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Amazing! Thank you @Frederic for an excellent drive the ride was so good. Thank you @Rahimdad for all the support! Finally got chance to watch and do a bit of shoveling @Gauravbhai Style with the “V”. @Kailas @Sinol @Sajit Modiyil @Ashy @Ammar Naji @SureshVNairWatching everyone doing the Bowl was soo good! Had a minor drive belt issue on my X Terra after the drive and managed to reach back safe. Well Managed Everyone! See you soon on Sand https://www.relive.cc/view/vPv4MVyNPRO IMG_6912.MP4

The trip through my eyes. Started a bit early to make it ahead of time, with Sharjah Police closing my route I had to go to Qusais to turn around and just made it on time. As soon as I stepped out of the car I was pleasantly greeted by a cool breeze. After a quick deflation and briefing we set off. What seemed to be just a boring drive like one of mine, it quickly changed to more challenging and hitting every play area I can think off. One thing I relearned today was thanks to @Ammar Naji. As he was crested and had this obsession with having a couple of wooden planks to make out of the stuck. We tried it out and definitely didn't work out just like our experiment a couple of years back with the recovery track boards. After digging in the right spots though we were able to drive right out and we decided to call that spot the Salik gate for Maliha. All proceeds will be directly sent to @Ammar Naji for his thoughtful easy access through a sharp crest. I was pleasantly surprised to see everyone manage the sideys with so much ease. Everyone had a wonderful control on throttle steering and brakes during these attempts. Except for @Syed Raza Hussain who seemed to have the heavy BF Goodrich tires, but surprisingly managed well through most parts. @Kailas did wonderful at second lead, however spoke on the radio in a nice ladies voice. Seems to be a good voice artist too. @Sinol seeMe to be very comfortable at this level and it is lovely to watch him take full control of his car while off-roading. @Sajit Modiyil too has great control and seems like has done well to understand the dynamics of his vehicle. @Ashy with his JGC keeps fooling me, making me think he's @Brette, and his driving style is improving which fools me even further. Vast improvement from what I have last seen of him. @Ammar Naji is handling his Expedition better every day and I feel is very smooth in His inputs. Great way to drive a gravity magnet and really looking forward to him on drive every time. I also appreciate the child like personality where he wants to experiment and learn. Love this trait in him and more power to him every time. @Nivin seems like the pirate of the sands as he drives with the control of Jack Sparrow behind the Black Pearl. @Rizwan Waheed makes the Pajero look good with very precise manoeuvres. I'm sure lit of people will want to have a Pajero after watch his masterful style. @Syed Raza Hussain needs a few mire drives to find the optimum settings for his vehicle, but managed well throughout. @Ilya Golubinsky did fantastic with his white Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. I have to admit that the LWB makes it just a bit difficult to drive on the sands, but at no point I found him to be out of control. Fantastic control and precise steering, well done. @SureshVNair amazed me with the absolute smooth ride through today's track which tells me he's one with his vehicle and ready for the next level. Finally @Andrei with his colourful blue Jeep kept me company throughout the drive and seemed like enjoying his ride. This is only possible when you understand the dynamics of your vehicle and he has got it right and seemed relaxed at all times. Thanks @Frederic for the wonderful opportunity and I loved the second half of the drive to the extreme. My pics are posted in the Gallery, waiting for others to post their shots. https://carnity.com/gallery/category/293-newbie-mahafiz-sharjah-4-sep-2020

Welcome to the Carnity family @Abu Muhammad . This sport and club is addictive. Just warn your family that you are going be to missing every weekend. 😅

