Spanking the Cow- The continuing saga of an R100GSPD at the Races

A moments hesitation...

Following along a track with the fence on my right. Come to a crossroad, cattle grid on my right, perpendicular to the road I'm about to cross. Look at raodbook, its a little bit unclear, looks like I might jump to the other side of the fence here at the cross road.

Start to head that way, (bearing right a little) when it becomes obvious the track I was supposed to continue on went straight ahead. Bear back left a bit and now I am center grid, and the front tire drops down into it Then the back tire did.

I step off bike and the camera guy who was filming me comes over to help, but one of the red shirts warns him off saying "no outside assistance!" so the red shirt and i (And by this time Francesco had turned around to help) lifted the damn bike out, lol it had sunk up to its axles.

/me shakes head, rolls eyes Very funny, actually.


This looks difficult: but a lot cheaper than Safari:

http://www.tuareg-rallye.com/

I am offering up my services....if you ever need a "Ted" to join you to drive or and wrench, I'm your guy?! If I can afford it. I know I will never be a real rally person, but I would love to help you be one.

good lord, I'll take you up on that, but I'll never be a real rally person either, probably no matter how many of them I do

We can try, though, and pretend

Yeah you are.... Rallying in my eyes is about being able to adapt and having the spirit to survive, not being factory sponsored, babied, and all that fluffy shit. You ride fast, break shit, fix shit, have fun, and make other people want to do it. I think that's what rallying is about. It's funny, when I think back on the 2 races I've done, my most cherished moments are with others. Usually transiting with JJ and Pete, or hauling ass back to service with those guys after tightening up the final drive and pouring stolen ATF fluid in it. !!! (Thanks Pete and Ryan!).

Man that is a story for the records as well, isnt it? haha- I love that living off the land thing, although its definitely much nicer not have to do that :lol

THats really very nice what you say- and OK, I'll buy it. There's always something cleverer than yourself, and one shouldnt get too tied up in results, unless you are trying to make a living of some kind off of it, rather than making a life of it.

something like that.

The irnoy right now, haha, is that I just went back and checked on the R65's previous results on '09 and '10, and honestly they dont look significantly different than mine. So I feel a lot better, although I wish I rode faster, regardless. The 12 hour penalty didnt help one bit, although I would have scored many places higher, even with the every-tipover-is-going-to-cost-you-two-hours-of-repair-time. If Paul thinks I should have been faster, well, there's not necessarily a precedent for that, anywhere. Major rationalizations, bwhatthehell

I feel like thanks to Paul and the gang I have a rough idea of what it takes... I think I can do it again, if I just have enough spares :lol and if I built the bike, I'm pretty sure I would be able to fix almost anything on it.


HEY are you doing Sandblast? :Ear

Yes sir!

Didn't the Rooney bike only complete the safari once? At least you brought it to the finish, running!:eek1. That in its self is an accomplishment. Where's the ass kissing smiley??? Oh, here it is..... And, I will.

Sandblast should be a walk in the park for you next time around and I bet you'll be a fair bit quicker too

So what are Paul's motivations for the Rally? I had assumed he is doing it for the sheer fun and of course drumming up business for his bikes/frames. Does he expect the bikes to be competitive with the new lighter, faster bikes?


Russ

I suspect he does wish they were competitive, although his stated goals were to do the best we could and have fun. Which I did, anyway
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it- meaning maybe he's not as disappointed as I believe him to be. I think that he thinks they could be, in the right hands.

I know at heart he's a very competitive guy. As far as drumming up business, he seems far less inclined to talk at length about the details. But he does like to race, and wants to be involved. Thats the big one right there. He tells me that Craig Bounds (DAkar guy, came in 14th overall at Safari) actually asked if he (paul) wanted to sell the bike there and then, and the awards dinner. Paul was reluctant, but offered to build one up for him, in any case.

It would be interesting to see if I can get any faster at Sandblast... it would be my 7th start of that one. I seriously doubt I'll see serious improvement. Since the first big jump its been pretty mild advances, if any.

Granted, if I'd had more than one gear last year, and if the previous two years hadnt been so thickly laden with foot deep concrete... maybe if all goes well this year... haha! what are the chances :



At least I've finally got some real competition

Many times Dakar entrant Simon Pavey (expat Aussie) was lined up to ride the bike last year but electrical? problems put a stop to that. It would have been interesting to see what the bike could do with a world class rider competing who knew about Aussie conditions, had the bike held together.

I think Paul is being unrealistic in his expectations. There have been top class European riders that have come to Australia over the years who have gone home with their tails well and truly between their legs. You came over here to ride an uncompetitive bike in conditions you had no prior experience with, brought the bike home alive and received a coveted award; Paul should be more than happy with that. That Craig Bounds wanted to buy the (slightly used) bike at the end of the rally shows that Pauls work has been `noted`.

Every rally has its `characters`, Ivan is one and I`m sure you were another, albeit in a different way. I bet, whenever you and the bike were around, people were looking at you.

Oorah!!!

yep.

I googled "australasian rally" and one of the images looked familiar, so I clicked it, and this is what I got...


http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=...01uUMLHGKi9ywHQw4HoCA&ved=0CFUQ9QEwCQ&dur=412


nice job Jason, what a great experience!

Would love to see Simon run a section with the BMW and then with a rally prepped KTM and see how the times compared.

Russ

AC `owned` the Safari for a few years and his reputation and showing in earlier Dakars` brought him to the attention of an Italian team who offered him a ride in the 2006 race to replace a rider who had been injured.

If anyone has a copy of the `Race To Dakar` DVD (Charlie Boormans` effort) there is a a very short interview with Andy while the circus is still in Europe.

Andy crashed not long after he refueled, in the same manner as Fabrizio Meoni died the year previously. All riders` wore neck braces as required equipment from the 2007 Dakar race onwards.

http://www.webbikeworld.com/ktm/fabrizio-meoni/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Caldecott

Wonder how neduro "got away" without wearing one?

:eek1 Damn Dan, that's a really nice thing to say.

Got to hand it to you, sometimes your english major comes out handily

I have uploaded the Prologue... I showed you the last day, well, if that was the best for last, here is the worst of the first :lol

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sqwa-8Kf0ko" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

More interesting stuff coming up shortly, i promise.

That was fun to watch! Thanks for posting, I didn't think you did bad at all, especially if that was your first time running it. How the hell did you not get lost more?!

Btw, what the hell kinda roll chart was that, I've never seen one that big and was it motorized or something? :huh

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/v9cOoCaj8QA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's a (hopefully) more interesting vid of what went on

THe ROadbook holder is a standard of the industry rally navigation roadbook thing. Yeah, its a motorized scroller, and I've got miles of scroll It advances and retreats via thumbswitch on the left hand side.


I was able to not get lost much by following the tracks of about 35 bikes, and if I was running behind, about 20 cars, also

Seriously, there often isnt any option, its pretty obvious, and when its ambiguous well, that part of the fun, lol

GREAT FOOTAGE......!

Love the part that you honk honk to get the "tourist"on the quad to move over !!!

oy, i just watched it again and see a spot in the middle where i blew the editing, lol... I was just sick of looking at it and wanted it out hte door but that will forever bug me unless I redo the bloody thing