Continued Story of the Taklimakan Desert Rally

Hi All…..to continue on with my Taklimakan Desert Bike Adventure.

Two of us had arrived and were doing what we could to help Jonno and Max with all the arrangements. Max would go to all the race meetings, as he spoke very good Chinese, at one of the race meetings , only a few days before the race was due to start, he was told that the first two stages of the race were going to be within a restricted area of the Taklimakan Desert.

Foreigners are not allowed within this area.

Great logistic planning by the race committee, they knew months ago there was a foreign team and had got verbal agreements for us to go there, when the time came for us to go, we were told NO.

The actual paperwork had not been filed and there was some behind the scenes local and regional politics preventing us from going into this area.

We were told we were not allowed to race 2 of the 5 stages and the race by then would be 1000km from Urumqi, we had to get to them if we wanted to race the remaining 3 stages
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We were ask for and had paid the entire entrance fee RMB 1000 each, then told we could not race the entire race, 6 guys had not arrived from the US yet, all of us wanted to race the entire race, one had even been commissioned by Sports Illustrated to do an story on the race, all the plans and expectations we had… felt a bit flat.

We had to make the most of it, “Qingqi”, our bike sponsor and our other sponsor, a new hotel in Urumqi the “Jin Hui Business hotel” both were relying on us for exposure etc, so when the others arrived and we broke the news to them, we all got ready to make the most of everything. When the race start day came, we all got set up and headed out to the opening ceremony.

We made quite an entrance, 10 green bikes all driving in, , we were the only motorbike team , all the other bikes were individual riders. Everywhere we went for the entire race, we turned heads, great for Qingqi, and the hotel, we got lots of press time and pictures taken of us

The race committee really loved us and the exposure for the race we generated; however no-one knew we were not allowed to race the first two stages…. OH well we are here to race, even the 3 stages would be OK.
We all rode out in a big group out of the city, an amazing experience, 50 bikes, 180 4 x 4’s race cars, all the support crews, all under police escort… real cool.

Just out of town we turned off and headed for a mountain pass as the others headed out to race the first 2 stages. We would see them all in a few days.

We headed out for a 300+ km ride over the mountain pass, WOW; we climbed to 4230 meters, spectacular. All the Race pictures are now loaded at Taklimakan Desert.Race Pictures

We had some problems along the way, Yvette broke her classes at the remote fuel stop, one of our support vehicles hit a dog that chased us all as we went by, Max got a flat tire and then a few hours later, his chain broke, a gear shifter fell off the only Chris’s Yamaha we spent an hour trying to find it, we did not, so he was stuck in second for the rest of the ride, this made for a very long ride. One of the support vehicles went ahead and booked the hotel, we arrived about 2-30am, a long days first ride with lots of drama... Good Fun.

We gave the bikes a real rough test for the next few days, we covered about 1000 km, things fell off, we feel off, etc so the few days we had before we actually raced was good for us and the bikes.

The scenery was desert, miles and miles of it, when you see a sign on the side of the road saying 1786km, in front of you and 1679km behind of you, you know this is a very long road.

I had never seen or experienced anything like this, it was quite stunning.

Over the next couple of days the rides were long and at times, very uncomfortable, but amazing and thrilling at the same time, we hit our first sand storm, this was a bit freaky as the sand moves and shifts along the road which makes the road look weird and makes it hard to focus.

10 bikes and 2 support vehicles, all filling up at remote petrel stations, driving into small local towns, wherever we went we certainly made an entrance.

We had to camp along the Rd at one point, this is when we first came across the scorpions, we actually found a few in the morning, we did not check for them the night before. Opps !!!!

Just riding off the road to the campsite was the first time I had ridden in the sand; we camped about 500m from the Rd, only fell off once, I thought this was a good start, not as easy as you see on the TV….. Hehe

Where we could, we went to the local Qingqi office and got the bikes looked at and repaired, ready for when we finally caught up with the race.

The logistics and administration of the race was not so good, time and time again all through the race there were not enough hotel rooms for all the competitors, and crews’ information flow was poor etc, all could be improved for next year.

We had to find our own hotels in towns that were already full of race teams and support crews, sometimes very late at night , so we ending up in RMB 10 a night places.

In China, even this is considered very cheap, the pics tell it all, however not liking the situation did not make it better, so we dealt with it as best as we could. We just had to check for scorpions before we went to bed as one of our group found one in their bed clothes.

I could go on about the race logistics and difficulties, however just to say it added to the frustrations and disappointment of not being about to race the first 2 days.

We finally caught up and found race HQ way out into the desert ( on a narrow dirt road about 150km from town) the next day was a race rest day so we headed even further out into the desert for a fun ride, hoping to return to town that night to a hotel.

The bikes can ride faster than the van on these dirt roads, so we would always get ahead, we would stop and wait from them to catch us, this time the van did not arrive, Chris rode back and found out the van had crashed into a bank and broke its radiator. The mechanical guys or the ones that new what they were doing, took the radiator out and the other support car had to drive back into town to get it repaired.

So we all made camp in the desert along side the broken Qingqi van, it was quite nice really, lovely clear sky, better than a RMB 10 hotel.

The next day we headed back into town and found another RMB 10 hotel, we got the bikes checked out ready for our first race day the next day.

RACE DAY, what we all have been waiting for.

Stay turned in, I will add another post in the next few days.

Take Care

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com