Dear Almoster,
Another sunny morning in the desert a Sweihan with a convoy led by
Giorgio. It was a drive “sur le pouce” (unexpected) and we were so privileged since we had a small convoy (only
ALJAMHI, Vika, Paddy and I!) with
Mpdroid as second lead and
Stephan swiping.
Convoy order didn’t really matter since it was changing. The idea was to not break the rythme, so who ever do a second trial (meaning missed the switch…
) would catch up and rejoin convoy as last before the swiper.
We started with a private newbie only briefing where Giorgio told us one by one our next steps and area of focus. It’s good to receive some straightforward feedback, cause we may know or not our mistakes, but we might not understand why we are doing them and how to rectify them and today was the day where we would stop and discuss the “why”.
Like last week, same area, similar exercise, tackling arches, catching the right switch and slightly cresting.
Sounds easy… but… in practice it’s another thing. The higher the dune the more difficult it becomes. First of all… you don’t know what you will find on the other side… and that’s the scary part in my concern
. Secondly, you need enough speed to reach to the top, with the right angle of approach, to then smoothly land on the top of the crest, ride it straight for 3 seconds…(Giorgio was very precise) and exit smoothly.
I am still struggling with the right amount of speed. I tackle fast, but when I am close to the top I am scared to fly so I decelerate too quickly and well…it doesn’t work… or I don’t get the right angle of approach… or the dune is steep with soft sand and I don’t have enough momentum… the good thing is that today I only got crested once but that dune probably worth 4 in size
so I am not sure this could be called an improvement…
the view on the other hand was extraordinary!
Let’s call it a work in progress!
When I reached my “end of stamina zone”, I started to have second trials, and ended up at the back. And Actually that wasn’t too bad, rythme is more slow and relaxed so I wasn’t putting much focus on the pace, but getting the right track was the challenge since the way start to be a bit shew up and sometimes there were more than one track… so you better chose the right one
. Other challenge… is when the person in front of you is having his second trial or get off track… then good luck figuring out what’s upfront… the other driver is too far to read how he/she drives the dunes… that’s probably why we say “you learn survival skills” when you drive at the back…
What I loved the most about that drive is that we add a good deal of stops to discuss technicalities and correct our mistakes. Giorgio was not dwelling on them, so we would stop, get out of our car, he would demonstrate on ground with his hands, afterwards show us, driving it and then we would repeat until he sees fit. Personally that’s how I got so many more details I couldn’t comprehend before. I am not saying I got it all, but I understood the do’s and don’t, now I just need more drilling.
That’s it for me !
A huge thank you to Giorgio for this surprise drive, his transparency, and for sharing his knowledge and taking the time to stop us to allow us to understand better and correct our mistakes and to the support team for helping out !
See you all very soon on the sand !