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Rally training

ON THE LIMIT

You don't face this in the bowling club!

Why driving through the desert for a week close to the physical and mental limit?

In a desert rally - part of the FIM Rally World Cup - you don't just drive through a large sandpit! No! You have to prepare extremely well and adjust to the environment - the length of the rally, the temperatures and especially the massive dunes like in the Rub Al Khali - and learn to read them. There is only one teacher to learn this - riding, riding and again riding ! Make a lot of mistakes, learn from the same and avoid them later in the race! This is the only way to dare such an adventure. I had done this very intensively in the last 4 years and also made great progress, which some results can shown.

Thousands of desert kilometers (no kidding) with the bike and the car brought me to a level where I felt pretty safe with what I was doing. During our long journeys, which usually lasted more than 6.0 hours per training sesion, I never got into a really critical situation. Because of this approach and my security measures, my friends have even started calling me the " Professor " during those days.

But ... if you decide to go for extremes, you will surely also come across extremes and unexpected situations!

My world ! I love the desert!

Even during the rally you are always looking for shade everywhere

Desert - Part 1: ..... Water, Salts, Magnesium & Isostar are not good enough!

During a training session in July 2001 we experienced a special kind of adventure. After training several times at temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius and higher, we started a full-day stage of an old World Cup Rally stage from 1999. We planned to follow this stage , as we had GPS data from this rally available to us, even as a GPS track (... a line) on my GPS and we only had to follow the line in principal. It wasn't about navigating, but about driving, the dunes and endurance. In our group were Frank Maschong (Germany), Joe de Bryn (South African), Dick Danielson (Sweden) and myself. As always, we were perfectly prepared, took a lot of minerals and water, safety equipment and had telephone contact with friends - the standard preparation. The selected area was located southeast of the Rub Al Khali, the largest contiguous desert in the world - also known as the "Empty Quarter". The dunes there rise up to 300m in high. It was our third trip in the area and I would describe our knowledge of the area as particularly good.
Due to the heat, the sand was very soft and always full of surprises. In the end we had already driven for 9 hours, apart from a short stop in an oasis, where we ate something and added freash water. Suddenly the sand got softer and we got stuck more frequently. We kept digging the bikes out, of course helping each other and carrying on ..... we got stuck again .... !! Finally we reached a small oil field with some local workers, took a break and were ready to carry on. Due to a damage to Frank's bike, we decided that he would continue on the truck road ( gravel road to teh oil fields ) to the finish and Dick, Joe and I would continue the remaining 15 km and complete the entire stage.
This surely wasn't the best idea we learned soon - we got stuck more often, the sand got worse and we wished ourself back to the oil field ... we should have gone with Frank on the gravel road!
We got badly exhausted, it became more and more difficult to drive. Since I had helped Frank too much before, I also began to fade and became weaker. So Dick started helping me with my bike over and over again. He clearly showed that he was the strongest in the group and that he also guided us from now on. On the other hand, with my experience in the desert, I was able to show us the best and shortest route to the next road, which should be about 2 km away, I assumed. ... and that turned out to be correct and we made it! We were pretty happy having reached the road and finding Frank at the meeting point. In the next village in Liwa we first celebrated the brutal and successful training with some coke and a couple of omelets.

Without talking about it, we all knew that this also could have turned into a disaster too! But nobody would have admitted this right now! But it wasn't the end of the story! When we left the store, we had to drive another 30 km on tarmac to get back to our cars with trailers and suddenly Joe couldn't lift his leg up any longer ... no way to get on the bike! He got convulsions that worsened every few minutes. We decided that Frank & myself would go back to the cars, pick up cars and trailers and pickup the Dick & Joe at the snack bar to drive home from there.

Coming back after 30 minutes, Joe and Dick were gone ... where to? The shopkeeper said Joe had such brutal cramps in his legs, chest, nose - practically everywhere. Sio they decided to bring him to a close by oil camp, where English doctors are onsite 24/7.
The British doctors had already put Joe in an acclimatized room, cooled his body temperature and gave an infusion. Then he got something special to drink and the doctors decided to wait for half an hour. In the meantime, they took us aside and said the following:

2 hours longer and your friend would have been dead. When the cramps reach the heart (... this is a muscle too), the next moment he'll be gone! Basically, it's stupid to go on a trip like this in this heat. But if you need to do this for your sport, there are only 2 options.

Take a break more often and eat a " Wiener Schnitzel" with some noodles ( ... difficult in the desert - :( )
OR - take some very special minerals and the most important is electrolytes in your drink regularly while driving!

20l of water, all kinds of minerals, an ambrella, GPS, a mobile, etc. are not enough to last that long in the desert! If you don't properly control your body electrolyte status, 100 liters of water won't help!
Below you will find a sample product which the doctor recommended - in principle it is the same subscribed by the doctor, if you have faced diarrhea and it is very important to restore the mineral content in the body!

Believe me - it can save lives! It is important to test the stuff - some people don't like the taste, others get stomach cramps - we also know it from other drinks used during races, etc ... it should suit the type of person using and drinking it!

Summary: Joe recovered relatively quickly but continued to have some cramps the next days and we promised the doctor, this never to happen again!

REHIDRAT is available from many companies

That stuff can save your life !!

Desert - Part 2 - Rehidrat can save lives, but the desert is not a play ground & full of surprises!

