"so much to do, so little done" cecil john rhodes r.i.p.

in the cottage, sitting here at the kitchen table, chobe in her basket in front of the wood burner with andrea bocelli playing in the background, just wonderful!

but i had to write something, as i've just found myself really moved.....it's a life and death thing....

i've just been reading about james cracknell's recent cycling accident that has left him with partial brain damage, fortunately not too serious at this stage and situation is improving....but he's an olympic oarsman, whos rowed the atlantic, skied to the south pole and had just run 76 miles through death valley as part of a race across america, only to be knocked down by a wing mirror on a passing lorry!!!! how the fuck does that happen??? now i'm reading the paper about soldiers dying in afghanistan and in the floods in pakistan, while in the background i am listening to classic fm and russell watson (the people's tenor!) being interviewed about overcoming his two brain tumours!!!! then my mind starts wandering about life and death..... i think back to two friends who died  of bowel cancer last year.....fuck, life really is so precious and death so easy...... sorry, morbid subject.....but it just fills you with even more resolve to get on with life and help as many people along the way......so....

now that my dakar plans are taking shape, i am now going to turn my attention back to the charities i want to support.

although i have been self funding everything for the dakar so far and although i am still very much an amatuer, i can see that i am now also a valuable sponsorship opportunity for businesses in or who trade internationally in europe, south america, north africa and the middle east ie where the rallies i'm competing in are held. events like the rallye du maroc and the dakar have huge television and now internet coverage in these regions (outside the uk - sadly i don't think the 7 mins coverage of the 24 hour event i sent round the other week counts....is wales in the uk??? just kidding ; )

my story is coming together too:
- physical training well underway; daily basis, weights, ergos, cycling, nutrition.
- motorbike training making big steps; riding ability, race experience, navigation, in heat, on sand/ dunes, and endurance, mechanical.
- support team; desert rose racing - full on logistical, mechanical and training support, race pedigree team, veterens of 4 x dakars, supported numerous dakar finishers (most recently tamsin jones), the list goes on.
- personal race cv; irish enduro championships; keilder & brecon rallies; welsh 24 hour marathon enduro; up coming rallye du maroc; 7 hare & hound events; plus numerous training sessions in the uk, spain, france, marocco and south africa.

as such i will be putting a sponsorship plan together and i am going to use my journey to dakar to raise as much profile and financial support as i can for my key charities:

- royal marsden
- shelter box
- nelson mandela children's fund

my plan is get sponsors to match every pound, dollar, euro, dirham and peso that i spend (have spent) on getting to the dakar and once i stop spending any further donations will be split 50/50 to try and recover some of my costs. so the guideline target is going to be £60,000, yep, that's what i've budgeted and so far i have spent around £15,000.

if you would like to donate, that would be awesome, but what i ask of you though is to spread the word and email my blog url to your friends and colleagues who might be interested in the dakar, desert racing, rallies, motorbikes, challenges, or 'my' charities (as i call them!). my logic, is that the more people who follow my blog, the more funds i can raise.

they can become followers of the blog or if i have their emails, i can email them directly as well as see the size of the mailing list. so far there are over 100 of you on my mailing list. if each of you managed to add 10 people, suddenly it jumps to around 1000 and if they add 10 each, 10,000 or more and so on (sorry for the maths lesson, i know most of you are far better number crunchers than me!!!) i know that there closet bikers out there and i just need to find them!!

there may be better ways to do this, but i have been introduced to 'virgin money giving' (thanks paul!) which enables people to donate directly to each charity, linked to a particular event e.g. my journey to dakar and it keeps tally of the progress, visualising it with a blue peteresqe 'thermometer : ) - what's the catch? well i don't think there is one, but here's the small print....

