Lorenzo Candelpergher

No worries @Islam Soliman, get well soon. There will be plenty of other mid-week morning drives 😉

No problem, keep us posted. Fingers crossed.

Dear @Ranjan Das, sorry to hear you won't make it for Wednesday. @Dodi Syahdar, you are in. Waitlisted are, in order of priority, @PaoloMaraziti, @Lawrence_Chehimi and @Werno.

Great learning experience @Shehab Alawadhiand thanks for sharing it so candidly. It shows your commitment to grow as an offroader and confirms even more that the positive consideration that you have earned from me and surely other Advisors is definitely well placed. Kudos!

Hi @Werno, you are the 4th waitlisted after @Dodi Syahdar, @PaoloMarazitiand @Lawrence_Chehimi

Dear @Lawrence_Chehimi, sure, you are the 3rd waitlisted after @Dodi Syahdar and @PaoloMaraziti

Hi @Darren Brooke, in consideration of the fact that you had responded to the RSVP more or less at the same time when you were being promoted, in second thought I think it is fair that your are added to the drive as 11th attendee, as an exception. See you in Wednesday!

Hi @Darren Brooke, first of all congratulations are in order for your promotion. As per my above messages, you are currently the 1st waitlisted for the drive as the RSVP is full. In previous midweek drives there has always been at least a couple of attendees pulling back, so I am quite confident you will have a chance to join.

Dear @Pmaraziti, you are the 3rd waitlisted, after @Darren Brooke (promoted!! congrats) and @Dodi Syahdar

Hi @Dodi Syahdar, you are the 2nd waitlisted after @Darren Brooke (subject to his promotion to Fewbie level)

Dear @Darren Brooke, I appreciate your enthousiasm, but at the moment you are not yet ranked as Fewbie, so I have removed you from the RSVP. Should you obtain your promotion before Tuesday 9am and should there still be an opening in the RSVP, you will be more than welcome to join. Meanwhile you are the 1st waitlisted (subject to promotion). If not, there will be plenty of other opportunities. I hope you understandn that Carnity ranking structure is implemented to ensure your safety and that of the other participants to each drive.

Drive Brief Some start their day jogging in the park, others swimming in the pool. This drive is designed for those who want to energize their Wednesday with a short desert blitz, starting at dawn, 5:45AM. Starting from Sayh al Salm Roundabout, near to Last Exit Al Qudra, we will enter straight away an area with long range dunes and we will keep on riding them, with endless sideslopes, straight-up / straight-down crossings and occasional easy-going criss-crossing, if the convoy be up to the task, until time for an exit on the Bab Al Shams dirt track will come, by 8:45AM, hopefully leaving us all re-energized and ready for a fruitful working day. General Infos This drive is organized in full compliance with the COVID19 guidelines. We expect every member that joins this drive to go through below information and and strictly follow these guidelines in order not to jeopardize someone's health, and to ensure we can keep organizing these drives safely. MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: COVID19 Precautions MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: Ban Post TWO WAY RADIO GUIDELINES Every Off-roader brings his own radio, programmed to the frequencies described in below advice topic. We will not share spare radios or program your radio on the drive. If you need assistance in programming the radio, post a topic on the Carnity website with your questions and we will help you out. Make sure your radio is fully charged. It will be your only way of communication while driving. Before buying, please carefully read below advice so you are informed properly on which model / cost / shops... No radio = No drive. It is an essential tool and you should make sure you bring it on every drive and learn/practice how to use it. SUGGESTED READING: Carnity Two Way Radio Frequencies MUST WATCH: NEWBIE VIDEO BRIEFING Drive Details Level: Fewbie and Above (All Levels) When: 28 Apr 2021, Wednesday. Meeting time: 5:45 AM (SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: Sayh al Salm Roundabout - https://goo.gl/maps/6rYD28XzLS8xeHe9A Type of Car: Any proper 4x4 with front and back tow hooks and 8-10 inches of ground clearance. What to bring along: Loads of water, snacks (for yourself), smiles, face mask, rubber gloves, enthusiasm, willingness to learn and your own compressor for tire inflation. Approximate finish time: 8:45 AM End Point: Bab Al Shams Limited Spots Available: Limited to 10 cars only. RSVP will close on Tuesday - 9 AM. If the RSVP is full and you wish to join, please mention your name on the drive thread to add on the waiting list. Latecomers will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Members without RSVP will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Please withdraw your RSVP, if you aren't joining, so your spot can be taken by others. Repeated no-show members after RSVP will have their account suspended for a month. PLEASE RSVP ON THE BELOW CALENDAR EVENT