EVENTFUL DAY IN QUDRA BASIN - Bab al Shams' Loop Report Nice drive today in the so called "Bab al Shams" sector of the Qudra Basin. Punctual members, incremental levels of difficulty along the route, and a few adventurous moments. Actually, a couple of these unexpected situations have taken center stage, and have pushed in the background an overall impressive performance by all the drivers. To be specific, and give dues where dues are owed, @Jolly Abraham carried out an impeccable Second Lead, always correcting properly, and communicating smoothly. @Islam Soliman confirmed his skills at maneuvering such an extra-large car. @Lisa Pemberton delivered an impressive performance (extra kudos for making it all the way from RAK). @luwaimncontinued his progress, building up his confidence on the slopes (which will grow exponentially as soon as he'll understand his car's full potential). Likewise @Yousef Alimadadi progressed nicely throughout the day, overcoming some initial hesitance to show very good command and control. @Mehmet Volga and @Heisem handled their backward position, and the sometimes churned sand, without batting an eyelid. Finally @Biju Abdul swept the convoy with precision and flair (as he managed his FJ). Special mention for @Brette, who anchored the convoy and assisted on refusals and stucks, with patience and competence. Now, back to the adventurous moments. In chronological order, the first was the encounter with a very young wounded gazelle. It appeared in front of my car as I was coming down a side slope, hiding in the shade of a small bush. The fact that it didn't move made me suspicious, and decided to take a break from the drive to check it out. Unfortunately, the little one had some wounds on its back (maybe from a vulture?). The convoy agreed to see if we could tend to the gazelle, which we did by providing it with some water, and by calling the Municipality (all animal rescue places were closed). Contrarily to our instinct, to take it out of the desert to Qudra Parkimg, we were told that we should not move it: the area is part of Al Marmoon Conservation Area, and the information we got was that nothing can be taken from it, under no circumstances. The Municipality informed us that someone will be sent to pick the gazelle up, so we left it under some shade, on a straw mat provided by Islam, extra water care of Yousef, and a flag, care of @Srikumar (who had come to aid us from his nearby Newbie convoy) to identify the bush where the little animal was resting. Fast forward to the end of the drive, the Municipality had contacted Heisem (who had called them in the first place) and informing us that they could not locate the gazelle, asked us if we could go back and take it out. After leaving the rest of the convoy at the exit point, we went back, with Jolly, Heisem and Brette, hell bent on our rescue mission (upping the drive from Fewbie to Intermediate 😅). Unfortunately, upon reaching the flag-marked bush we could not do anything else but confirm to the Municipality that very sadly the little gazelle had died from its wounds. Nonetheless we did our best, and learned a lesson in how the conservation area is managed, rightly so, by the laws of wild nature. As for the second surprise of the day, it was certainly one that Islam would have done without. Fact is that most cars are programmed to be driven on flat surfaces, and their computers don't understand their driver's crave for off-roading. It so happened that, coming down from a small slope, just after crossing a low ridge, the big Yukon's electronic brain must have thought it was rolling to one side, and decided to save Islam by exploding its lateral air-bags. A stark, and unfortunate, reminder that all electronics should be switched off (or manually disabled) before going into the desert, so that a rather simple obstacle (Islam didn't seem to have any difficulty at all, navigating the ridge and the descent) doesn't transform itself in a dire problem. Wish Islam will be able to have his car back ASAP. As for the drive itself, after a technical briefing on riding ridges and crossing dunes, and a couple of practices (one driver at the time), it was clear that the whole convoy was able to manage such skills. We progressed from the western part of Qudra (closest to Bab al Shams) in a northerly direction, through a couple of sabkhas, so that we could then travel southward, and back west, and cross the mostly compact, wind-swept side of the longer open dunes, which in this area also offer abundant possibilities of side sloping, as well as some "bowl" areas. In the end, we traveled for 4 hours, including the stops for the briefing, the attempted rescue and the air-bags incident, for a total of 50 Km, at an average speed of 12 Kms/h (and moving average speed of 24 Kms/h). Splendid video @Islam Soliman. Well done!

Thanks @Jeepie for the nice morning drive and also given me the responsibility of second lead, i hope i have managed to reroute and announce the cautions where ever necessary except two places where i had no view infront of me and by the time you took the radio to announce am already stuck and thanks for pulling me out which i got a nice opportunity to test my new viking rope which got it from @Rahimdad early morning today 😄 We all had a good time at the play area with multiple time attempt and heading towards Faya was really enjoyable with high dunes. See you soon. Few Pcs uploaded in gallery.

