Finally the big day for me is here, a culmination of an awesome year of sustained effort despite it being punctuated by a badly broken ankle. Today is the first timed stage of the 25th Edition of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. All the faffing is over and today it begins. It’s early here in the Yas Hotel.
I’m just shuffling some stuff to go to the bivouac before eating a hearty breakfast and heading off to the liaison. Today’s leg has a 107km liaison out to the start. Then it’s 262km of desert riding on the clock to the end of the stage over near the Liwa Crescent before a short 34km liaison into the bivouac. Today is the day I’m most concerned about, it has a habit of causing work for the races search and rescue team.
It starts with a series of fast gatch and sand tracks interspersed with short sections of small dunes. As the day goes on the technicality increases. The problems are caused by some very fast, open, low lying dune sections which hide a number of drops that are difficult to see. When the sun is high in the sky all the shadows vanish. Today I just need to keep reminding myself to keep it steady, to ride and to finish the day. Keep it clean, collect all my waypoints and minimise problems. The guys out at the front won’t be doing that though. They will be going hell for leather.
This year’s race is going to be interesting. Can local rider Sam Sunderland make this one his year? Bikes start rolling on the special stage at 9:00 a.m. and my start time is 9:28:30 (#36) You can find the live tracking link and see the positions of riders as they pass the checkpoints at http://abudhabidesertchallenge.com/2015results
Lots of news and images are also available on the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge Facebook page too.
