2009 Tuareg Rallye - Morocco

[canadaler]

Originally Posted by stteve

One of the dutch entries, Erwin Dobbelaar (XR400) was really impressed by "a wealthy Canadian guy that helped warming up a very cold navigator of a drowned Desert Warrior". Was that you, Canadaler??df

Ron Golden (#33) the only Canadian i could find the rides a Husaberg is on the 69th place (of 136).
Daniel Clark - # 68 has no bike listed, but still finished 114??

I just checked my wallet...no that's not me!

Actually there is some truth to the story. I'll detail it in the day by day trip report I'll post here. There were several Canadians on the rally, myself and Dan Clark were both Husaberg mounted and the only bike riders. There were at least 4 or 5 Canadians (the wealthy ones ) driving/navigating cars.

We were hit with freak weather on day 6 resulting in flash flooding. One of the Canadian/Rally UK cars tried to cross a raging river and didn't make it. The driver was (rather unwisely) trying to exit the car when the current caught it and rolled it over on top of him...twice. He suffered some significant injuries and a number of bike riders, including myself gave assistance. Bobby..the injured driver was...IMO...in danger of suffering from hypothermia in addition to his serious injuries. In order to try and get his body temperature up I took off most of my riding gear and lay next to his back as other riders covered us with their jackets. Thankfully it helped and Bobby stopped his violent shivering after about 15-20 minutes lying next to him. It took almost 2 hours from the time of the accident unil the medical FWD could make it to the site.

Bobby was one very, very, lucky guy that day. Pretty scary for all of us involved actually.

There were probably 20 riders who stopped and helped, all of their efforts contributed to a sucessful rescue of the injured driver.

Ron

[SafariBerg]

Hi Ron, keen to see some photos, hear the feedback on the event and find out how the 550 went etc

[Hayduke]

Originally Posted by canadaler

I just checked my wallet...no that's not me!

Actually there is some truth to the story. I'll detail it in the day by day trip report I'll post here. There were several Canadians on the rally, myself and Dan Clark were both Husaberg mounted and the only bike riders. There were at least 4 or 5 Canadians (the wealthy ones ) driving/navigating cars.

We were hit with freak weather on day 6 resulting in flash flooding. One of the Canadian/Rally UK cars tried to cross a raging river and didn't make it. The driver was (rather unwisely) trying to exit the car when the current caught it and rolled it over on top of him...twice. He suffered some significant injuries and a number of bike riders, including myself gave assistance. Bobby..the injured driver was...IMO...in danger of suffering from hypothermia in addition to his serious injuries. In order to try and get his body temperature up I took off most of my riding gear and lay next to his back as other riders covered us with their jackets. Thankfully it helped and Bobby stopped his violent shivering after about 15-20 minutes lying next to him. It took almost 2 hours from the time of the accident unil the medical FWD could make it to the site.

Bobby was one very, very, lucky guy that day. Pretty scary for all of us involved actually.

There were probably 20 riders who stopped and helped, all of their efforts contributed to a sucessful rescue of the injured driver.

Ron

Can't wait to hear about the rest of the adventure!

[PackMule]

Originally Posted by Hayduke

Can't wait to hear about the rest of the adventure!

No kidding!

[wrk2surf]

Originally Posted by canadaler

Thankfully it helped and Bobby stopped his violent shivering after about 15-20 minutes lying next to him. It took almost 2 hours from the time of the accident unil the medical FWD could make it to the site.

Bobby was one very, very, lucky guy that day. Pretty scary for all of us involved actually.

There were probably 20 riders who stopped and helped, all of their efforts contributed to a sucessful rescue of the injured driver.

Ron

Not one helicopter for that rally?

[wjohnb]

Congratulations Ron, Good on yah for the part you played in the rescue and resusitation, that really is the Ron we know. BRILLIANT!

All the Very best, John. (Baxter)

[canadaler]

The Berg's ran flawlessly. We went over them each night to check for any loose nuts and bolts, changed oil and filters then ran them the next day. The only other adjustment we did was to re-set Dan's intake valve clearances (in a mud hut in the rain) on the evening of Day 6.