Missed you guys...😟😟 will come back stronger...💪💪

Thank you @Frederic and @Rahimdad for wonderful and very intersting morning... got to pick up some great tips on shovelling also today..😁 Thank you all other co drivers, it was a pleasure watching you🤩 zoom around the bowl... see you all soon on the dunes..

Dear @Jeepie, Thanks for leading this very nice drive to Fossil Rock and Al Faqa. Temperatures were not too bad today: I believe for a good part of the ride my thermometer showed less than 30°C and certainly the clean view of the dawn through Fossil Rock was worth the effort of a 4:40am wake-up.. It was a very smooth drive, with good fun at the Long Dune play area where we had the chance to ride multiple times without interferences. Going around Fossil Rock rather than crossing the saddle at the top was new for me, and I enjoyed the spectacular view from the side of the rock. Things got more interesting heading towards Al Faqa, going though Camel Rock and The Sphinx: for the latter, coming in from the north side, I could really understand the reasons of the naming as the rock really looked as a huge cat on the sand. As @Wrangeld commented on the radio, I had to leverage all my horsepower (in 4L) to get out of a nasty mini-bowl that I had missed to see in a moment of distraction after being idle waiting for a recovery to be completed: 2nd time in recent rides that I get stuck as a result of impatience.. Need to work on it 😂 Good fun again at The Saddle playground: it felt great to make it to the top with @Pancho, who climbed up with great agility despite the churned up sand, while I had to give up on my 1st attempt as I had accidentally engaged traction control, which killed all my power when I most needed it.. 😭 It was odd to see @Wrangelddriving a comfortable and air-conditioned Pajero. I am curious to read his impressions about it. Thanks to all and well done. See you next week.

Thank you @Brette, yes I have already noticed that. The good thing is that if I’m going to join in the mornings they won’t notice it as much as I will spend the whole day with them after the drive.

Hi , Seems it was a stuck relay, did the self diagnose. In the engine bay on left side you can find the relay box. It was relays No:7 &9. removed them cleaned and gave a tap. Reinstalled them and the issue is resolved. Not sure though what has caused it in the first place and hoping it wont repeat. Thanks for the inputs @Gaurav @Mohamed Seidam & ABS kill switch not yet installed, is it really necessary? Below are steps on how to do the self diagnose (without a tool) and the flash code chart, might help someone out later.. " If the engine starts when there is something wrong with the 4WD system, the 4WD warning lamp turns ON or flickers in the combination meter. When the system functions properly, the warning lamp turns ON when the ignition switch is turned to “ON”, and it turns OFF after engine starts. To locate the cause of a problem, start the self-diagnosis function. The 4WD warning lamp in the combination meter will indicate the problem area by flickering according to the self-diagnostic results. Refer to DLN-59, "DTC Index". Diagnostic Procedure (A/T models) 1. Warm up engine. 2. Turn ignition switch “ON” and “OFF” at least twice, and then turn ignition switch “OFF”. 3. Move A/T selector lever to “P” position. 4. Turn 4WD shift switch to “2WD” position. 5. Turn ignition switch “ON”. (Do not start engine.) 6. 4WD warning lamp should turn ON. If 4WD warning lamp does not turn ON, refer to DLN-72, "Diagnosis Procedure". 7. Move A/T selector lever to “R” position. 8. Turn 4WD shift switch to “2WD”, “4H” and “2WD” in order. 9. Move A/T selector lever to “P” position. 10. Turn 4WD shift switch to “4H”, “2WD” and “4H” in order. 11. Move A/T selector lever to “N” position. 12. Turn 4WD shift switch to “2WD” position. 13. Move A/T selector lever to “P” position. 14. Read the flickering of 4WD warning lamp.

