Ready to Race the Raid
The past couple of weeks have been spent preparing the XT (and to a lesser extent myself) for entry into the Rally Raid de Himalaya, a seven-day race (with bike and car classes) covering some 1300 miles of the world's worst surfaced roads and best trails; all of them incredibly scenic. A third of the distance consists of closed- road time trial, the rest time-limited 'transport' stages. Each stage has a target time for completion (with pretty much impossible average speeds for the 'competitive' stages) and any lateness over the day's stages is added together to give one's overall time. Geddit?
There is a 'maximum permitted lateness' (MPL) rule, by which one is allowed to accrue a certain amount of lateness per day before disqualification enters the picture. On some days - the first in particular - completion without overstepping the
MPL limit is pretty tough.
Last week I took a reccy of the first three days of the Raid,
riding across country from Shimla to Manali and then on to
Kaza in the Spiti Valley to check out some special stages,
before returning to Shimla. What did I learn? It is not going
to be easy to complete this event!
Hazards include all the regular Indian road madness on the
transport stages and although they close the roads for the
competition stages, the animals aren't let in on the
secret. Then there's the terrain itself. Competitors may
break down under the mental strain of trying to race with a
rock face on one side and a 1000ft-plus drop into a raging
river the other. Especially 12 hours into a day, after nearly a
week's racing and little sleep - the longer days I estimate
could be up to 16 hours of hard riding.
Just to make things easier, the course varies in altitude from
around 2000m to over 5000m (which it does six times, plus
another four passes at over 4500m). Racing up to these heights is
quite plainly stupid. If nothing else, expect dizziness, poor
decision-making, shortness of breath, dehydration and a
tangible loss of physical performance by oxygen-starved
muscles. In October it can also be cold enough to put
hypothermia on the menu.
Obviously all this is pretty hard on the bikes too, but after so
much rock-bashing together, I've a high level of confidence in
the Yamaha - it's proved to be one seriously tough customer.
There will be river-crossings, landslides, ice and probably
snow encountered. Freshly-fallen boulders will randomly plonk
themselves in the road. In the high-altitude deserts there is sand, in
other places mud, bare rock, shale and sometimes even
tarmac. The concentration levels, let alone wrestling a 185kg
bike off-road for 100kms at a time, will be exhausting for a
middle-aged smoker who is rather too fond of the booze.
Perhaps this wasn't the best choice for my first off-road
event...
The competition, with about 35 bikes in all, mainly consists
of small, lightly modified, Indian-market bikes - Yamaha and
Suzuki 150 two-strokes, the mighty Honda Karizma 225
(18bhp), Bajaj Pulsar etc. There are also, however, a few bigger
bikes entered, including A 650 Dominator, a 250 Dominator
and a 'motocross Enfield' or two. There are six Europeans entered,
including Adam Lewis, a racer of some experience, who is
riding a BMW F650 and is writing up his around the globe
adventures for Fast Bikes magazine.
I recently went out for a ride with a former three-times
outright Raid winner on his Suzuki 100 two-stroke. He blew
me into the weeds - OK he knew the road (a dirt track that
is part of the course), but also what he was doing. I should,
though, be faster than the wee bikes on tarmac stages,
especially uphill - though them there Karizmas do brake and
corner. Pirelli have just been kind enough to supply me
with a new set of tyres to replace the shot ones on which
I've been reconnoitring, so that should help get down some
more of what, most of the time, is too much power.
With just three days to go until the start (Sep 30th), this is the
last I'll be writing for a few days. I'll do my best to update whenever
I can on route, net availability and tiredness/bike repairs
permitting. I'm very excited, a jot nervous (not least about
getting up at 4.30 for 6am starts) and can't wait to get
started. Tomorrow I'm in for scrutineering. Things to be
carried on the bike include emergency rations and a sleeping
bag! For 'emergency rations' read 'ten Snickers bars, four energy
bars, a quarter kilo of Fruit and Nut chocolate, dextrose tabs,
cashew and glucose biscuits.
In the meantime go to: rally-de-himalaya.com for more information on the
event.
To link through to my page on the Himalayan Motorsport's (who have been incredibly helpful in getting we Brits through the formalities of entering such an event - ta) site, where you'll be able to get a daily update on my pathetic performance, click: http://www.raid-de-himalaya.com/2006/showcontestant.asp?id=182&category=XT
For more info on fellow competitors, check out: http://www.raid-de-himalaya.com/2006/viewcontestants.asp
Blessya
Damon