"....virgin money giving is a not for profit organisation and will claim gift aid on a charity's behalf where the donor is eligible for this......all charities pay a one off £100 fee to register with virgin money giving and a 2% administration charge on all donations (excluding the gift aid element) and event fee payments to enable virgin money giving to covers its costs. virgin money giving does not charge an administration fee for the collection of gift aid on behalf of the charities."
virgin money giving

anyway, probably need to get out more, been on my own here too long already!! heeeellllppp!! can anybody hear me???!!! oh chobe, it's ok, go back to your basket ; )

trying to get home and trying to get better!

.....i made it back home by monday night, 36 hours later than planned!

and with a stomach that was turning over 10 to a dozen and i was working hard to keep things inside if you know what i mean, this was an uncomfortable journey....

after 4 hours sleep i was up at 0345 on sunday morning to catch our early morning flight to casablanca. at 0530 we were told that our 0515 flight was not going to arrive until 0630 and at 0630 we were told that the flight had been canceled!

royal air maroc kindly put us up in 'the best hotel' in ouarzazate, but i had still missed my connecting flight back to london and there was no other until the following day.

patsy, chris, vince and hugh had decided to risk a taxi all the way to casablanca to reach their connecting flight to barcelona so as  not to miss 'patsy's pyrenees party'!!

immodium was not working, water made me feel sick and anything i ate went straight through me, so coke (cola that is!) was the only item on the menu....and when i wasn't on the loo i was in bed.

at 1200 we were told that the flight would be at 1530 and at 1630 we actually took off with myslef kevin, perry, andrew onboard; sean had bought a ticket to paris, he'd given up on connecting flights!

arriving in casablanca 25 mins later we hit rush hour, two planes from saudi had just landed, so it was absolute chaos, fights and arguments over the lack of trolleys to carry their string wrapped bags of.....clothes, fruit....somehow andrew and i found our bags amongst mountains of luggage that were already piling up. kevin and perry meanwhile were struggling with moroccan officials as their bags were on the way to barcelona, even though neither of them were able to get on the connecting flight??? it was the other way round at the beginning of the week!

next we had to find the royal air maroc office to collect a receipt to the hotel they were putting us up in. although i had mine stamped in good time, by the time andrew got through, the official had taken off and it was an hour before the next person turned up!!

finally arriving at the hotel at about 1930,  our rooms were on a first come first serve basis and currently the stack of receipts was a foot high; they at least put on some food for us.....probably been wheeled out for the 5th time that day, but it was something.....i chose plain pasta and plain rice, exciting!

2030 i was in my dirty stinking room, but at least i could empty my bowls with a shower on hand if things became messy..... fox movies carried me through until the early hours, although killing mosquitos passed some of the time; i had the window fully open as the room stank.

0945 the next day i was standing outside the bus waiting to get back to the airport and so the day continued, queue, wait, queue, wait, queue.....but at 1245 our plane took off and i only had 2hrs 45mins to go, thank the lord....

so, its wednesday night, i haven't been into work as i haven't been too far from the loo, although the heavy duty immodium tablets i picked up yesterday, together with the dioralyte and rennies have slowed things down considerably. i dropped off my 'samples' to the chelsea and westminster today, the doc wanted to make sure that the 'dysentery' i was suffering from was not going to reappear.....i was pretty keen too!

on a very positive note though, my cousin ben and nanu, who are living in frisco have just had their second child, a wee girl called neve, massive congratulations and love!!

and finally, i have uploaded a new blog which captured the haute route conquest back in spring 2007, see the 'blog link' opposite - photos will follow!

morocco day 5, 6, 7 - navigation

wednesday day 5
getting to grips with the desert was one thing, navigation with a roadbook was another. the previous day's nav had worked out pretty well, but was on the whole a little simpler when zippy knew the route but on wednesday we headed into unknown territory and this brought up some interesting challenges. firstly the roadbook was a few years old so the cap bearings were out, some roads or should i say tracks had been diverted, new buildings had been constructed and other features had been removed.

