of where I am at in the roadbook. Luckyly for me I was not leading so by picking up the heading change of the guys ahead of me, I was able to deduct where I was on my roadbook and navigate pretty close to what I would gave done even if I had them.

I remember climbing some pretty steep dunes, unfortunately I do not have any pictures but the scenery was magnifiscent. Toward the end of the stage I hooked up with Mike as we went through the last HP section and made it back to the bivouac.

Once day 2 was over I felt a lot more relax as I knew that while there was still a lot of riding left, there should not be as much HP riding and most of the dunes were behind us.

The cool part about this rally is that I also got to meet guys that I had only seen on TV or read about on the internet. Here is Quinn Cody, super nice guy who did not mind giving a couple of advice to a complete stranger.



Day 3 was going to be the longest day a little bit over 320 miles. The first liaison was about 70 miles and gave me the time to admire the country as we got to the beginning of the first stage. They were harvesting onions that morning as the smell was pretty strong going down the road and you could see huge crowds in the fields picking up the plants.

As we got to the beginning of the stage it looked like it could be muddy on some of it. Bill got to work and engineered some kind of a rear fender to get some protection from the mud.



This special was going to be my favorite of the rally, because of everything it was made of. First, soon after the start the road on the side of the mountain had been partially washed out by the storm and we had to pick our way carrefully through a rock field. As the stage went on, there was several washed out crossing the roads, you had to pay close attention to not overlook them and crossing them too fast. Then we were on a dry lake bed for almost 20 miles, things started out pretty good and people let their engine do the talking. Eventually things got interesting as the dry lake turn into mud. At first you could only tell it was a little slippery and your tires were marking a little bit more. But then it got more and more muddy, deep mud robbing you of a lot of your power. At one time it was incredible, there were probably 3-4 of us entering in 4th or 5th gear this muck down shifting as quick as we could so that our engine would not die on us until our engines were up to the rev limiter but we were not even moving faster than a walk. At one point I thought my bike was going to stop moving forward, but as long as it did, I kept it wide open as I thought that if I were to stop there would have been no way to get going again.

Kevin had his Go Pro on and it gives you a pretty good sense of what was going on. The mud really start at 1:30 min and you can see me sneaking by Kevin on his left around the 2:10 min mark

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guxGeL2bZRo[/youtube]

Then were on to some pretty incredible landscape all of it Hors Piste and then ended up on a pretty fun fast road to the end of the first stage.

At the beginning of the second liaison I rejoined with Scott and the assistance vehicle, I grab a bite to eat and throw a couple of zip ties on y bash plate to hold it it place, with the weight of the mud the back end keeps coming off and drag on the ground. Then we are off for the second liaison of the day, I refill with gas just prior to the last special. The last special is kind of fun, it looks like part of it must have been on a SCORE course as some of the whoops are huge and I do not know how to take them but at a crawl Soon after the beginning of the special in a slow speed sandy banked corner to the left I managed to lose the front like I have done pretty regularly the last few months. I get up, pick up the bike but soon realize that my right hand is bugging me.I rode the last 60-70 miles of the special at a conservative pace as I cannot find a comfortable position. At the end of the special I stopped by the medics they pop my thumb back in place and tape it and I ride the last 30 miles to the finish line of the Cortez rally!

It is awesome, most of the competitors are there and have started to celebrate the end of those great 3 days of riding! The next day the Norra 1,000 take off and a few competitors keep on going for almost another week of riding!

In conclusion, great riding, mybike performed perfectly and now I have a lot of stories to tell! Must do again in the future!!!

Luc,

Great RR. Thanks for sharing.

I saw Bill on Sunday. He said he enjoyed meeting you and had a good time with you.

I showed Bill some of the new trails on my place in my mini truck. That truck bounces around pretty hard. I bet it is no surprise to you that he felt every bump.

Eddie

Nice! How many miles did you do in those 3 days? Just think how well you would have done if you would have ridden a KLR. 651cc's of raw, untapped power!

ajayhawkfan wrote:Luc,

Great RR. Thanks for sharing.

I saw Bill on Sunday. He said he enjoyed meeting you and had a good time with you.

I showed Bill some of the new trails on my place in my mini truck. That truck bounces around pretty hard. I bet it is no surprise to you that he felt every bump.

Eddie

Yep we had a good time with Bill, spent 10 days together and had a blast! I bet he thought your truck was pretty rough!!!

Savage wrote:Nice! How many miles did you do in those 3 days? Just think how well you would have done if you would have ridden a KLR. 651cc's of raw, untapped power!

I think it was about 680 miles total! That means you got the perfect bike to join me next year Quinton

Riding that fast for that long is way over my head. Nice writeup and pics Luc. Good work!

Actually Quinton I was surprised, the speeds were a lot lower (for me) than what i expected. Way slower than the speed at which you and I rode up north last summer...

Thanks for the write up and pictures. It made my slow day at work actually interesting!

Will be good memories for sure.
That mud video is hard to watch. I wanted you guys to get out of it before you blew up your engines.
How many bikes entered the race?

I believe there were only 15 bikes