Our "old school" approach to wheels worked well too. No flats the entire rally between both bikes using UHD tubes and what I think turned out to be good tire selection. I saw more people with mousse problems than we had with tubes...and believe me there's a reason they call it More-rock-o.

Correct, no helicopter attached to the rally itself. We were told at the accident site it would take longer for a chopper to come from Maracesh (sp?) than it would for the truck to reach us. Seemed like an eternity at the time.

I'm just in between flights in Philly right now. I'll start posting some pics and a ride report over the next couple of days. The riding in Spain before the event was incredible too

[canadaler]

We decided to get over to Spain a few days before the start of the event and flew separately to Almeria Spain arriving on the 18th of March.

No traffic or border hang ups, other than being guinea pigs for the US Customs to try out their new car x-ray machine when I crossed the border at Buffalo. Flights are uneventful, all are on time and smooth. Took a sleeping pill on the overnight flight from Philly to Madrid. Worked great I arrived with no ill effects or jet lag.

Dan arrives in Almeria 4 hours later, so I rent a little Peugeot van and go to check out P&M racing. Meet up with Moises (Moy-sess) in their little shop. The crate with the bikes is in the back of the shop. No room to spare here, very cramped. It’s a wonder Moises agreed to store the bikes and crate. I have no idea how they got it off the truck. There isn’t even a back door to this place, nor a driveway or a fork lift truck.



Not so easy to communicate since neither of us speaks the other’s language. Through use of my Berlitz dictionary, hand signals, drawings and charades we sort things out.

I drive into Almeria to check out the motel then back to airport to pick up Dan.

P&M is closed from 2-4:30 for siesta so we head back to Almeria and the Gran Hotel. Great city and view from our 5^th floor balcony.





Thursday, March 19
We have arranged to meet back at P&M at 10am this morning. Lianne from Casa Montes, our B&B stop, has arranged for two guys to pick up our bikes and transport them to Alboreas for our 2 night stay there. They will meet us at P&M at 1pm.




At P&M we make short work of opening up the crate, unloading and assembling the bikes. No issues and thankfully, no damage to the crate, bikes or parts during shipment.

Moises and Dan give the thumbs up to a job well done.




I need a spare chain and Moises has one in stock so I add it to the list of things we’ve bought from him for the rally. Time to settle up the bill…I nearly croak when I see the total. We bought 20 liters of MOTUL 300V, brake fluid, air cleaner oil and CO2 cartridges. We also paid for some shop space and labour which was only fair. The total is just over 600 Euro!!! Checking through the bill, it’s the oil that is the problem. The stuff is mucho dinaro, more than half of the bill's total. This is even after Moises has given us a 25% discount! He can tell we’re horrified but shows us that even “standard” oil is selling for about 20 Euro per liter and we’ve got the most expensive oil you can buy! In the end he knocks the total down even more and throws in a couple of cans of chain lube as a going away present. Everybody is happy….although we’re a little lighter in our wallets than we had hoped for.

I want to stress what great people Moises, his wife and the mechanic at P&M were. The "sticker shock" we had re: the oil was just the result of pampered Canadians facing the reality of the cost of living in the EU!

Our little rented diesel van stuffed with our gear. Wish we could get models like this back home.





Ian and Paul show up right on time at 1 with a big right hand drive Citroen van they’ve brought from the UK. We load up the bikes in the narrow street beside the shop, all the while some Spaniard sits right behind us in his white car with the stereo booming waiting for us to finish and get out of the way. Why he didn’t back up 20’ and go around the next tiny block I’ll never know.


It takes us about 1-1/2 hours to drive to Alboreas which is north-east of Almeria. The number of greenhouses we see on the way is simply astounding. Thousands and thousands of acres under white plastic, surrounded by arid land. As we approach Alboreas the area is full of orange and lemon groves, the trees flush with fruit.

