London to Dakar 1986

Where you've been and what you done
User avatar
Chris S
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:59 pm
Has thanked: 88 times
Been thanked: 208 times

London to Dakar 1986

Post by Chris S »

Image

With time to kill during all this hibernating, I recently revised and reissued my Desert Travels book about my Sahara journeys in the 1980s.

Image

And I finally got round to uploading the pictures and maps to go with the chapters.
This post covers my third Sahara trip: London to Dakar (chapters 16 – 20 in DT; for the long version, get the book).

After my batty Benele fortnight of 1984, I bought myself a sensible XT600Z, just like I always knew I would.
This was the slightly better 55W version of the original kick-only Tenere, distinguishable by sloping speedblocks on the tank (more here).
All I did was add thicker seat foam and fit some Metzeler ‘Sahara’ tyres – a rubbish choice for the actual Sahara, as I was to learn.
Using no rack was another mistake that nearly cost me the bike. Three trips in but my learning curve was still as steep and loose as a dune slip face.
In fact, there was so little to do to the Yamaha that I moved the oil cooler from down by the carbs up into the breeze over the bars.
And I painted it black because I still hadn’t shaken off my juvenile Mad Max phase.

Image

With my £5 ex-army panniers slung over the back, in December 1985 I set off for Marseille, bound for Dakar via Algeria, Niger and Mali.
As I mention in the book, I was going to try a new ‘go with the flow’ strategy’. Instead of being ground down and resentful by the setbacks of my previous adventures, I’d just take the reversals on the chin, bounce back, and move on.
On this trip that stoic philosophy was to get a thorough road test!

Zoomable Map Link to help locate the places.

A chilly desert morning somewhere south of Ghardaia.
Further south there isn’t enough humidity to produce overnight frost, even if it does freeze.

Image

I’m back at the first proper desert dunes north of El Golea (today: El Menia).
Another crappy, lashed-up baggage system.

Image

I return to Arak where I’d got detained on the Benele trip the previous year for being an idiot.

Image

Here I meet German Helmut, another lone biker riding an ex-police R90 BMW.
We are both planning to cross the Sahara so agree to meet up in Tam a couple of days down the road and do it together.
'Crossing the Sahara' back then meant riding off the end of the trans-Sahara Highway and following sandy tracks for 600km out of Algeria and into Niger.
As I found out in 1982, alone on the XT500 (when I got about halfway), there was no clear single track anymore, but a mass of winding, braiding trails many miles wide with occasional 2-metre high marker posts every few kilometres.

Image

A quick pose south of Arak. Full black leathers, HiTec Magnum desert boots, and my dainty British Airways nylon scarf.

Image

View of Sli Edrar: my aborted destination on the 1984 Benele trip.
Even now I was too nervous to ride the 10km across the deadly desert to the hills.
What would happen if I hit quicksand?!
It takes years to feel comfortable with being out there. Or it did me.

Image

I finally got to Sli Edrar 17 years later from the other side while laying out fuel caches for Desert Riders.

Image

And in 2008 we had a fantastic afternoon bombing around on Sli’s smooth granite domes on one of my Algerian bike tours.

Image

The worse thing about those rubbish 2-ply Metzeler Saharas, was that I bought a spare.
Back then there were no hard-wearing Heidenau K60s or Mitas E09s.

Image
Last edited by Chris S on Tue Feb 16, 2021 9:10 am, edited 8 times in total.
User avatar
Chris S
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:59 pm
Has thanked: 88 times
Been thanked: 208 times

Excursion to Assekrem

Post by Chris S »

In Tamanrasset I meet up with Helmut and we take an overnight excursion up to Assekrem in the Hoggar mountains.

Image

Helmut on the R90. The overnighter was a good chance to test our bikes.

Image

Sunset from the Hermitage at Assekrem. ‘There was no one there..’.

Image

A chilly camp, high up in the bleak Hoggar.

