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ABSOLUTE NEWBIE Morning Desert Drive - Al Qudra - Dubai - 9 Apr 2021


Wrangeld

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Was an amazing and fun drive with @Wrangeldand @Shamilwho held  reigns of the whole event with absolute flair and control .. with the constant directions , explanations, snippets shared by @Wrangeldduring the drive over radio , it was a huge "knowledge gainer" as well..

The small chit chat session with fellow jeepers @Lucas Neo, @Morshedi, @Imtiyaz Ali was also enlightening during the "big recovery event" we were listening to over the radios...we should meet more often on future rides 😊😊 to discuss how to get our jeeps fitted with new stuff 👍👍

 

So..the next ride should be a newbie one and i hope it will be on same levels as todays drive, i still need to polish my skills on riding on inclines,  and doing the "semi circles" on hills, i could not quite catch up on most semi circles and i exited early steering down..looking forward to honing this part on the next drive

 

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Well done everyone!  Took a different perspective today as a passenger. I have posted some photos on Gallery and below is the link to our route video. Hope to see everyone on future drives! 

https://www.relive.cc/view/v26MGEDY4Ev

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On 4/9/2021 at 5:57 PM, kolin said:

Well done everyone!  Took a different perspective today as a passenger. I have posted some photos on Gallery and below is the link to our route video. Hope to see everyone on future drives! 

https://www.relive.cc/view/v26MGEDY4Ev

Wow RJ.. thanks for capturing the journey is such a cool way! I was lucky to be in front of you :) any links to the videos?

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On 4/9/2021 at 1:30 PM, Wrangeld said:

Myself and @Shamil were very impressed with the AN drivers today. 45 km through different types of terrain not too many problems or recoveries, a lizard, some gazelle and excellent cool weather. 

We covered around 45km driving west from our start point and then North to reach last Exit - a fantastic achievement for an Absolute Newbie drive. 

All of you can now continue your journey with Carnity and are free to join any Newbie drive.

Looking forward to seeing you al soon in the future. 

Dear @Wrangeld Richard, please confirm the process of booking a one to one session in this week.

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3 minutes ago, Mohammad Imran Khan said:

Dear @Wrangeld Richard, please confirm the process of booking a one to one session in this week.

@Mohammad Imran KhanFrom the website menu you will find desert driving course, under that you can find desert driving master class, then you can easily book for it.

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First of All Thanks to @Wrangeld and @Shamil for this wonderful first hand experience of Desert drive. it was fun and full of thrill. this was the end result of the drive. Lets start from the starting;

little bit background story, I drive Ford Explorer 2017, I started driving in 2007, I consider myself a good driver (on Tarmac of course). Desert driving is one of my bucket list item. I was super excited to join my first Drive.

my Preparation before Drive;

Deflator : I brought this Fancy brass deflator.

deflator_2.JPG.bfc8caccbd5806e505b45c77e812ce15.JPG

it cost more and slow also. only benefit is you can do all 4 tires together still it is slow. I will suggest use this one, cheap and fast (even deflating one by one tire)

deflator.JPG.5ddf03e5e780af2c707942421a6ea615.JPG

this small things matters the most. you will realize till you finish reading full post. like I did till we reached almost end of the drive.

Pressure gauge: lot of them are available I will recommend  digital one. its little more precise than analog one.

Radio (walkie talkie): Baofeng UV-5R (one of the recommended on Carnity) available in 70 AED in Dragon mart. 

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Compressor : also recommended on Carnity, double cylinder Camel compressor from Dragon Mart, there are lot of compressors available there similar look and color. I did not find a camel one however I find one which has a sticker of camel on the compressor. salesman tried to convince me that this the one i am looking for. I bought it for 280AED. at the end of the trip it inflated all the tires very fast like 3-4 min all 4 tires. 

 Water and Snacks: if you are lucky that someone else has refusal or stuck than you will get time to drink or eat, otherwise will not get time to think of eating anything or drink during the drive. but its important to have lots of water with you. 

before you start reading further, please keep in mind, Everything in this post is my opinion and views based on my personal experience, discussions and your views are most welcome.

Lets start the drive; if its your first time, there is no harm in reaching at start point little early. why? I reached exactly at 6:01am, most of the drivers were there already and tires were deflated. (I had fancy slow deflator, was not sure how this will work than till our Marshal @Wrangeld started Briefing I was not finished with deflating, also my gauge was not good so I was not sure if my tires are deflated correctly, I asked our Marshal @Wrangeld to help me he tried to help me quickly. however tire pressure was not up to the mark. (so if I would have reached before time this could have been avoided)

I am talking about deflating a lot because its very important to have right pressure.

lets talk about actual drive now, in my group there were Wranglers, Land cruiser and Pajero. I was the only one having 4WD which is fully controlled car computer (similar to AWD but little better) Ford call it Terrain management System (TRS). 

I was assuming I will be the first one to have refusal and I will be first one to stuck but I was not. anyways drive went well both @Wrangeld and @Shamil. both were very helpful specially during the refusals guiding why we stuck and how to overcome. 

during the whole drive two words were always coming back in conversations on the Radio i.e. Momentum and Gravity.

Momentum is your friend and gravity is nature ( never fight with Nature, much more powerful than me you or any machine).

lets come back to my car again, my car has good power and it TRS responds well but momentum is also important. it does not matter how good is your car, how good your tires are if you dont keep the momentum. most of the cars had 4LOW gear in case they have refusal or stuck to come out. in my case I had only one friend Momentum. 

during our drive with momentum I have peaked on the angled sides of dune where some of us were not able to do so, this does not have to do anything with ability of car or driver, its the Momentum which takes you higher. I faced refusals on the places where no one expected may be because of not enough momentum or breaking. one important thing here, during drive there are lots of things processing in the mind one of them is your steering position. if you have habit of loosing steering wheel to bring wheels straight after turn on Tarmac than be cautious. while on side slopes car wheels try to turn uphill and back of the car start to go downhill. so without breaking momentum steering control is also important.  

breaking is really very less needed thing I felt in desert driving because it breaks the Momentum. simply stop acceleration in case one need to stop than just let car stop on its own unless its not a collision situation. ups, downs, drops, slopes crossing with small refusals we managed to reached almost end of the drive....

big stuck was on the last big obstacle, it was a big drop combined with a soft sand bowl. I took breaks while coming down and momentum was gone and I got stuck.  while trying it became that big stuck that @Shamil was also Stuck while trying to unstuck me and it became the recovery situation. I am impress with Carnity recovery team, they were there to help up in like 15-20 mins. whole recovery took around 30-40 min. while recovery, recovery team find out my tires had more pressure than recommended. we ended the drive at last exit inflated the tires (thanks to compressor, car was ready in 3-4 min for tarmac)

  @Gaurav and other recovery team members, Thank you. Keep it up.

End conclusion: its an amazing experience however choosing right tool is also important. from deflator to car. in my case I am impressed with my ford explorer it did well. I had doubts that I will be able to do that much off-road drive with my car. only lacking was low gear to crawl out. It was busy ride did not get too much chance to take lots of pictures, however there are some pics I managed to take while others had refusals.

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15 hours ago, Mohammad Imran Khan said:

Dear @Wrangeld Richard, please confirm the process of booking a one to one session in this week.

Hi Mohammad Imran Kahn. This needs to be arranged direct with Gaurav in the Carnity office. 

Desert Driving Masterclass - Desert Driving Course - Carnity.com

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