We arrive at Casa Montes about 3pm to meet Derek and Berrel, a retired couple from Wales. Their son Stephen and his wife Lianne run the B&B, but sadly have had to return to Wales for Lianne’s grandmother’s funeral. We arrange with Ian to pick us up again Sunday morning at 10 and transport us back to the port in Almeria for the start of the rally.

Bikes parked at Casa Montes:



Time to go over the Berg’s and make some final additions. Our Clarke tanks still leak at the petcocks; very poor QC on them. We file down the brass inserts and add larger O-rings to stop…we hope the leaks. Testing with a small amount of gas looks successful, but we won’t know for sure until we fill up the 15 liter tanks fully.

Time to reinstall the tanks and to my horror I discover that the front bolts that secure the tank to the rad shroud mounts are still sitting on the bench in my basement at home. These are long 6mm bolts that I don’t have and I figure might be difficult to find in the Spanish countryside. Luckily I manage to scrounge one candidate out of my took kit, where it came from I can’t exactly remember…and Derek searches through his bits and pieces to find another. Problem solved.

Derek is with us the whole time exchanging stories of his trials days in Wales. Here at Casa Montes there are several trials bikes in various states of assembly, including Derek’s vintage 250 Villiers hard tail. We hear stories of all sorts including Mick Andrew’s visit here. What a place! We haven’t even started our adventure yet and the things we’ve seen and people we’ve met have been fantastic.

Out to dinner tonight with Derek. The area is a bit of a maze for us to navigate so thankfully he joins us for dinner at a local restaurant. They have a bee-hive shaped, wood fired brick oven for pizza, although we all try the pork dishes. Derek and Dan have the tenderloin while I decide to go for the ribs. These are ribs like no other I’ve seen. Not a rack, but a single rib which has attached it everything from the inside of the rib to the pork rind on the outside. Like having pork, bacon and pork rind all in one!

Derek (left) was a source of endess stories and information on Trials and just about everything else to do with vintage off road racing. What a pleasure to meet him.


Tomorrow we'll get a few finishing touches done on the bikes and head out into the local mountains for a shake down cruise. Derek says you can ride for days and never cross your path...sounds encouraging and we're itching to get out for a toot!

[Ooobah-Moto]

Best of luck.... GO ONTARIO GO!!!!!!!!!!


I'll let the GTA crew know about this thread.

[Hayduke]

[Ruffus]

[canadaler]

Friday March 21, 2009

This GPS mount is driving me crazy! This is the second plastic mount I’ve broke trying to bolt it to nav gear frame on my bike….! They seem like they're made out of Bakelite or something. I finally take a piece of aluminum and glue it to the plastic base to give it some support. Won’t be dry until tomorrow for final installation. I'll rig up something temporary for today.

We had more luck with Dan’s Garmin ZUMO last night as I managed…somehow because it wasn’t supposed to work…to load world maps onto his SD card. Who cares why it worked, but it did.

The morning was quite cool today, you could see your breath. Shortly after the sun came out that changed quite dramatically. The temperature shot up to about 26C but there was still a bit of a breeze. Today we’re going for a ride and trying out the bikes and our riding gear.

The local area around Casa Montes:


Farmers filling their irrigation rigs and heading to the lemon groves:





I put the old GPS mount back on the bike which still has one good bolt hole in it, then drilled another hole through it to attach it to the bike with a zip tie. It’s rather wobbly, but hopefully will stay on for the relatively short ride.

We finally get out about 1:30 for a ride, the hottest part of the day. I guess that "mad dogs and Englishmen" saying applies to us colonists as well. Just outside of the village there is a river bed which still has some water flowing in it. The terrain here is stony and arid. Along the river bed and through virtually every valley here there is a dirt road which snakes its way through the hills. Derek calls them "the ramblers"...but I didn't see any old AMC cars out there! How they navigate them I’m not sure, but it is not uncommon to come upon a dump truck (tip lorry as Derek would say) or even a cement truck. All through the hills people are building houses, miles from anywhere. What they do for power and water I don’t know, but obviously there are totally self-sufficient.

