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‘No Stress’ Ridge Riding


Sand-Yeti

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As many of you know, I have had a few exploits riding the UAE Deserts and last Friday I took off for one of my usual sessions. Heading towards winter, the hot weather has dropped off and we are now sitting comfortably in the low 30’s.

 

Parked under the ghaf tree, I laid out my 4m Tattoo that had been repaired over a year ago. PTW had kindly been taking care of it until I could collect it recently in his pleasant Lincoln home.

 

Sadly, the repair was incomplete and there were 3 torn cell separators. It didn’t really matter because the wind eased allowing my trusty 6.5 Blade to be the best engine choice. Sadly, it’s looking a bit miserable these days as it no longer has that crispy feel and the bright red colour has faded into a pale orange because of its frequent exposure to strong sunlight.

 

After fitting my GPS, adding cell phone in buggy seat pouch & donning armour, the Death Buggy (DB-I) was ready to inflict its BF’s on the desert briefly leaving its three distinctive track to show that a Sand-Yeti had passed that way.

 

A three km run across a sabkah brought me to the first string of dunes. The wind was directly from the North and not blustering into another arm breaking scenario, which is great for buggying in my playground. I usually endure West to North Westerlies, which are OK but Northerlies are best. The dunes were surprisingly harder than usual; most likely due to the very high humidity that we have been experiencing lately. This doesn’t apply to the leeward side of the dunes, which are always soft except when it rains which was over a year ago now. Anyhow, that’s not so important because I am usually just descending these.

 

The cooler weather, good wind and improved underfoot conditions just made it feel good to be alive when I started riding the dune ridges. My most satisfying buggying time is when I sit up high on a ridge and just run along it until it peters out and then I move to a new ridge and do it allover again. It’s strange that I never get bored with this. Maybe this feeling comes from my old mountaineering days when I could look down on the world below me.

 

There were no OBE’s or even nearly having a crash or anything spectacular other than being privileged to see two Arabian gazelles racing across the sands fearful that my kite might be injurious to them. The desert wildlife is fantastic and it makes me angry when I come across people who want to destroy it.

 

Despite my late afternoon start, I racked up 44 kms, making it back to my car well before the sun dropped through the desert floor.

 

A few pics that Brig shot last Friday following in her 800cc Razor.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/Duneriding.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/RidgeRidingd.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/RidgeRidingf.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/RidgeRidinga.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/RidgeRidingb.jpg

 

Descent on a soft leeward dune

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/leewardside.jpg

 

Heading back to the Ghaf tree before sunset.

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/Sabkhaturn.jpg

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HELLo Dave!

Your write makes me jealous...great memories...miss those dunes, the Ghaf, the camel herders...miss those Fridays (I have to work on Fridays nowadays)...miss the DesertGang.

Is that Angelo's 4,9m Blade in the background?

Heading towards Winter...hehe...this morning was -2 Celsius here.

Hope you all are well.

Please pass my kisses to our lovely rescue-lady (Brig)!

Cheers,

Bolts

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Fair play always love to nose from time to time on you you tube vids and occasional pics. That is one hell of a playground. Seen programmes of the 4by4's on the touristy shows over here but in a bug it must be truely breath taking. Maybe if I won the lottery I'd love to be able to go safari myself but am well content reading your occasional stories along with your occasional guests.

 

That buggy tour idea of red skies thou is worth a thought. Bet that would be a nice little side line. Otherwise keep us posted with your adventures it breaks up a boring winter full of northerlies :)

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You should seriously think about organizing tours for us. Nice little earner too. 7-8 hours is nothing,

 

In 2004 we organised the Desert Buggy Challenge (DBC) and invited the whole world including the UK. Nobody from the UK participated. It was great fun having buggiers from Germany & Australia. It was a lot of work to organise that event but there were 4 of us who shared responsibilities to organise it.

We accommodated everyone in the desert palace belonging to Sheikh Ahmed's brother.

 

Glenn (a Kiwi) & I would get up early in the morning, check on the weather (wind) forecast and plan a route into the desert on my laptop. I would download routes into the buggiers & support teams GPS’s. Usually, I loaded a morning & an afternoon route. We would do a 35 to 40 km run in the morning, have lunch organised by the Sheikh's employees, and then continue with the afternoon route.

The buggiers would get pretty spread out and it was common to feel quite alone and not be able to see another buggiers kite. The Sheikh had his people running around on quads to assist buggiers that got into difficulty. Brig (my Mrs) was the focal point for the support team driving her 4 X 4. The communication was all handled through her. If a buggier needed help, they would call Brig. She would determine who was closest to the distressed buggier (sometimes it was her) and provide help. There weren't too many problems. We had one German buggier get into difficulty and it was somewhat of an adventure to pull him out of desert when darkness fell. Another German had a nasty OBE, breaking his arm.

 

The press got involved with the event and we had to make it look like race and have a prize giving ceremony at the end of the 7 day event.

 

Sheikh did speak to me recently about organising another International desert buggying or even an island buggying event but at the moment it's just talk. I’m sure that overseas visitors would like to have a bash in the dunes rather than run around an island.

It's interesting that the Germans who came were the fastest buggiers on the sakhas but with no experience in the dunes, we would run rings around them. The winner of the DBC went to an Australian who was a brilliant kiter and learned very quickly how to move through the dunes.

We did some other weird stuff like driving through the night on the Sheikh’s magic carpet

 

We organised the event simply to have a great time with a bunch of international buggiers. I worked out the costs for the participants at $US100.- each. However, the Sheikh provided the food & accommodation for free, so I gave everybody their $US 100.- back. The buggiers flew into Dubai and I squeezed a lot of them into my house just before & after the event and the others I put in a cheap hotel. Their buggies were sent to Dubai separately. Angelo & I cleared them at the Dubai customs.

We got some sponsorship which was the loan of a large truck for transporting all the buggies, equipment and some of the buggiers to & from the Abu Dhabi palace. Many of the visitors wanted to do a couple of days of sightseeing in Dubai and I left them to their own resources to do that although I could give them advice of how to move about and what to see. I know that was the biggest cost they incurred with the exception of the airfare.

It certainly wasn’t an earner by any means & it cost me some money, which was unimportant because we had so much fun. I wouldn’t be looking to make any money out of any future buggying events either.

 

Pics from that time

 

 

Tradesman's Desert Palace Entrance

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/V41a.jpg

 

Palace by night

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/S32.jpg

 

Early morning route planning

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/D23.jpg

 

Grand to see the Abu Dhabi desert being utilized

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/AbuDhabi1.jpg

 

Sometimes the support team needed rescuing (not Brig , she was the rescuer)

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/E40.jpg

 

The Magic Carpet

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/D69.jpg

 

Prize Giving. Note that the Sheikh gave all the international visitors the UAE national dress that they had to wear at the prize giving.

This is Sheikh an accomplished desert buggier by the way presenting a certifcate to one of the German participants.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sand-Yeti/Buggying%20pics/D56.jpg

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sand yeti that sounds like an unbelieveable amount of fun. if fisly could have the world chanpionships there for a year it would be awesome. if you had a mix of island racing and dune racing that would lethal

 

dubai has just been added to my list of places to buggy.

 

 

 

if there was an event like what you have described organised, i'd seriouly have to look about getting out to it.

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