COVID19 Compliant - Wednesday Morning Short Fewbie Desert Drive - Riding the neverending long range dunes from Al Qudra to Lisaili - Dubai - 21 Apr 2021

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

1 hour ago, Lakshmi Narasimhan said:

Guys, please enjoy the video of my popout!!! please let me know why this happened?

 

 

From what I can see, your car fishtailed abruptly to the left, enough to slide sideways and rip your deflated tire out of the rim. 

When sidesloping, throttle control, combined with countersteering, is key to control fishtailing. It's totally counterintuitive for drivers with limited experience: when fishtailing to the left, as in your case, your instinct would suggest lifting the foot from the throttle and steering to the right, whereas what's needed is more gas to maintain momentum (and traction) and steering to the left to correct the fishtailing. With time, your instincts will make you do the right thing. 

[Batuhan Kulac]

@Lorenzo Candelpergher You are a legend for organising a mid-week drive. Some unfortunate events but that is what we need to expect. Can't wait for the next one!

[Lakshmi Narasimhan]

15 minutes ago, Lorenzo Candelpergher said:

DRIVE REPORT

Dear Desert Wanderers, 

This morning drive was an experiment, as I wanted to test the appetite of Carnity Club Members for a mid-week short morning drive and to understand how it should be implement to make it as successful and pleasant as possible. 

As every experiment, I would say it was a positive one, even if - it must be said - it wasn't the luckiest nor the smoothest of all drives, and we I certainly came home with a series of good ideas to make it better next time. 

We hit the sand at 5:54, with almost 10 mins of delay, as a few members of the convoy reached at the last minute. On mid-week morning drives, respecting the time in and the time out is a critical success factor, so next time it should be everyone's clear understanding that the time stated in the drive post is the DEPARTURE TIME, ie by then we should be deflated and flagged, ready to go. 

We were just 700 meters into the drive when @Islam Soliman announced his pop-out. I knew, at that point, that our morning was going to be complicated.. 

The pop-out was quickly fixed and we could get back on track. 

We crossed a small section of technical dunes with no major challenges, then we reached the first group of long range dunes. 

With the sun mostly to our front right side, we had perfect visual on the sand and we really enjoyed a good 40 mins of long ridge riding and side sloping.

The convoy was doing great:

@Lakshmi Narasimhan, on his 1st Fewbie drive, was doing an excellent job, following the big Yukon un front of him.

@Antoz was also a relatively fresh Fewbie but managed his Prado extremely well. 

@Werno was totally relaxed on his Wrangler. I guess today it was more about the landscape than the driving for him. 

@Ahab Shamaa, pampers or no pampers, was always where he was supposed to be. An excellent Center Forward, looking after the guys in front and dispensing precious advice when needed the most. 

@Batuhan Kulac's G63 was a pleasure to watch today. I must say I was expecting more trouble with those low profile tires, but everything was smooth today. 

@Lawrence Muchemi led his Y62 excellently. I must confess I felt a bit sad watching him ride the same beast I used to drive until just a few weeks ago. The Jeep Wrangler is a beautiful car, but the personal sense of achievement one gets when you manage to do some crazy stuff with your Patrol, honestly has no comparison. 

@Dodi Syahdar with his F150 did everything everywhere as if it was a walk in the park. I guess it takes more than this to stress his monster car. 

@GauravSoni at the back, enjoyed all the pleasures of being a sweep.. Driving on churned up sand, but in total freedom. 

The landscape was beautiful, the light was amazing, the sky was blue, the drive was great. What could we ask more?

Thrill and adventure, no doubt. 

We started with a couple of crested cars, including @Antoz's and  @GauravSoni's one, who got a bit too much carried away by the freedom that being a sweep can afford: a sweep can choose any line and not necessarily follow the convoy's track in churned sand, but deviating from the leader's line may be tricky at times.. 

All stucks were quickly recovered.. But still, not enough thrill.. We then met a huge group of camels, which was really a fascinating view (I hope someone managed to get a some good photos), but again this wasn't enough adventurous. 

In search of more excitement, I then crossed a crest in the wrong point, finding myself on a very steep face with the nose of my car pointing straight into a huge group of convoluted rocks. Nasty business: no way to go back, no way to go on either side, my only option was to get down to the bottom and somehow get past the rocks. Eventually, I collected a few scratches on front and rear bumper, tested the Rubicon sway bar disconnection, and somehow got out. The funny thing is that everyone but @Islam Soliman was on the other side of the crest, and missed the show!

We had just regrouped the convoy and started moving again, when @Lakshmi Narasimhan announced a the 2nd pop-out of the day. This one required a bit more effort, as we had to lift the car twice, but was anyway sorted out rather quickly. 

By 7:30am we had been 1h 35' into the drive, with more than 49' stopped. It was time for @Islam Soliman, to take his partial lead, as he deserved at least a good full hour for himself. 

We soon exited the long range dunes are we had spent so much time in and moved to a more technical and demanding area with medium/small size dunes. @Islam Soliman took us across some very nice spots driving along very nice lines. As happens to every daring leader, he got crested a couple of times, but that only means he didn't hold back in trying to find nong trivial trajectories for us to follow. We'll done! 

At 8:40am I'm sure everyone would have continued a bit more, but time was of essence for those of us who had a job waiting for us in the real world, so I took the lead to reach a well known flat track nearby and get us back to our starting point, where we reached at 8:55am. 

In the end, due to the many events that held us back, we could only cover 31km (plus which 13 on sabkha / flat track to get back to Al Qudra), half of the distance we were supposed to cover, reaching Lisaili Fort. We drove for 3h, of which 2h moving and 1h stopped, at an average moving speed of 20km/h, a figure doped by the final high speed stint on flat ground. Our actual moving speed in the dunes was actually way less than that, around 15km/h.