We head out down one of the riverbank trails and try to control ourselves. These Dunlop Rallye tires are hard as nails and break loose very easily. I don’t really care as they have the reputation as a very durable tire. Just steer with the throttle and kick the back end out around corners. It works and looks cool too.


We ride down stony paths and "roads", up into the hills. At one point we spot an abandoned house at the top of one and head for it.







My stock chain guard is a piece of crap. The original one broke on my first ride and the new one I put on was trashed after about 15 minutes of riding today. Broke at the bottom rear bolt position…again. My big Dunlop rear tire is also rubbing on the mud flap and between the two of them the thing makes a horrible racket when riding. Minor details.

My odometer and bargain GPS-V are working fine, however I don’t have any Spanish maps loaded on the old Garmin, so the screen is totally blank save for my track that is being left as I ride. Dan isn’t quite so lucky, his odometer isn’t working at all and he’s yet to figure out his GPS. Hopefully he will before we hit the dunes in Morocco!



We’re out for about 2 hours on our first shakedown cruise. The vents in the new "Hell N Back" pants and jackets we're wearing work extremely well. Even though it’s quite hot out we’re only feeling it when we stop.




Later that evening Derek invites me out to see some of his trials sections. The local hills have endless areas to set up sections. He takes his vintage Fantic 200 twin-shock and I follow on the Berg. While we stop at each section he rides it then offers for me to ride it on the Fantic…how can I refuse? In all we do about half a dozen sections. I feel pretty good on the little Fantic and have a couple of good rides but also a couple of good tumbles on it. I haven't been on a trials bike for several years. The whole experience really made me want to give vintage trials a go.



We went into Albox to make a run to the grocery store. Some crazy drivers here in Spain...when we come out of the Super Mercado I open up the van and we put out groceries in the side door. When I walk around the back to get to the driver's side, I step out and right in front of a speeding car who is passing another on the downtown street. He blasts his horn at me and I pin myself up against the back of our van as he blows by with a few inches to spare between us. Holy shit! I thought riding was going to be the dangerous part of this trip

We went back to dinner again in Arboleas at the same place as last night. Dinner in Spain doesn't generally start until at least 8pm...we know as we sit for 45 minutes while the cook, bartender and waitresses watch TV and chain smoke at the table next to us.

Another quick ride for us tomorrow. Derek has some special areas he wants us to see.

[canadaler]

Finally got my GPS mount sorted out today. As an additional bonus I figured out how to load sections of world map into my little V’s so now I can see major roads and streams just like Dan on his 200% higher priced ZUMO

Chain guard off and mud flap moved to the front of the fender solves my noise problems. We also change out the fork springs to heavier ones, a long overdue modification but they work great.

Dan sorts out his odo problems, it was simply a loose connection between the magnetic pick up and the Watchdog computer; an easy fix. We later find out though that his unit is calibrated in miles, so that gets changed as well. We still haven’t figured out how to calibrate the stock KTM odo…it doesn’t appear that you can.

We head out to the trails again, it's cooler today and we ge in a couple of hours of riding through the hills. At one point along the way there is a natural cave made by water erosion linking two valleys





We get back to the house, wash up the bikes and decide to hit the sack early. We’re being picked up tomorrow morning at 10 which should leave us plenty of time to pack up our gear and head to the port for tech inspection and sign in which is supposed to open at noon.

We say goodbye to our hosts at Casa Montes, it's been a great stay and was a smart move to be there a couple of days before the event.

Derek, Beryl and their dog Monty:



Sunday March 28:
After a bit of confusion as to how to enter the port itself, we arrive at about 12:30...looks like we're the late comers. There are tons of bikes and vehicles already there. The sign up line is long and we hit the deck not knowing where to start first.





First order of business is to get all our stuff out of the van, into rallye boxes and onto the ORGA support truck. We could have hired a support team to look after us but have decided to work "out of the box" instead.

We set up our pit and chuck everthing we have on to benches and the ground.


First load of tires and wheels going off to the support truck:



In the sign up line Dan and I are sorting out what we have to pay for our fuel cards and box rentals. We haven't had a chance to get to a bank machine this morning and we'll be short...great start boys!