Since the last training session ended very dramatically, there were only two options left:

Either cancel the rally and stop practacing during summer
Or carry on doing so, be better prepared and don't take too much risk.

Aborting was never an option and for this reason we had scheduled another training 4 weeks later.

Frank again came along, my friend Bernd, and myself, as I got edicted to that sport and didn't want to stop this.

We had chosen an easier route which I had driven with my car the year before
We chose a shorter route (half the real rally distance)
We have stocked up with Rehidrat like never coming home again
and we left very early this morning to be back on the road before lunch - and avoiding too big exposure to heat.

Temperatures could still reach 47 degrees Celsius at lunchtime, so we set off at 7:00 in the morning. It was a great drive, beautiful routes, breathtaking landscapes and for this reason we stopped several times, just to enjoy the landscape & the dunes! We were only left to do some 20 km for reaching the highway again as planned, when suddenly disaster striked! Wind came up, tonnes of sand in the air and the next moment we were in the middle of a sandstorm! So bad, that we could hardly see the area around us - no problem, I thought - I had the route as a GPS Track and we just had to follow the line to reach the road shortly!

Burkhard the desert fox & bike rescuer

Lothar - lifesaver from the German embassy

Desert - part 3 - what happened to end up in a disaster?

Many dunes in the desert move depending on wind strength, wind direction, landscape, etc. The route from 1999 which we were following was now leading middle through the dunes, and since we could not see our surroundings, we could not choose a better route and keep following the GPS route I had choosen. The first rider got stuck - digged himself out - and carried on! Then the next rider got stuck, digged homself out and ... this revolved till we were really badly exhausted!

At some point we were so exhausted that we couldn't clear the bikes any longer! Very bad in addition ==> as soon as the outside temperature is higher than your blood temperature, there is no more recovery - even not when just sitting and waiting! The body becomes weaker and weaker, and you only live of your physical reserves. Slowly we had to admit that this could become very critical and decided to go in "emergency modus " ... we took out our aluminum blankets, built them up over the bikes and lie down under them to get some shade. The idea was to wait for the sun going down in the late afternoon and carry on biking then. Th hope also was that the storm also will settle by then?

We were terribly wrong! Even in the shade, the sweat in our boots began to burn our skin (if you read this and don't believe, get in touch with Frank - his feet were the worst and he must still have pictures of the blisters caused by that :)

I have to admit that my physical resources were completely exhausted and pretending a strong man would have been the missolaced by now!

After a short discussion with my buddies, we agreed that outside help was required - except for Bernd, who kept saying: "Cold water would be good enough for me" !! But it was to become worse. Whoever we called for help we got replies from Australia, Sweden, Paris etc. It just was vacation time in UAE and all of our friends were out of the country ... except us !! Finally there was a positive reply.

The UAE Desert Challenge organizing team was in the desert and testing one of the stages for the 2001 rally. The problem now ... it would take them at least 4.0 hours to reach us. I didn't want to take this risk and decided to call my friend Lothar Frank from the German embassy in Abu Dhabi. Lothar immediately called the Abu Dhabi police and they sent out a helicopter to search for us! Waiting for the Chopper felt like taking days! When he finally approached I couldn't have walked on my own to the heli! Only Bernd again recalled his statement - I only need cold water and decided after some cold drinks to wait for the cars from the rally organization! I think this has been a very wrong decision, as doing so and some other incidents ( petrol, car problems, etc.) they moved through the desert for several more hours and only reached the road with Bernd at midnight - 9 hours after !!

Is there anything positive to report? YES !! The doctor who checked us out at the airport was surprised we had filly recovered only after being barely 10 minutes in an air-conditioned room? Questioned by him about our drinks we mentioned the - REHIDRAT - he only replied straight out: This saved your life!

Two days later we wanted to check if our bikes were still at the place where we left them. When drove there with professional help of my friend Burkhardt whos job in the UAE was to investigate the procurement of water in the desert - a real Desert Insider. Since we knew the coordinates of the motorcycles exactly and the weather was nice, we had no problem to find them. BUT - we were badly ashamed and it was depressing!

Due to the reason that we couldn't see anything around us during the sandstorm, we were constantly on the move through the worst dunes in the area. My GPS track we used fell victim to the dunes which have moved many meters since I had recorded them a year ago.

Yes, the desert is alive! We couldn't see that there was a huge SABQA ( flat area between the dunes ) only some 50 meters away from the place we had stranded with our bikes! Most probably even my wife could have ridden the bike on this SABQA !

That's how life goes! ... if you are not only used sitting in front of the TV and chewing chips!

I know - this all sounds pretty weired and stupid! You are right - IT IS !

I certainly don't want to gloss this over - BUT ... who and what isn't a little knocked or weird today?

35 degrees in the shade, waiting in line for 6-8 hours on the motorway and just to name a little part of beach the paradise - everything for a 2-week holiday in Spain or Italy?
To put life on hold for 2-3 years only to call some bricklayers, electricians or carpenters your best of friends? For owing a house?
Ending up paying mortgage for 20 years so your kids can sell everything and throw the money on bying a Rallye Bike?
Sitting in front of stamps night after night!
Whistle with 'Hansi', your 'canary bird' or talk to the rabbits in the barn?

Honestly! Who or what is actually normal or weird and strange?