COVID19 compliant - Fewbie Morning Desert drive - Al Faqa - Dubai - 31 May 2021

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

10 minutes ago, RooRzOn said:

@Lorenzo Candelpergher@Tamas Hoffmann you kicked me out guys 😂😂 I cant find my name in any convoy

Oooops. @RooRzOn you are right, my bad. You are in CONVOY 2 (ie with me), in 5th position after @AlexPoland before @Goutam. Everyone else behind is one position down the list. I'll fix the post later.

Thanks for noticing. 

[Rawad]

Guys road is blocked. We need to pass the Abu Dhabi gate

[darren thompson]

Massive thanks to @Tamas Hoffmann @Hisham Masaad and @Vanessa8580 for a great and very entertaining drive this morning. Great route through some nice dunes which allowed me to keep developing new skills on larger dunes. 

Especially appreciate the fact the team accommodated me joining the drive on short notice, was a good morning hit out and look forward to many more with the team. 

Thanks also to everyone in Convoy 1 for an enjoyable drive @PaoloMaraziti @Chinthaka Ruwan and @Darren Brooke

Edited May 31, 2021 by darren thompson

[Looper]

A drive befitting for a Monday morning. Fast drive with just a few minor refusals and a super quick pop out fix. One could not have asked for any better. I loved the run on the Sabkas, the mini Sweihan and every minute of the entire no sweat drive we had today. Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the lead and @Dodi Syahdar for keeping an eye at the back. Everyone drove exceedingly well making it a memorable drive.

[Chinthaka Ruwan]

Convoy-01 It was a great drive with some nice experience 😄.  Thanks @Tamas Hoffmann @Hisham Masaadand @Vanessa8580 for your guidance. Thanks all the members. I think we covered a great distance today. 

[Alain Canivet-Abikhalil]

Really enjoyed being your second lead this morning @Lorenzo Candelpergher. It's usually my favorite position in a convoy. The sand is not churned up, you follow the lines of the expert... But waw what a challenge it was to keep up with your pace 😅 

 

As soon as we got into the sand the ride started building up and I did feel I have improved some techniques and built confidence.

In the small technical dunes, had to monitor the power and the speed and avoid the bumps and drops.

Pushing in the higher dunes to practice how to correct the fishtailing and ridge riding - it was a very nice adrenaline rush.

And to top it all, the scenery was splendid !

I got to the office with a great feeling of accomplishment this morning

 

Thank you @Dodi Syahdar for the support, and have a lovely week everyone.

 

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Alain Canivet-Abikhalil

[Hisham Masaad]

Many thanks @Tamas Hoffmann, @Vanessa8580and all participants joined the drive today. With the challenges we faced, the rope was taken out once and no shovel no pop outs. every one done god job 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[Darren Brooke]

Really enjoying these mid week drives, makes the whole week seem so much shorter 😀

@Tamas Hoffmannbrilliant route selection - well that is until until the very end 🤦‍♂️ - will say no more other than thanks to @Hisham Masaadfor rescuing us all 🙏

Loved the pace and the dunes were just fantastic, with some great ridge riding 

I feel so lucky as the car showed no signs of a problem till we were filling up with air at the very end and then suddenly she died!!!!!

Thanks to @Srikumar for diagnosing that it was the alternator, anyway a few hours later it was being recovered and all being well will be ready for Friday 😃

Thanks also to @darren thompson, @Vanessa8580, @Tamas Hoffmann, @PaoloMaraziti, @Hisham Masaadfor your assistance, with jump starts, diagnostics and the refuge of an air conditioned car.

Last but not least @Chinthaka Ruwan great driving with you again.

Until the next one

[Lorenzo Candelpergher]

CONVOY 2 - DRIVE REPORT

Dear Desert Wanderers,

first of all @Tamas Hoffmann should be thanked for posting this drive: until yesterday I didn't think it was doable on a short mid-week morning drive, because of the long distance implied, but he proved me wrong and this drive turned out to be a great one.

Indeed, today's drive was a very pleasant surprise, as the decision to split the drive in two convoys was made with @Tamas Hoffmann and @Vanessa8580 at the very last minute last night. For this again I have to say thank you, as I was given, once more, the opportunity to lead.

It all started with a bit of drama in the twilight, magnified by insufficient levels of caffeine (no morning coffee for me this morning!!), when we all realized the meeting points defined for the two convoys were both some 50-70m beyond the current barricades at the Abu Dhabi / Dubai border. Luckily Google Maps led all of us to the same cul-de-sac and we could easily reconvene, coordinate and get ready to go. Incredibly, despite the initial mayhem and a little delay by @GauravSoni, Convoy 2 happily moved into the sand by 5:21am through the access point promptly suggested by a super-energetic @Vanessa8580.

We made our move into an area of small and technical dunes, quite tricky, I must say, where - however - everyone did very well, with just a couple of minor refusals. The visibility was still far from ideal, as in the absence of direct sunlight the sand looked flat and difficult to read. As we moved east, the first sunbeams lit the path in front of us and we started to enjoy the slightly bigger dunes and a few ridges, until we reached the 1st area of long range dunes, where the fun began.