Right behind us in line a guy says "those sound like familiar accents" and we meet up with Roland who is a Canadian pilot working out of Germany. Turns out he grew up about 10 minutes from where I now live in Cambridge. Small world and all that...

Roland has ridden the Tuareg a few times now and is being supported by Team Kaiser out of Germany. He even spots us a few Euro to get through sign up

Looking around at the support trucks and rallye bikes is quite intimidating. Here we are, two newbies from Canada on Husabergs (although we do find two more entered including an 09 450) which are not set up too much different from stock.

Here's a sampling of some of the bikes in the pits:

According to the stickers on this Husky 510 it was punched out to 530cc.


There were a few Desert Gassers there. Very nicely prepared, sweet looking bikes. The guy in the photo hosts a motorcycle TV show in Holland. He and a small crew were there to record the event.



How would you like to pick this baby up in the dunes? A (I think) 750 Yamaha decked out for the desert.


Toast anyone? ...and I thought my bike needed a heat shield...



One of several 690's entered in the rallye.



BMW 450 from Holland:



At the start...but not entered in the event, was the BMW which won the recent "Africa Race." I think there is motorcycle under there somewhere...maybe it was really a KTM hiding underneath????



Lined up for tech inspection...it was pretty basic, mostly they wanted to see your emergency kit.


It's obvious everything we've brought is not going to fit in our rally boxes. Time to pare down our supplies. Dan chucks everything non-essential into a duffle bag and heads out of the port to check it at a local hotel. In the mean time I grab our GPS units and head over to get the rallye routes loaded into them.

When I show up at the table for downloads the guy looks at me with two Garmins in hand shakes his head and says "no." I figure that he doesn't like the fact that I'm bringing someone elses unit in addition to mine...but that's not the problem. He points to Dan's ZUMO and says in a thick German accent "zees one...no good." Uh-oh...He then goes on to tell me they cannot load the routes into the ZUMO. I get my $45 GPS-V loaded up no problem and the ORGA guy tells me that maybe someone over at the MEMO Tours support truck can help with the ZUMO.



Dan returns from the hotel and I break the news to him that his big-buck ZUMO is NFG. For some strange reason this doesn't make him too happy. He heads over to MEMO and a very helpful Dutch lady spends an hour on it but finally gets the route loaded for him.

With all our running around and confusion, Dan is the last guy to make it through tech inspection. In fact they are paging him in the port to get over to it.

The bikes have to all be loaded onto trucks and trailers before boarding the ferry. This means you don't have to pay for every single bike on the ferry, just the vehicle which carries or tows it.

All our gear is jammed in boxes, the bikes are loaded up and we finally get to slow down some now that it's around 8pm. It's been a hectic day. No lunch, no dinner...we scrounge some canned grub and fresh bread supplied by ORGA for an impromptu meal.

We meet up with David, another Canadian from Montreal. He's ridden the ISDE before but has switched to cars to make a run at the Dakar. He's here at the Tuareg to shake down his new Desert Warrior rally car, supported by Rally Raid UK and get some desert experience for the Dakar. There are two other Desert Warriors being driven by Canadian teams at the event.David is a great help throuhout he rally and suggests I get my road book made up and loaded in the Touratech before the ferry loads. Great idea...I make up the roll and David gives me a hand up to climb onto my bike which is loaded on the bumper of an old Land Rover.

I'm part way through loading the roll when the driver comes up and says..."we're loading the ferry now and I have to go." At this point I'm holding a few tiny screws between my teeth and fumbling with tape and a long roll of paper. I don't have any choice but to go along for the ride on his bumper like this while he drives into the line up for the ferry.

Oh Yeah...I'm prepared....


It's probably about 9:30 by the time we're all loaded on the ferry and ready to sail for Morocco. Both Dan and I are left with our heads spinning and working overtime as we hit our bunks and try to catch some sleep on the 7 hour sail to Nador.

[LukasM]

Awesome report, and congrats on finishing the rally! Being so close here in Spain I really need to get signed up for one of them....

[Hayduke]

This is awesome. Thanks!

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