Fransua Rachmann: Paul, Sean and I did another GPS ride on Saturday from the Bab Al Shams road. Darryn was hoping to make this his first ride back after snapping his Achilles tendon playing in the Dubai Rugby 7's back in Dec 09. However, whilst the rehabilitation is going well, he is not ready to deal with the rigours of riding in the desert just yet and had to sit this one out.

Our 143km triangle started with Paul leading the way through small dunes. It had rained the previous day and we therefore expected the sand to be quite compact. On the flat stuff it was like riding on concrete at times which is really hard on the rider. However, in the larger dune sets it was almost the opposite. The strong winds had dried out the sand and the dunes were actually very soft - really strange conditions to ride in.

Sean programmed the GPS units to include a mixture of long flat sections on the sabqa broken up with challenging dune sets (with really soft sand). We all took our turns to either stall the bike going up a particularly soft dune or have a front wheel digging into the powdery sand on the other side.

Approaching a steep sand face is a challenge, but if you don't know whether you're going to go over it or through it - it makes it much more 'interesting'. Approach it too slow and your front tyre might dig in, but at least you won't go over the handle bars of the bike. Approach it too fast and you might just glide over the soft sand, but if it is still very soft and your front wheel does dig in, you might fly over the handle bars! Catch 22?

It's a constant balancing act and very tough for the leader of the group. Paul lead through this tough section of the ride and we got to our 1st refuel point at Al Faqar.

The next leg was the long dune section towards Cattlegrid. There were dark clouds overhead the whole time and the heavens threatened to open on a number of occasions. Sean had the lead and took us at a steady pace through the tough technical terrain. Fortunately we never actually got dumped on and we reached the petrol station dry and without problems.

I had the lead on the fast last section from Cattlegrid, through the town of Lisaili and back to the cars at Bab Al Shams road. I managed to keep a good speed through the mostly flat terrain. I just had one mishap on the way as I jumped from the top of a sand face into some very soft sand and stalled the bike with my wheels halfway buried into the powder. Other than this one incident it was mostly full throttle back to the cars.

GPS training like this is essential for the team. This coming weekend will be another 2 day Desert X race in the Arjan region of Abu Dhabi. This will be a good test to see if our GPS training has paid off and whether we are a little better prepared for the big race starting in just a little more then 6 weeks!

Total Moving Time: 3hrs 4 minutes
Moving Average: 46.3 km/h
Maximum Speed: 110 km/h
Total Distance: 143 km