Morning guys & girl, What a great drive this morning starting with a nice high pace and some bowls, and the team effort on the pop outs to get going quickly again! thanks all of you for joining, and hopefully see you soon again!! @Chaitanya D I’ve added a pic where you’ve shown great patience and teamwork ensuring the other drivers where able to catch up with the convoy again!!

Small Yet Perfectly Formed Some drives just work, and that was the case for this morning's Fewbie drive to Fossil Rock. Having scouted the route with @Jeepie earlier in the week (more to test drive my new wheels than anything else), I knew that the route for this drive took the Fossil Rock experience to a new level. As the smaller than usual number of drivers found out, this was a drive full of unexpected gems. @Shiju Manuel was given his first chance to play secnd lead, and newly promoted @Pancho was centre forward. This all meant that at sweep, I had only to make sure I did not embarass myself, feeling like I did like a Newbie getting to grips with the new car. What @Lorenzo Candelpergher, @Mukundan Nair and @Sreejith Sreenivasan did not realise is that for other reasons, this drive made Carnity history. To my knowledge, this is the first time that there has been a (married) couple managing a drive [top and tail at least] as the seniors on the drive. @Rahimdad - we know that it's been a dream of yours to have a first woman leader in the Carnity community: Today was that day. Not just with aplomb, but consummate confidence and capability this drive took us through the technical dunes to the first play area, up to the top of Fossil Rock and then on to Faya through the soft sandy dunes that cover the route and catch the unaware. We even got to see the Newbie convoy arriving at the play area as we were about to leave to continue the fun (clearly that crested Ford was eventually tugged off!) The level was excellent, a great balance between speed and complexity, evidenced by the limited number of hold ups for the odd tug or dig or reroute. Small but perfectly formed - two of our drivers made it to the top of Faya the hard way. Small but perfectly formed - the rest of the convoy performed very well despite the soft sand benefitting from less cars churning up the sand. Small but perfectly formed - we exited on time with everyone having big smiles and a look of satisfaction. Excellent lead @Jeepie you make it look easy.

An amazing drive where everyone did amazingly well ! Really impressed with all drivers and how all smoothly went through whatever @Srikumar was throwing at you. We ended with two fun recoveries where I could finally put my winch to work and I was glad it worked out fine. @Gaurav Tomar the Baofeng 888 which you bought can only be used on the Carnity frequencies if you have a laptop with baofeng programming cable, and free software called Chirp. If you’re not into that technical stuff we can advise you to get a Crony MT777 or Baofeng UV5R which you can easily program with below instructions:

No worries buddy, better have it looked at. See you next time ! Nothing to add to this wonderful drive report from @Rahimdad ! A truly lovely morning with a group or passionate off-roaders who all did so amazingly well. I would have gladly extended it another 30 minutes but didn’t want to jinx it, and like all great artists we should go out on a high 😜 See you guys soon in the sand !

Thank you @Nivin @Frederic @RahimdadGreat drive. All of us drove well.