the day was hot, very hot, especially during the time we spend debating over which route we should be taking! having taken a wrong route we completed a 28km dog-leg to bring us back to a grid point on the roadbook that we could start again from. this was real desert, nothing for miles around, but then in saying that, we past small villages, or lone homesteads and nomads in the most inhospitable places. you could not stop anywhere for long before somebody turned up trying to sell you something or asking for money!

turn right at the wadi

we stopped under a tree next to a small escarpment for a little lunch and water, but the heat was intense so we kept it brief, only to stop again a short while later in a small village to buy a coke; you can buy coke almost anywhere in the world, it is bizarre!

what a beautiful smile!

where we had hoped to complete the entire 250km rallye du maroc road book route in one day, we only completed the first half of the figure of eight route as we reached merzouga. as a bit of fun, zippy took us over the dunes, always a fun and spectacular way to end the day! then of course it was a shower and chill in the pool with a beer or fanta......well, then it was air filter change, fuel, oil, rad check and roadbook prep for an early start.

zippy scratching his helmet...again!

thursday day 6
patsy and zippy were confident enough to allow ben, nick and i to head out on our own to complete the second half of the previous day's route that we had been unable to complete. we were up and ready to head off by about 0700hrs, but ben had problems with his ignition and the thought of having to kicks start his 450 encouraged him to fix it, at least attempt to.....sadly it came to nothing and at 0800hrs we decided to go.

sunrise

i set the gps to a known grid point on the roadbook that was close to the hotel, but orientating the roadbook to the direction of travel caused a little debate.....its in the detail! in the gps setting you can choose the units to use for grid references and where i had the wrong units in place it positioned the direction of travel to the north when in fact we needed to head east!! anyway, we agreed to head east and over the dunes on our own for the first time and setting the gps on a cap bearing we cruised over without ever really having to stop, such a great feeling!

brief stop at the well

however, the day was challenging. nick was suffering from the stomach bug, which half the group were including myself, but at this stage it seemed to be affecting him worse and therefore we had to keep the speed down. paradoxically, the thing about a rally is that it is all about 'moving foward' and at pace, not only does this mean you get to the end more quickly but it is in fact easier to handle the bike, you effectively skip over the surface rather than hit each bump or sink into the soft sand.....this was not to be the case.

needless to say we made it back to the hotel to shower and cool off before ben and i headed off into the dunes with patsy, zippy and mat! we were taken swiftly into the big dunes, while patsy led the way, zippy and mat hurled their bikes around like loons, impressive really! before we left pats had her very serious face on, so we were expecting a challenge......

poor ben suffered though as he was riding a 450 with about 30 odd litres of fuel, plus when he stalled or fell, he had to kick-start the bike. having headed back to help a couple of times, we eventually learned to make sure the bike was in neutral before kick-starting!!

the wind picked up and sand flew across the tops of the dunes and whipped at our clothes and faces, sand permeated everything and certainly made riding more uncomfortable!! we were only up there for an hour or so, but we hardly stopped, climbing what seemed impossibly steep dunes and attempting to rest the bikes on the crest; if you miss it by a foot, you have to go back down and start over. sweating like crazy we returned to the hotel as it started to rain, sand-storm looming and sun we made it back in time.

friday day 7
having been awake for most of the night with stomach cramps etc i was up at about 0500hrs as we were due to depart for the big day at 0700hrs sharp. all my kit packed and loaded onto the truck i forgo breakfast, i could not stomach anything, not even water which i was bringing up before climbing aboard my bike in readiness and steadiness!! i had written down the route and broken it down into 5 stages for my own benefit as i knew it was going to be a struggle:

stage 1 - road from merzouga to erfoud 60km
stage 2 - cheese track to goulmima 100km
stage 3 - off-road to tinghir 100km
stage 4 - road to dades 50km
stage 5 - offroad to ouarzazate 185km

total 495km
12 hours

as we left merzouga it started to rain, the only day i decided not to wear my jacket, in my attempt to stay cool as i was feeling so crap. fueling up in erfoud, we hit the cheese track, named after a bizarre contemporary architectural creation in the middle of the desert in which we were traveling, a triangular building, shaped like a block of cheese??? useful landmark though! zippy setting the pace, we were averaging 80-90kph along the tracks. really enjoying the speed, the sun came out and we began to dry off, just in time for a torrential downpour 30 mins later! and so the routine continued, fuel up in town and onto the next stage.