Image

On the less used western descent down from Assekrem, near the village of Terhenanet Helmut deftly flips his BMW. The rounded gravel in this particular oued is unlike anything I’ve found in the Sahara. I barely made it across myself.

Image

A day or two later, Helmut lightens his load after the lessons of the Assekrem excursion and we set off into the night to cross the Sahara to Niger.
We camped a short distance out of Tam in the hope of getting a good run for the remaining 350km to the border in a day.

Image
User avatar
Chris S
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:59 pm
Has thanked: 88 times
Been thanked: 208 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by Chris S »

The next morning we set off hoping to get to the border before dark.
Fat chance.
Soon we come across some Swiss riders in trouble: one flipped and cartwheeled his 80G/S and now it won’t turn over.

Image

Helmut knew his BM from his elbow and after an hour or two sorts it out: a barrel flooded with oil.
Look at the huge load on that other Tenere compared to mine.
Such shocking scenes were one of the reasons why I felt it was my duty to write Desert Biking a few years later.
Back then we all made it up as we went along and learned the hard way.
As Helmut and I were about to find out for ourselves

Image

As that day wore on, Helmut got progressively more and more tired from frequently falling off his heavy bike.
One final crash around dusk finished him and the BMW off for good.

Image

With his shoulder damaged and so unable to ride, I persuaded him to give his BMW a Viking burial with the loads of spare petrol he had left over.

Image

The remains of Helmut’s trans-Sahara ride next morning.
We abandoned most of his gear and he squeezed on the back of my XT for the last hour or so to the border.
It was galling for him; he came off quite a lot worse than I did on my first attempt at crossing the Sahara in 1982 on an XT500.

Image
User avatar
Chris S
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:59 pm
Has thanked: 88 times
Been thanked: 208 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by Chris S »

After leaving Helmut at In Guezzam, the Algerian border post, I set off across No Man’s Land for Assamaka: the Niger border.
It was New Year’s Day, 1986 and the Dakar Rally was leaving Paris.

Image

After checking into Niger at Assamaka – a portacabin and mud hut in the middle of nowhere, next day I got lost on the last 200-km stretch to Arlit where the road resumed.
And not only that but just before I got there, my canvas baggage caught fire (pressing on the pipe; usual story).
One pannier burns merrily in the stiff Saharan breeze.

Image

I wasn’t carrying that much stuff; now I had a bit less.
Notice the H4 light bulb.

Image

My first Saharan crossing had been quite eventful.
See the Google Map.


Image
daveuprite
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:47 pm
Location: Limousin France
Has thanked: 2452 times
Been thanked: 3293 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by daveuprite »

Fantastic. I did the exact same route as you in 1989, but as a backpacker, not on a bike. Algiers, Laghouat, In Salah, Arak Gorge, Tamanrasset (also went to the hermit's hut at Assakrem for the night!), then into Niger via the same border crossing at In Guezzam, then Arlit, Birnin Koni, Niamey, and then up the Niger River via Gao to Timbuktu.

Always good to see other people's pics of the same route. Almost impossible to travel that route now, sadly.
User avatar
Chris S
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:59 pm
Has thanked: 88 times
Been thanked: 208 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by Chris S »

That would have been quite an adventure on foot!
Was Thailand closed that year? ;-)

How did you cross from Tam to Arlit?
I ask as I remember when I got to the Niger-Mali border at Labezanga (south of Gao)
I saw a faded poster about two French backpackers who'd
gone missing south of Tam in summer '84 when I was also there.
I guess they're buried in the desert somewhere.
User avatar
Chris S
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:59 pm
Has thanked: 88 times
Been thanked: 208 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by Chris S »

A few days later I arrived at the banks of the Niger river. West Africa was a whole different vibe from the Sahara and North Africa.

Image

After struggling along the very sandy riverside track from Niamey (Niger) into Mali, I camped on some dunes above the river.
As the sun set, over the river I could hear drums beating in the villages.
Africa: just like in the movies!