With an extended "spaghetti-style" track, we kept riding higher and higher ridges, with endless slide slopes inevitably ending into bumpy descents across unfriendly bushes, but - hey - the fun at the top was certainly worth the bumps at the bottom.

Our little 8 cars convoy was doing incredibly well, so I decided to push the drive level up to Fewbie Plus, climbing higher dunes, including a few criss-crossings and increasing significantly the pace.. Even after this adjustment, the convoy was still flying around with great ease, with almost no refusals and no stucks at all... as, in fact, I was the one who got twice stuck and had to self-recover using all the magic buttons that come with the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon..

The drive was incredibly smooth and almost uninterrupted today. We covered the impressive distance of 78.2km in just 2h 50', at an average moving speed of 30.8km/h. This figures, even if a bit doped by the couple of high speed stints across the sabkhas and by the final dirt track to Solar Park, are absolutely impressive for a Fewbie Drive. But what gave me more satisfaction was the fact that overall we stopped for only 18'... (and we had one stuck, one pop-out and one photo-break!!).

@Alain Canivet-Abikhalil was taken a bit by surprise initially, as the pace (and the technical challenges) were probably a bit higher than what he was used to.. but when I looked in the mirror or through the window, his smile was only confirming he was having great fun. In fact, after a bit of hesitation during the first 45', Alain gained a remarkable confidence, managed to keep up with the pace and got through a couple of difficult passages brilliantly. The few refusals were absolutely physiological, given the challenges, and the single crested stuck of the day only happened in a moment of hesitation. A bit more practice will be probably needed on controlling fishtailing during long slide slopes, but overall his was a really impressive performance!!

@Werno in 3rd position looked, as in all my past drives with him, very cool and easy. If he found the terrain challenging, it didn't show much, as everything appeared quite easy for him. If he had fun, that I can probably say yes, as both he and his passenger were smiling not less than Alain when I peeked inside their car.

@AlexPol in 4th position certainly had the opportunity to push his capable Jeep Wrangler LWB (lots of jeeps today!!). I don't recall him having any significant refusals and had the opportunity to watch him ridge riding while looping back a couple of times. Generally in very good control and very close to the crests, he lost the edge in a few occasions, sliding down with a bit of fishtailing. As with Alain, practice will allow him to stick to the crest even longer than what I could see in his brilliant drive today.

@RooRzOn had nothing less than a Y62 in his hands, which means a fantastic, powerful but heavy and fishtailing-prone beast, with the additional challenge of driving on 20" inches rims and low profile tires. When I was in his position, some months back with my beloved Nissan Patrol, pop-outs were my nightmare, but Rawan managed his black monster extremely well. Some fishtailing here and there, always well managed with timely choices about when to steer down and let gravity do its part of the job after momentum had been lost on long slide slopes. Very, very well done today.

The guys at the back had a great deal of experience, all seasoned Intermediate drivers. It was with them in mind that I attempted to find the most favorable balance between fluidity, speed and complexity, so that while the front of the convoy could refine their skills and enjoy the adrenaline of driving just a bit beyond their comfort zone, the guys at the back could still enjoy the ride for real. In the end, I think the compromise we found was a pretty good one, as I gather @Goutam, @GauravSoni and @Dodi Syahdar had the fun they were looking for, even when fixing Gaurav's pop-out in record time 😂.

As we exited Faqa area, we started heading north-west towards Little Sweihan, with a supercharged stint across mid-sized dunes among which we drove seamlessly at exhilarating pace. Just before crossing the last sabkha to Little Sweihan, @GauravSoniwas betrayed by a deceiving crest and had his pop-out, which stole us a few minutes from the final stint in Little Sweihan's bowls, where however we could enjoy approx 15' driving around some of the most famous bowls in the area.

By 8:00am it was time to behave.. so we made it to the sabkha and quickly made our way north to Solar Park along the dirt track at the east end of Little Sweihan, making our exit at Solar Park tower exactly by 8:15am, like a Swiss watch. All covered in dust after 8km along the dirt track, but satisfied and energized for a fruitful Monday at work.

Congratulations to all, I will remember this drive as one of the best I was blessed to lead. Thank you for your company (and thanks to @Dodi Syahdarfor being a perfect Sweep) and see you soon in the sand again!

[Rawad]

Convoy 2

First let me start with a big thank you to @Tamas Hoffmannfor the whole drive idea, and another big thanks to @Vanessa8580for picking up the pieces of the scattered convoy this morning due to the closed Faqa exist

@Lorenzo Candelpergher this was my first drive with you, and it was remarkable indeed. We've had so much fun as you started to increase the challenge and even so it was a relatively a short drive, yet it was absolutely fulfilling

I surely ended up with more confidence, and this drive provided the exact needed pace and challenge for me to learn more of how to handle my car. Hope I didn't bother @Goutammuch by my early exits specially on the bumpy ridges

Great job @Dodi Syahdar

It was pleasure driving with all of you

A side note: I dont know what made me think that changing my name to my gaming tag would be cool 😅😅 I will change it back as soon as the system allows it. My name is Rawad. I believe it was hard for you to hear it correctly@Lorenzo Candelpergher when I was shouting it behind a mask so you ended up hearing Arwan 😂😂... totally my fault tho🤭🤭

 

Until we meet again 🤘