things became really interesting later on though as we climbed into the atlas and the heavens opened yet again.......the trickling streams very quickly became impassable torrents, with large rocks thundering their way down. zippy showed us how to cross, walking our bikes with the engines running, rather than riding and risking losing the bike under us. however, this is exactly what happened to a group who were about an hour behind us. we'd stopped for a brief moment and zippy's phone rang, kevin and perry had lost their bikes and nearly themselves to one of the flooded rivers. some of the routes took us down through the dried river beds, but these had become flooded very quickly in the rain, to quickly in their case. so zippy and chris headed back to the grid location provided and the rest of our group continued the on the final stage of our journey.

successfully navigating our way over a few more flooded rivers, we reached one that was not going to beaten, it was in full spate, a good 50 metres across and probably waist deep if not more and it was thundering. we searched a possible route further down, but decided to head back to a road we had crossed 20 minutes earlier, as we probably had only another hour of daylight and certainly were not going to risk losing ourselves or our bikes to the river.

 arriving in ouarzazate (pronounced 'wazazat') was a relief, we'd reached the end of our route, 12 hours after setting off, in tact, but needing the loo!! we found a garage to clean our bikes quickly before finding hotel salam, which has a great collection of desert racing cars parked up outside. straight the bathroom for an explosion of kit and stomach, before having a shower.....and then i imagined maybe eating something? apart from sipping a few mouthfuls of water from my camelback (most of which i spat out), the only think i had drunk all day was a small coffee in the late afternoon in one of the mountain villages we'd stopped at, plus an energy 'syrup' ben had on him earlier in the day; it was one of the few benefits of the wet weather we'd had that day!

after eating a small plate of pasta, the rest of the evening was spent running to the loo and loading the truck and trailer with bikes and kit (as zippy and ben were heading north first thing in the morning) and by about 0030hrs i was asleep!

......so all in all a great trip, huge learning, physical training, acclimatising, and being with a great team. bring on the rallye du maroc starting on october 17th!!

p.s. jago, hope you are recovering well and can make the rally!

morocco day 3 & 4 - the desert

headed out into the desert today, to our hotel and oasis for the next 3 days.

unfortunately 40km into the journey my rear tyre came off as i was travelling around a corner at about 45 mph, managing to hold to the bike upright as it fishtailed left to right i had to bring the bike around the corner to avoid the 3 foot high concrete wall on my right and a good 20 foot drop the other side....eventually the bike highsided and i flew across the road and slid to a stop. immediately up on my feet, i picked my bike up off the road and looked at the damage to my nice new bike!! BOLLOCKS!!

the convoy of bikes came to a brief stop, until patsy turned up and with the assistance of matt who was bringing up the rear in the support truck. zippy took the team on while patsy and matt replaced the rear wheel. soon enough we were on our way. they are such pros, i could only look on, slightly helpless and frustrated looking at my dented bike. fortunately zippy reminded me that these bikes are designed for this and that in the up coming rallies i going to bend and break my bike many times, it is part of the course of off-road biking....its a bit like scuffing a new pair of shoes, once it's done you don't care anymore.....

heading into the desert finally was awesome, but the heat was fierce, coming off the sahara as we are very close to the algerian border here. it must have been in the high 30s early 40s and with your helmet and protective gear it was a learning experience. it was only a 100km journey in total, 60km on metaled road and 40km off-road, but enough to get you into the swing of things and build up a healthy sweat before we arrived in our traditional moroccon hotel on the edge of an erg, a huge pile of sand, made up of countless dunes, almost pink against the blue skies.