Image

Next morning I reached Gao, located the ferry over the Niger (there’s a bridge now), and headed straight to Bamako as my Mali visa only lasted a week. But I got a puncture and encountered the Blue Man as described in the book. From here on I’d have many punctures from thorns I picked up while battling along the sandy bush track to Gao.

Image

The famous monoliths near Hombori, Mali.
This whole area is now rife with attacks, abductions and IEDs.
It’s become France’s Iraq or Afghanistan.

Image

The fabulous Grand Mosque of Djenne (not my picture, can you tell?).

Image

I’m now sick with the shits but need to rush on to Senegal before my visa expires.
In Bamako I gave up trying to get my bike on the train to Dakar, as most people did back then because the roads were so bad.
So I take the direct route to Kayes and the border.
After all, I’ve crossed the Sahara and am on a trail bike. How hard can it be?

Image

The track cross-crosses the Dakar railway which helped with orientation.
Just as well as I got lost again and again.
Unlike the desert, there are loads of bush tracks linking village to village.
Locals rarely travelled much further.

Image

Waiting for the non-existent ferry at Bafoulabe.
After a while it dawns on me there must be a bridge upriver.
How else would the train get across?
You can see my perspex numberplate has succumbed to the piste; a common problem before the tail tidy era.

Image

Rough tracks in west Mali heading towards Kayes.
Few people took this route and I don’t recall passing any other vehicles in two days.
From Kayes it was another 100km to the border which I had to reach that night.

Image

But there was time for a quick look at the Chutes de Gouma, west Mali.

Image

Passing through Kayes that evening, I learned that Dakar Rally founder Thierry Sabine, had been killed with several others in a helicopter crash near Timbuktu.
It was January 14, 1986.

Image

Somewhere after Ambidedi, I crash out myself under some baobab trees.
I was just too tired to carry on, visa or no visa.

Image

Next morning I limp towards the border now with two flat tyres.
But I accidentally slip out of Mali unnoticed, so no problems with the expired visa, after all that.
With no more patches, I get a train to Tambacounda where I run into Al Jesse of Jesse Luggage fame.
He gives me a spare tyre (my own got ruined from being running flat with the rim lock done up.

Image

My camera had packed up (another common problem back then) but I still had film, so Al took some pictures of the Dakar finale for me, including Gaston Rahier #101, signing Al’s BMW 80ST which he’d ridden down from the Arctic Circle in Norway, two-up.

Image

The G-Man in action.

Image

The Marlboro-Elf team. Imagine racing those tanks off-road for up to 1000km a day.

Image

That year Rothmans Porsche 959s took 1 and 2, and Neveu and Lalay did the same on Rothmans Honda NXR 780s (which became the XRV 650 Africa Twin two years later).
Go Rothmans!! If this didn’t encourage you to take up smoking, nothing would!

Image

Serge Bacou – cool centre stand (not my pic).
Note chappy with a kidney belt which seemed the fashion back then.
I wore them myself for years (see my burning pic above).
Suspension has got a lot better since. I think they’re only for racing, tbh.

Image

Yamaha factory racer Andrea Marinoni in Dakar.

Image

Al inspects Honda 125 #1.
I have failed to find out who this was and if it was an actual finisher or Thierry Sabine’s pit bike.
I have since learned this was the bike of Gerard Barbezant who was a DNF in '86 and again in '87 on a similar bike, but he finished 91st (out of 98) in 2003 on a KTM (when the 'Dakar' ran across North Africa from Marseille to the Red Sea)

There's a detailed pdf of the Dakar's history here:
http://netstorage.lequipe.fr/ASO/motorS ... ractif.pdf

Image

The Rally route was vaguely similar to mine, but twice as fast, half as long again and many, many times harder.

Image

From Dakar I shipped the XT to Spain and flew on after it.
What an adventure that was!

Image

Weeks later I got a postcard from Helmut.

