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Afternoon Fewbie Plus Desert Drive - Rush Hour 4: The Commute - Dubai - 2 May 2022


Ale Vallecchi

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8 hours ago, munkybizness said:

Out on asphalt, where we spend most of our days, knowing where you are going is pre-destined. Even if you were driving with a purpose to explore or perhaps without aim, the path you can take to get somewhere is laid out for you. Off the road, and unlike the mountains, in the desert there is no trail or path. Faced with a million choices, driving in the sand can lend a billion and more outcomes. And not all of them will ensure that every single subsequent direction you go in, will neatly flow in with the path you've taken so far.

Now, add to this, the midday sun hitting warm lightly colored sand. Any perception of depth and gradation is lost further still. Those million choices, now have an additional level of complexity. Where earlier you had to contend with reacting to what lies on the other face of the ridge or crest you're climbing, now you're unsure even of the seemingly flat surface immediately ahead of you.

I write all of this to paint you the incredible challenge that any marshal faces in finding a path that a dozen cars behind it has to follow, and do it continuously, without breaks, and with pace. Suddenly, this already seemingly challenging series of decisions on which turns to take, transforms into an impossible one.

Yet, suddenly with great resplendence, a brightly coloured serpent twirls through this vast emptiness, covering over a 100kms and stopping only for the briefest of moments. How does this elastic chain of colorful components find a path so pristinely elegant and flowing beats the mind?! And where the serpent itself glows with vibrant yellow, reds and silvers catching the fast dipping late afternoon sun, at the head is an innocuous grey with flashes of purple as its only embellishments. After all, when grey matter itself is showing such great form, the need for colourful exuberance isn't required. Like a clean classical harmony, it rises and races without pomp and attention, with great grace and care. And yet, with great velocity and prowess.

Thank you, @Ale Vallecchi for giving me and all of the others, a taste of what harmony feels and drives like. But more so, I am in awe of your eye with which you saw, carved, and laid the path you did yesterday. Because any single deviation would have meant us not moving at the pace we did, or with the sheer ease that we did. In your masterful hands as our ribbon twirler, this convoy's motion if tracked would look like the most glorious cloth flying gracefully through the late afternoon sky.

For that experience, thank you.

And then to @Zixuan Huang - Charlie, @Alexanderrr, @Vaibhav, @Prakash Anoop, @Anoop Nair, @Rob S, @Ranjan Das, @Daniel Rodas, @Ashok chaturvedi, @topgear and @varunmehndiratta; I thank every single one of you for carrying that energy through the chain. It is a drive that I will remember for days to come.

See you all out on the sands again soon!

🐵  ]

P.S. @Prakash Anoop - apologies again, for the much too hard of a tug. I am glad that no damage was done, and I sit now with fresh knowledge to improve myself for the future.

That's beautifully written @munkybizness ,As free flowing as the drive itself  😍

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Rush Hour 4: The Commute - Drive's Report

"What matters is how quickly you do what your soul directs" - Rumi

It was all very quick, following each moment's instinct, directed by the soul (that's what we bring to the desert to be reborn), as well as (or even more so) by the shades of light on the sand, the blur of a bush rushing by, the line of a ridge, the sound of the sand under the tires, or the color of the sky fading in front of us.

Having recounted the soul of our drive, and being impossible to follow in @munkybizness' literary footsteps, I'll limit the report to the sheer numbers, which so eloquently speak for the off-roading feat of every member.

As we had decided to divide the drive into 1 hour segments, with the goal of covering at least 30 km each hour, this is what we achieved:

1st hour - 34 Km driven, at 35 Km/h average moving speed, and 34 km/h total moving speed, with only 2 minutes of stop, to assist a self-recovery;

2nd hour - 27 Km driven, for a total of 60+ km altogether, moving at an average of 33 km/h , and a total of 30km/h over the 2 hours, with 10 minutes of stop, to assist a refusal and perform a quick tug. This second segment was also much more complex and diverse, due to a couple of tight technical areas with soft sand: it was here, during the previous edition of Rush Hour 3, that all the advantage gained during the first hour was lost, due to multiple stucks.

3rd and 4th hours - 48.3 Km driven, from Ghantoot back to Qudra's Last Exit, in 1 hour and 33 minutes, moving at 31 Km/h average speed (30 km/h total), with only 2 minutes of stop (the infamous yanking tug received by @Prakash Anoop). The commute back to Qudra was deliberately shorter and more "leisurely", as we went looking for oryx (unsuccessfully), and took a straighter route back, to reach the exit point rigorously on time for the next weekend's Carnity sign-ups.

Thanks to @Zixuan Huang - Charlie for his Second Lead in the first 2 hours, to @Alexanderrr for his debut at Second Lead in the second segment, to @varunmehndiratta for his Sweep to Ghantoot, and to @munkybizness for his Sweep back to Qudra, and of course hats of for a very smooth and concentrated driving to @Vaibhav, @Prakash Anoop, @Anoop Nair, @Rob S, @Daniel Rodas, @Ashok chaturvedi (will bring you forward next time so you can enjoy the wild life 😉), and @topgear. Great convoy for a very fun drive.

See you all soon in the sand.

 

 

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