we then headed out in the afternoon to circumnavigate the erg in small teams, so ben and i teamed up with matt, who lead us around the small dunes on the edge for 3 hours. awesome fun and great prep for our navigation day with zippy.

matt, me, ben














zippy took us through the roadbook over breakfast - scrolling list of information, sketches depicting wadis, danger zones, way points, destination, plus compass bearings, kilometers etc. you then have an ico that measures your distance and you can cross reference that against the distance marked on the roadbook. then we had a garmin 60 gps which has a compass as well as confirmation of where you are - but some events won't allow the use of this. then we headed out for a days riding and nav in the desert. we had a 180km circuit, 40km to the fuel stop and another 5km to the start. however, i had a little work to do on my bike.

en route, andrew and ben

last night zippy and pats advised while by street light and head torch i fitted a replacement clutch lever and new cable etc. in the morning zippy helped me clean the front left fork seals which i thought had gone, but in fact needed a feeler gauge to remove a few grains of sand which were allowing fork oil to seep out. i also had to bend the ico and roadbook back into place and re-fit the broken ico, using trusty black gaffer tape to do the job of four screws. all useful lessons.

we had an awesome days navigating, a few errors, but on the whole a better experience than i had anticipated. ben, andrew and i headed off, taking it in turns to navigate, approx 40kms each, getting used to the motorised roadbook, re-calibrating the ico at specific reference points. a brief stop in an oasis we ate our improvised rolls we made from breakfast, pouring fresh water from the well over our heads to call down, before zippy took me off to show me 'dakar' speed! that was fun, but ride at that pace for 12 hours a day, you have to be superhuman! my respect for the bikers who have ridden the dakar continues to grow.....this heat on its own is enough to sap all your energy.

lunch at a well, a real oasis














last leg over the dunes was fantastic, flowing up and down and around, it is like surfing, but on a bike, big smiles all round and then we were home, 6 hours after we left......straight to the pool, where after a couple of cold sprites and a cooling off i have been sitting by the poolside, chatting, listening to the pool dj and writing my blog. still bloody hot though : )

morocco day 1 & 2 - luggage? what luggage?

arrived in errachidia safely although a little bumpy at times, flying blind through the cloud! met up with andrew at gatwick check-in and mat hall on the plane, catching up on life since biking in spain back in february.

met my desert prepped bike today, steering damper, bar raised as a result, roadbook holder, ico, plus all control switches, foam grips, aluminium sump guard, carbon fibre cover on the exhaust, which has been replaced with an akropovic....nice!! so a few of us went for a little ride this avo, v simple, just to familiarise ourselves with the area, bike etc

exploring local villages

earlier zippy took us through the roadbook basics, simply sticking the roadbook pages together neatly in the correct order and rolling up ready to fit into the holder. later we'll lesrn how to read the info/ symbols...meanwhile just chilling by the pool.

ben having a trim

plane should be landing in an hour, with luggage I hope!!


roadbook preparation 

morocco here i come!

heading out to morocco this saturday to train in the desert with pats, zippy and a bunch of other adventure seekers!!

we're starting in errachidia and over 5 days we will be traveling south west to ouarzazate. learning to navigate a new kind of terrain as well as learning to navigate using a road book for the first time, who knows, i could end up losing myself in the desert for 2-3 weeks......




View Larger Map

flying out from gatwick with royal air maroc to casablanca and catching an internal flight to erichinidia, i should be spending my first night deep in the moroccan countryside. hopefully desert rose will be there already, having driven their support truck and trailer down, all the way from sussex. the rest of the party should be gathering for our first night of navigation training on sunday night and then we'll be heading off, early i would imagine, on monday morning.

jago has given me some idea of what to expect, whilst zippy has enjoyed reminding me about pushing bikes up sand dunes as great physical training.....perhaps i'm to push my bike the whole way?!

having finally sussed the kit i need for the uk climate, i had to order more gear today to deal with the desert conditions! new sand resistant goggles; apparently sand blows through the foam air filters in normal goggles; plus 3 different lenses to try out, light responsive, blue and orange/ yellow.  also going to try out the alpine star adventure/ enduro jacket, and a lightweight shirt/ jersey. with the rallye du maroc in october, i need to know which kit works best for me and this is my only opportunity.

 i'll let you know how i get on!!

