Adventure Bike Rider Forum

Just downloaded the first stage to watch before l freeze mi goolies off washing the car!!

I love watching the Dakar (thumbs) . The speed and skill of the riders is superb. Anything looks easy until you try it. I've obviously never ridden the Dakar but I've ridden a few tough timecard enduros in Wales and when I've watched them back on video they look relatively straight-forward but the reality of doing them at the time is completely different.

Doing an amateur rally in Pro class is more than tough enough, believe me :laugh: :laugh:

A tough time card enduro is a walk in the park compared to Dakar ,

Mike54 wrote:Doing an amateur rally in Pro class is more than tough enough, believe me :laugh: :laugh:

I can imagine. I've done the Hafren rally a handful of times and that's easy, a bit like a flat-out trail ride more than anything else :laugh: . I know it's not a 'proper' rally in any shape or form but when you're pulling 80mph on a 450 KTM and someone still comes past you faster, it does make you think how good some riders are (thumbs) .

If anyone is interested, this is the report from when Redbikejohn and me did a hard Welsh Enduro...the Red Kite Enduro in 2009...mine is the second part of the report, (phil).

Red Kite Enduro 2009

So honda have been given a huge time penalty for refuelling in a prohibited area. They might as well just say there you go KTM youve won again!! Seems like a big fat fox to me

Not really, it appears that they deliberately and illegally refuelled all their riders and a no fuelling zone so they could run less fuel beforehand in the dunes i.e gain a specific advantage. You can bet your arse they will be protesting but it seems cut and dried.

I'm following Lyndon Poskitt on various places. Amazing journey, nevermind just the Dakar...
But good luck to him. (thumbs)

Scott_rider wrote:

Mike54 wrote:Doing an amateur rally in Pro class is more than tough enough, believe me :laugh: :laugh:

I can imagine. I've done the Hafren rally a handful of times and that's easy, a bit like a flat-out trail ride more than anything else :laugh: . I know it's not a 'proper' rally in any shape or form but when you're pulling 80mph on a 450 KTM and someone still comes past you faster, it does make you think how good some riders are (thumbs) .

So flat-out you can miss bends and disappear over the edge & down a very steep bank littered with tree stumps - eh????? :whistle:

robson wrote:
Anyway when I see sometimes so basic riding mistakes it's just hard to believe they have practiced enough before the race

Have you ever done an Enduro? Do you know how much physical effort goes into it?
Have you ever been so knackered that the most simple obvious decision just goes out the window?
Afterwards you wonder why you decided to go left instead of right, it was bloody obvious you were going to get stuck but at the time your befuddled brain thought it was the best way.

You can't sit in a nice air cooled room watching and replaying a video and say a basic riding mistake makes the rider a novice, you make mistakes too.

Steve