TRIP REPORT It was the perfect Absolute Newbie Drive where we had thrills and fun without having to take out the rope or even the showel. As usual I had reached the meeting point by 4:35 AM only to see that @Tbone and @Anand Nataraj had already reached and had begun deflating. As the entire convoy started trickling in, we did the check of everyone's tow points and helped out those who needed assistance in deflation. After the newbie and COVID19 briefing we started off on some flat tracks so that everyone gets used to the pace and feel of their cars in the sand. We then moved towards the medium range dunes of Qudra, where we practiced small side slopping,going up and down a dune, riding on broad ridges to have good steering control. @Xavier Treasurer who had previous off-roading experience in gravel and mud was facing his first challenge on the sand in the responsible position of second lead. And he did an absolutely brilliant job understanding when to follow and when not to follow me. It made my job of communicating with the second lead much more easier. @Baskaran P.R though started the drive with a bit of apprehension, but slowly settled and his confidence started to show as the drive progressed with lesser and lesser refusals. Hope you had a good time. @Yasas Dharmadasa joined us with his manual transmission Cherokee Liberty and it definitely seemed to have a lot more grunt than the automatic version. Managed most of the terrain pretty well and wherever had a refusal he listened to the radio instructions and managed to self recover himself. Well done. @Athula Dharmadada joined us for the second time, but this time in a Jeep Grand Cherokee 2005 model. Ofcourse with this car being a proper 4x4 with better ground clearance compared to his previous trip with an AWD Pathfinder, it sailed through all the dunes with the minimal of fuss. @Sandyman85 had a nice black stallion in the form of a Dodge Durango. It took him a while to start to get a proper feel and throttle response on the car, but in the second half of the drive, i hardly heard any refusals from him on the radio. Well done. That car is not easy to drive, but it does have a lot of power and its only a question of harnessing it properly. @Francois Swart had a beautiful Pajero 3.8 SWB and he was gliding through the entire route with a lot of ease. That car has a lot of power in comparison to its weight and is a good offroader. @izzumonv did the very wise choice of changing his ride to an Xterra and even though he was at the back end of the convoy he didnt struggle one bit through all the cross tracks left by the cars in front. Well done. @Anand Nataraj is another Xterra addition to our club, and I was mighty impressed with his capabilities as a Newbie. He rarely struggled and was doing all the sideys in a very smooth manner. Keep it up. @Paulina Kolicka joined us along with Tamas Hoffman and managed her Pajero nicely. Maybe its time to ask Tamas to get you your own offroad ride. 😉 @Yusuf Esaf managed his Patrol Y62 very well for his first desert drive. Though the car is a V8, its a very heavy car which needs a lot more effort but you did very well. Finally a big shout out to @Tbone and @Janarthan for excellently managing and helping the entire convoy and getting them moving in a smooth manner. Moving forward you all will be joining the Newbie drives and not an Absolute Newbie drive. Drives are announced every Sunday at 11 am, and they go live on Sunday at 7 pm. Due to the high demand, these drives get full in about 10 minutes, so please be online at 7 pm to book your spot. For the next drives, please bring along a deflator, pressure gauge, flag and radio as a minimum. Learn to deflate your tires and checking them precisely Learn to fix a flag on your car Learn to program and fully charge your radio Also like I mentioned during the debriefing, join the Carnity Whatsapp Drive Notification to get the latest updates on the drives, so that you can RSVP on time for the next weekend's drive. Please have a look at below topic which describes the tools needed for every level: Please have a look at below grading structure that explains various off-road levels: See you next weekend on the sand. Till then take care and drive safe.

It's not an issue. But please ensure he is sitting with a seat belt.

Another excellent drive @Emmanuel Great pace and sufficiently challenging. It also showed the importance of checking your rear view mirror for the car behind you as we became detached from the convoy. Note to self, remember to switch back to 4 Hi from 4 Lo, I thought there was something wrong with the traction until I noticed my rookie error. 😲 Thankfully I didn't roast my engine .🙃

If you keep the sand inside it causes vibration at higher speeds, and causes imbalance of the tyres very annoying if you have to drive back to Dubai! Happy to see you got them cleaned! Badayer tyre shops are luckily quick and cheap! Make sure they also balance them after cleaning as sometimes they try to be really “quick”

@Rahimdad Thankyou very much for the kind words. It was my 3rd drive and learned alot from every single driver. And thank you for your advices and tips which helps us alot. @Frederic you are a rockstar. Making us love every bit of it. Looking forward for more rides.. see you when i see you..

@Srikumar an evening well spend on dessert !! Great lead and I had a great time @Frederic as always there to help in any topic . Will see you next week !! Keep safe everyone 👏👏

This is Abu Muhammad from my third home Sharjah. I recently joined the Carnity for learning to drive off road with no prior off roading experience. I drive Toyota Sequoia Platinum, it has been a great family car in the last 3 years and now it’s time to test her off road if She is not going to let me down, I promise to give her a good off road modification treatment in return Inn Shaa Allah.