Image

London to Dakar on an XT660Z Tenere.
Next?!

Image
Last edited by Chris S on Thu Feb 11, 2021 10:05 am, edited 5 times in total.
daveuprite
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:47 pm
Location: Limousin France
Has thanked: 2452 times
Been thanked: 3293 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by daveuprite »

Bloody great pics. Yeah I crossed into Mali at the same point as you, but carried on up the Niger river after Gao, on the East bank. Visited Timbuktu and then returned south down the river to Niamey and then to Kano in Nigeria. Then Lagos, Cameroon etc to Kinshasa, Zaire. Then up the Congo river by steamboat to Kissengani, then Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Flew back to the UK from Nairobi in late Spring 1990.

I met several bikers, usually on bikes very similar to yours - XTs and such like, and as a biker myself I was very envious - I wished I had done the trip by bike. But hitching lifts on trucks, in cars stuffed full of people, matatus, trains, boats etc is very varied and exciting and throws you into contact with all kinds of folk. I was held up at gunpoint in Zaire once, and accused of being a mercenary another time! Africa throws up everything you can possibly imagine.

The rider of this (below) was another crazy German guy. I took this pic on board the Kinshasa-Kisengani boat (which is a 2 week river trip of about 1000kms). Yes, that is a live crocodile strapped to a pole next to his bike...

Image

You don't still own your London-Dakar bike, do you? I'm not sure I could ever part with a bike that I'd had a proper adventure like that on.
daveuprite
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:47 pm
Location: Limousin France
Has thanked: 2452 times
Been thanked: 3293 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by daveuprite »

Chris S wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 4:25 pm
How did you cross from Tam to Arlit?
I was with a couple of truck drivers taking oil in barrels across into Niger. I paid them in Tamanrasset for the trip. But had to travel on top of the barrels themselves. I used a ratchet tie-down to stop myself from bouncing off. We camped in no-man's land and waited for the border to open in the morning. All off-piste back then, just following other users' tracks and the occasional marker. Had to use metal sand-tracks to get us out of thick sand a couple of times. I think they might have completed the all tarmac trans-Sahara N1 by now. Still too dangerous for Europeans to travel there though at the moment.

Had you written any of your guides by the time I travelled (1989)? I relied on Geoff Crowther's Lonely Planet book and the good old Michelin map.
User avatar
Chris S
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:59 pm
Has thanked: 88 times
Been thanked: 208 times

Re: London to Dakar 1986

Post by Chris S »

... crazy German guy
There's at least one on every Africa trip! Looks like an early XT500.

No, an LP and a Mich map would have been your lot back then.
Must have been quite an adventure. Shoved up nose to nose with other people can all get a bit tiring,
as I found in West Africa a few years later, but that is proper immersive travel.

The XT got nicked a couple of weeks after I got back.
A mate just spent Lockdown rebuilding his second XT600Z (pic below).
Cost him £7k but is like new.
That bike weighed < 150 kilos wet but could easily do 400 miles to a tank.
The last 660 Tenere was over 200kg.

You can still ride down to Tam (with an escort), but no tourist has crossed to Niger for years (the last runs ending in robberies).
The bitumen now reaches In Guezzam (they'd started that 400km stretch in 1982) but IGZ is now a huge refugee camp on a people-trafficking route (now that the Tenere crossing to Libya got shut down).
There is talk of sealing the final 200km from Assamaka to Arlit (where I got lost and caught fire) but it's just too risky for the road crews.
From Agadez to Timbuktu is close to the eye of the storm right now, with gunmen on Chinese 125s turning up and massacring villagers, I'm not sure why. Same story across your northern Congo route. Closed for years.
I just read the AK47 even features on the Mozambique flag!
But I like to think, as some places close others open up.
Attachments
IMG_2542.JPG
IMG_2542.JPG (86.4 KiB) Viewed 2337 times
Post Reply

Return to “RIDE REPORTS”