Tuareg Rally 2013 - Official Event Coverage - follow our ADV riders HERE!

still dealing with not being there....dumbass cousin's wedding....dude I haven't seen in 5 years....better be an open bar

Once again Jenny....thanks

Jen

I have an addiction to those Panasonic Lumix cameras - looks like one of the LX models? Which lenses are you using for your shooting with the Canon? I loved your "action" shots from yesterday. Superb! And you are right - a little Rammstein goes a long way ;-)

And they're off!

Mass start for all competitors on the first day of competition - a 100+ km loop through soft sand dunes...

The classes were grouped - Profi Cars first (at least that should sort of mark the off-piste route, although it will correspondingly chew it up for the bikes of course), then Moto Profi 20 minutes later, followed by the Amateur Moto and finally Amateur Cars...

The Profi bike line-up:



I'll be heading out onto the stage later to try and get some action shots... more from the start and my highlighted riders soon!

No...sleep...til...next...Saturday!

Jx

Great great great report Jenny !!!!

The different approaches in solving common problems is amazing... All these bikes, riders solving the same problems like where to carry tools, spares, emergencies etc... There are some ingenious solutions there.

Ned's bike is yummy
I am looking forward to see ktmmitch's progress in the rally , I am sure he is very well prepared. THE force is strong within him

With the roadbook upside down, do people switch the buttons on the roadbook switch to have a more ''normal '' feeling ? It would be weird to scroll upwards and then forwards (based on the scroll direction I mean :huh) It seems logical to go with a switched setup.

Godd luck to Timi, had seen her preparing for the rally and you could see that spark in her eyes
Keep them coming Jenny , appreciate everyones effort to keep us updated
Good luck to everybody !
Ride safe and Jenny please come back with a googlion of photos

Thank you Jenny, for the update..., we wait for more fresh news...

I think you just swap 2 leads behind the roadbook and you're good to go. But talk about an ass-backwards way of doing things...

Eagerly awaiting Jen's end of day report

Live tracking is up over here but I can only seem to get a list of support cars on the right, despite seeing pretty coloured bikes on the map :huh

edit: so apparently live tracking you only get if you pay extra, hence only a bunch of competitors showing up on the map. Out of our crew I can only make out Charlie in the support truck ...?

Go ADV crew

While we wait, another pic of the scrutineering queue from yesterday

BREAKING NEWS - from mid-stage refuel...

I have just had word that one of my featured riders - 20 year old Ollie Lloyd #332 has suffered some sort of incident/accident on the stage and may be out of the race... more info as soon as I have it.

Ollie on the start line this morning:


Jx

Νοοοο.... crap. Hope it's nothing serious, fingers crossed for the youngster

Charlie #75 is actually riding this year (on an XR650R) - Dave Peckham and Colin Pratt from RMS are providing mechanical assistance for team IYSK Wine...



Unfortunately only five of their seven riders made the start this morning, with Mike Krynock still too sick to ride, and Bart Combs electing to miss the stage today due to his still painful broken/plated collar bone.

On the plus side, it did mean that another ADV inmate LukasM could borrow some body protection gear to replace his own that he left behind in Austria by mistake...

Lukas still fitting his roadbook at 1.30am this morning!



Jx

Good news - Ollie is not hurt, but had a hell of a morning getting seriously stuck... (at the time we got the news, I imagine the WP control had thought he had retired because of his non-appearance at one of the check points?)

I have just heard he has just returned to the bivouac, and I will go and get the full story shortly - by the sound of it, he probably just wants to rest right at this moment!

More soon...

Jx

Curious to see the risult of the big desert bike during day2 and day3.
Riders would miss the Boyler pass.
Scuba and Silla pass in my opinion would be big challenge: a real nightmare!
Let see.
C.

Ned posted on FB about an hour ago:

"Fun stage, rode easy and had a good time. Now a swim and lunch and a nap. Rallying is hard!"

Ha! Yes, I just met up with ned in the hotel lobby (I have commandeered one of the niches as my little media hovel) and it was interesting to hear both he and Jean-Luc's so very different accounts of essentially exactly the same stage...

By all accounts, it was certainly tough on the riders of bigger bikes, even those with plenty of experience... it seems the Orga were not bluffing when they said the first day would be 'hell' - at least for some!

Plenty of stories coming in this afternoon - I will do my best to get the cream of them up here for you all as soon as possible!

In the meantime, a few photos from the start this morning:

#115 John Mitchinson was very pleased to finally find his missing 'lucky' goggles:


#133 Dirk Kessler prepping his GPS for the day's route:


#332 Ollie Lloyd in a pensive mood:


#86 Ed Taylor finally got his 300EXC running without boiling over:


#24 Polytimi and Snoopy:


#22 Guillaume Martens with a makeshift puck after a number of bikes domino'd in the soft sand, knocking his over too:


cont.

cont.

#97 Ned Suesse on the line:


[some of] Team Torque Racing doing their best impression of startled meercats!


And they're off!


If you're going to get away from the line late, best thing you can do is hoist a 100 metre minger for the crowds - I think this guy was still on his back wheel when he entered the dunes!


Jx

Thanks guys for keeping us up to date!!!
I guess they will get a hard rally this year. Keep up the good work!

Great work on the updates Jenny!

The Tuareg Rally Orga are also intending to provide a daily highlights video for your delectation, either directly from their website or via youtube - this is from Friday scrutineering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XisKJ8mETs

If someone wants to embed this, please do (and tell me how to do it too!)

Jx

et voila:

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2XisKJ8mETs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

(you need to click "share" under the video, go to the "embed" tab and copy that code, then paste onto here)

Any news of the day's results?


I'm getting nothing over on Tuareg Live dot com