It was great fun, despite the many challenges. On the next midweek morning drive, hopefully we will be a bit luckier, but I'd say there will be definitely another one and I hope you'll count yourselves in once more. 

Have a great end of the week and see you in the sand again soon.

Thank you all for your company. 

Thanks for such a detailed feedback @Lorenzo Candelpergher. Experiment, learnings, team work and enjoyment all was there,  felt like continuing driving for some more time, considering the time factor its understandable and it was perfect relaxation mid week. Definitely waiting for another drive soon..

[Werno]

Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher was a pleasant drive. Looking forward to another mid week escape. My my wife manage to capture the camels

[Islam Soliman]

Thx a lot @Lorenzo Candelpergher for a great weekday morning drive. Having 12 signups for a morning workday drive in Ramadan and the hot summer shows how thirsty Carnities are always are to get back on the sand!

With an early morning start we got to enjoy nice breeze and been accompanied by a magnificent camel convoy and the sighting of the camels roaming the desert freely without robes around their white 10s of large birds lining up on that large dune observing the whole convoy was a joyful moment.

Excellent performance from everyone in the convoy specially with new fewbies who all did a great job and we were blessed with the support of @Ahab Shamaaand @Gaurav Soni today, thanks all

 

another special thanks to @Lorenzo Candelpergherfor allowing me to lead part of the drive, really appreciated. As my first convoy lead I had lots of learning today battling the urge to enjoy the best dunes that area had to offer while being conscious of our direction to head towards the fort and avoid the tech area, a job that proved challenging with the dunes laying themselves west to east giving only one option to keep crossing these dunes in order to head north toward the fort. With the time pressing and work commitments waiting for all we had to forgive our plan and fast track back towards Qudra to exit on time.

Thanks again everyone, can’t wait to drive with you all soon. 

[Lawrence_Chehimi]

6 hours ago, Lorenzo Candelpergher said:

 

@Lawrence Muchemi led his Y62 excellently. I must confess I felt a bit sad watching him ride the same beast I used to drive until just a few weeks ago. The Jeep Wrangler is a beautiful car, but the personal sense of achievement one gets when managing to do some crazy stuff with one's Patrol, honestly has no comparison. 

 

Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergherfor arranging a midweek drive, it was pleassure driving with you. I just noticed you tagged another Lawrence😂, didn't know we have someone in the group with same name and veeery close matching family name😳.

I'm sorry to hear what happened to your beast, hope it gets back on tracks really soon. Managing such a car is reallu a pleasure.

When we had the first popout today, I switched off my car but forgot to disingage the traction control after starting it again🤦🏻‍♂️ I was feeling the car a bit sluggish and only knew what's going on after we crossed that steep climb in which you said "keep pushing keep pushing" I was actually flooring it but the car was losing power... I guess I would have noticed it immediately if I had my old street tires.. Something I need to be careful about next time...

@Islam Solimanyou did great today leading the convoy.

See you soon on Sand.

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

15 minutes ago, Lawrence_Chehimi said:

Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergherfor arranging a midweek drive, it was pleassure driving with you. I just noticed you tagged another Lawrence😂, didn't know we have someone in the group with same name and veeery close matching family name😳.

I'm sorry to hear what happened to your beast, hope it gets back on tracks really soon. Managing such a car is reallu a pleasure.

When we had the first popout today, I switched off my car but forgot to disingage the traction control after starting it again🤦🏻‍♂️ I was feeling the car a bit sluggish and only knew what's going on after we crossed that steep climb in which you said "keep pushing keep pushing" I was actually flooring it but the car was losing power... I guess I would have noticed it immediately if I had my old street tires.. Something I need to be careful about next time...

@Islam Solimanyou did great today leading the convoy.

See you soon on Sand.

@Lawrence_Chehimi, apologies for the name mismatch. I fixed the post now.

When you drive a Y62 with the traction control on, you can't go anywhere, as it kills the power as soon as your wheels start spinning. Because it regengages automatically when your turn off the engine, I had the same problem many times but if you drive for some time with no music and with your windows open, you will learn to hear very clearly the noise of your engine and of your tires on the sand and you will immediately realise when your ETC is engaged. 

I noticed your huge tires today. I saw they are much bigger in diameter than the stock 275/70R18 which are approx 32" in diameter. What tire size are you now using? 

[Rawad]

17 minutes ago, Lawrence_Chehimi said:

Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergherfor arranging a midweek drive, it was pleassure driving with you. I just noticed you tagged another Lawrence😂, didn't know we have someone in the group with same name and veeery close matching family name😳.

I'm sorry to hear what happened to your beast, hope it gets back on tracks really soon. Managing such a car is reallu a pleasure.

When we had the first popout today, I switched off my car but forgot to disingage the traction control after starting it again🤦🏻‍♂️ I was feeling the car a bit sluggish and only knew what's going on after we crossed that steep climb in which you said "keep pushing keep pushing" I was actually flooring it but the car was losing power... I guess I would have noticed it immediately if I had my old street tires.. Something I need to be careful about next time...

@Islam Solimanyou did great today leading the convoy.

See you soon on Sand.

Hey @Lawrence_Chehimithe beast engages the traction control after going from 4low to 4high also. Got me in a couple of nasty situations before

[Lawrence_Chehimi]

@Lorenzo CandelpergherI had the 275/60R20 before and switched them to the 285/70R17 almost same size as stock 33". And Yess there is a 17" wheel that fit the Y62, and that is from Braid. Pretty expensive but really the difference they make is huge at least when going down from 20", the BFGoodrich ko2 tires have an amazing traction on sand, but bit noisy on speeds above 110, not much but noticeable.

@Rawad Bahsasthanks for the tip.