24 hour dawn 2 dusk marathon!

last weekend i joined patsy, zippy and rob, the desert rose racing team, at walters arena back in the brecons. the last time i had been there i was in july last year, training with bmw, in fact it was where i had bumped into jago. i was very apprehensive about the race, as i had never ridden off-road at night and certainly not ever ridden off-road for 24 hours! all i can say is that this was the most gruelling race i have ever taken part in and certainly the longest the dawn 2 dusk.....

the smartest pits!

we set off in front a large crowd at 720pm on saturday night, each group of riders running to their bikes in succession, experts and vets first, clubman and sportsman. pats and zippy rode off together and rob and i road off together in clubman. the sun was setting, so after an hour or so darkness fell and on went the xenons. there were riders out there with so many lights  it was like being chased by ufos from close encounters!

clean, fresh and ready to race!

most of the riders were part of 2,3 and 4 person teams and only a few were taking on the full 24 hours on their own??? each lap took about 25 mins, so pacing myself was interesting. i rode into the pit areas after the first lap just to see where i would be going later on, and then i did not come back for about 2 hours. to put into context, an average hare and hounds event lasts 2.5-3 hours and i would be riding equivalent to 8 in one day! in reality, i had to stop for fuel, food, tea and rest. so found myself coming into the pits every 2.5 hours and resting for 15 mins before heading back out into the night.

zippy and pats running to their bikes!

the night was lonely at times, with company only provided by the team riders passing and the lights from the marshals. so it was always great to pull into the pits. clive and martin took it in turns to provide the mechanical and moral support. as the night wore on the temperature dropped and the wind picked up, but i was riding hard enough not to need to wear a jacket, but clive and martin would be wearing thick coats and hats to stay warm in the pits.

first lap and heading off into the unknown

it was a relief to see the dawn and then to stretch the legs as the six mile course extended into the 14 mile course at around 6am. there were some fantastic climbs requiring serious attention, momentum and paddling! but it was a long day, each lap taking around an hour, followed by a 15 min break until lunch when i stopped for a full hour, boy did i need it!

in addition to the electrolyte and carbo mix drink in my camelback, i bought a load of boil in the bag meals, muffins, bananas, nuts as fuel through the night, but it was clive's tea that brought me home, oh and i musn't forget his bolognese, that was champion!!

oddly, the final three laps were probably the smoothest i rode, perhaps it was my desire to conserve energy? but when i came in at 720pm on sunday night i was absolutely shot. i could only manage a hobble, i couldn't even open a bottle of water without great effort.

thumbs up (sort of, can barely move it!)

having completed 23 laps during the night i only managed 9 long laps during the day, but as a result i managed 4th place in clubman behind rob who came in second in with 33 laps. pats came in second place in vets and zippy came in 3rd place in expert with 46 laps!!! so desert rose came in with a few trophies!

zippy squeezed in one last lap before finally seeing the chequered flag in the hands of nick plumb (he organised this crazy event!)

desert rose dawn 2 dusk team: rob, patsy, clive, zippy, me, vince

although it had been wet and windy for most of the day making the challenging course even more tricky, the sun broke through in the late afteroon and a beautiful sunset ended what had been an emotional 24 hours. putting on dry clothes, a thick shirt, hoody, a woolly hat and faces still muddy, we headed to the big tent for burgers, beer and the trophies.

by 1030pm i was back in the bike trailer to finally rest after 40 hours.

.....this event is radio rental!