Angela, it happened to all of us many times. Another classic mistake I still do from time to time: forget the hand break. Once I drove about 3 km trough middle sized dunes with it.

Good plan @Abu Muhammad 😎

@Islam Soliman thanks for joining the drive. You are certainly handling the big Yukon with ever greater ease. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the report, cars' brains are not programmed for off-roading, so that accidents like yours do happen quite often. I hope you can fix the air-bags quickly, and to see you back on the sand soon. You didn't let the incident rattle your driving , which is good (as it wasn't your fault). Also, unfortunately, we were too late to save the gazelle, which had passed away by the time we reached it. I take comfort in knowing we did the best we could under the circumstance, and that probably the little one would have died anyway of its wounds. But thanks for assisting it, and volunteering your car as an "ambulance".

@Srikumar @Tbone @Janarthan You guys were great and need great level of patience to lead and guide. It was amazing experience and looking forward to more drives. Thanks to everyone for being a sport.

Hi @Senthil Kumar no worries, that is perfectly allowed.

@Emmanuel thank you for a fast paced drive , really enjoyed the challenges. All was well climbing the Iftar bowl twice without a drop of sweat, doing the bowls and the crisscrossing. My car had twin pop outs on smallish bushes which caught me by surprise. With the monster 3T jack which@Mels Wolf has we were able to fix them rather quickly.Thank you for this improvisation. Everyone drove really well considering the faster pace and the challenges. Great teamwork from all. https://www.relive.cc/view/vdvmQJdVNxv Opened my wheels and cleaned the sand inside ( attached pictures ). Quite a lot inside the tyres and I wonder what will happen if left inside ?

Thank you,l @topgear yes absolutely that’s the way to gain experience and learn more. so far I have done 2 drives. Just finished one now with @Gaurav in Sharjah Pink Rock.

White The cars prior to that were silver. White or silver is great because of the heat and I do not need to wash it so often compared to a black car

welcome @Abu Muhammad I encourage you to join the drives

@Abu Muhammad Welcome!

Welcome to the club @Abu Muhammad !

My poor Pathy gets washed every passing, so looks golden brown when clean, grey after one week of the annual wash, at some point it just looks white for the rest of the year.

I have always liked the wranglers for its color variety which I agree it suites this toy desert , with respect 🤚, more than any other machine . On the other hand I wouldn’t imagine the same pumpkin for the grand Cherokee where black or white adds to its luxurious touch !

Joined the MM club! The grunter was a mistake. Looking forward to it!

Hi @Abu Muhammad and welcome to this passionate off road community . I hope you enjoy and find all the advice you seek regarding your vehicle from much experienced and friendly leaders in here. cheers and drive safe 🌷🚙 mohamed Seidam

I agree a lot of it is to do with resale value but what it creates is a false market where people buy cars these colours so they can sell them easily, then someone else buys it so they can also sell it easily and so on and so on and it perpetuates a vicious circle that exists for no other reason than to serve its own being.

Watching traffic and contemplating, whatever happened to the time when people chose interesting car colours. All I see is black white grey silver black white grey silver white white grey silver, maybe an odd brown one here and there. Coloured cars are few and far between these days. Even in the upper end of the market anything outside of black white grey is becoming rare to see. So, what colour is your car and why did you choose it?

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@Mukundan Nair did you install ABS kill switch ? regardless I agree with @Gaurav for checking . sometimes even washing can cause this if there is contact ! cheers

Well done @Frederic for taking so much time to share this great off-road knowledge. Very well explained and documented with perfect diagrams and videos. Only thing I like to add for all new offroaders, learn and follow above instructions to the max but never fight the gravity. If you had a bad feeling for any side sloping, criss crossing attempt, exit safely and make another attempt rather than fighting the gravity. Small deviation of track can also cause lot of difficulty and push the car to the soft patch, in that case simply accept the defeat and exit down without fighting with mother nature. Even experienced offroader do have refusal and repeat without any hesitation, that's the real fun and challenge of offroading.