News from Off Road Skills
Pavey 8th overall after first gruelling day of Transorientale Stage number : 1 It's been a long old day! We were up at 3.30am ready for an early start at 5.00 and I've just got off the bike at 5.30pm. Today was a total of over 500 miles, that's like riding from London to Aberdeen, which on a dirt bike ain't too comfortable. The road we've been riding is the main route between St Petersburg and Moscow. It's only a 2 lane road and Russia seems to have the most lorries in the world. They don't mind overtaking each other and seeing them four abreast on a two lane road is a little interesting. The road is supposed to be tarmac but it has so many big pot holes in it's safer and easier to ride on the gravel hard shoulder, it also gives you some room to avoid swerving lorries. Most of the riding today was liaison, with a 70k special stage. Riding the special stage was awesome, really scenic. We were riding sandy tracks through a forest, it was really beautiful and exciting, as it was quite fast in some places. I really enjoyed it. The navigation was pretty easy too, except we all overshot one of the waypoints! I didn't pick up any penalties and was eighth, so I'm happy with that. Funny thing is, when people watch it on telly they'll see this lovely special stage and think that doesn't look so hard. But they'll see nothing of the 12 hours and 500 miles of truck-dodging that had to be endure! To be honest, I feel more sorry for my wife Linley, who's driving my support vehicle. At least I can overtake and escape the trucks, she'll have to battle her way through. She's about 100km behind me, so I'll get my head down for a bit and wait for her to arrive. Another early start tomorrow and the bivouac is no hotel! For more information, or to track Simon’s progress during the Transorientale Rally, please visit www.transorientale.com, Simon is riding number 5. The rally will also be screened daily on Motors TV.
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