DRIVE REPORT Dear Desert Wanderers, This drive may have not reached as far is was planned, but certainly we climbed to the highest points we were meant to reach. We entered the sand by 6:15am and immediately headed towards Area 53. With the sun still low on our left, the pyramid-like dune was a majestic view, as we progressively approached it from the south west side. Here's a view from the top, (no, the number plate is not falling off, it's the fisheye lens effect!): Unfortunately, Area 53 is as beautiful as it is challenging and after just 25 mins in the drive, half way to the top of the dune, @amir amiri had the first pop-out of the day. It wasn't an easy one to fix as the giant tire of the RAM 1500 wouldn't seal properly until @amir amirihad the brilliant idea to keep in place the bottom part of the tire with the aid of a snatch rope. When we started to move again, we managed to climb again not far from the top of Area 53, then set and set our bearing to south west, pointing at Sohail Dune. The sand was very soft and very, very churned up, a sign of how popular Area 53 is, which also means, unfortunately, that it is very very crowded... In fact today we met five different convoys and two of them crossed our paths multiple times. Despite the difficult terrain, the landscape was beautiful and, as we moved away from the most popular routes, we started to find more virgin dunes and I must say it wasn't easy to choose the route, as every ridge and every crest were calling for my tires to leave the first marks of the day. Today's drive was all about momentum. Climbing these great dunes can be exciting and give a great sense of accomplishment, but it can also be very frustrating if the car in front of you struggles and you are forced to slow down, sacrificing your precious momentum.. As the climbing wasn't easy we indeed had several refusals and a few stucks, which took a bit more of our time, but overall the convoy's response was great. @amir amiri, in 2nd lead for almost 2 hours, had certainly a tough experience in his first Intermediate drive. The pace, the speed and the technical complexity, all combined, challenged him a lot, but he came through well. It will be only with practice that his hesitation at this new driving level will fade away and he will develop the sensibility of what his tires can take and what it takes to avoid pop-outs.. @Arman was the star of the day. Today's drive was way more difficult than the last Fewbie one we did toghether on Feb 26th in this area, but he showed a great improvement in his driving skills and managed his car superbly in almost all situations. @Hisham Masaad had to fight his underpowered own car until he figured out he was driving in ECO mode. Since then things got much better, even if - from time to time - the churned up sand gave him some hard time. @Mario Cornejo today finally found enough challenge for his Patrol Y61 to get eventually stuck. This was, I believe, his first stuck ever in Carnity.. In a way, this was a memorable drive! @Goutam was hitching to drive. During recoveries, wherever there was enough space, he would roam around in his yellow Wrangler restlessly, anxious as a father waiting for the delivery of his newborn. I'll take it as a sign he really enjoyed the drive and he couldnt wait to get more of it. @Shehab Alawadhi was having great fun and driving excellently well, as far as I could see, until he was forced to leave the drive ahead of time. @GauravSoni was often in search of his own lines today, as - understandably - with so many cars in front the tracks of the convoy were deep and churned up. As always, this small rerouting some times works out well, some others a bit less, but it was - I am sure - a lot of fun. @Shaaz Sha, now driving a Nissan X-Terra and not anymore a Jeep Wrangler SWB, held swiftly the last Intermediate position in the convoy. His long experience within Carnity today shined. Just half way through our approach to Suhail Dune, @Shehab Alawadhiunfortunately noticed his front right tire was losing pressure, a problem that had apparently surfaced in a previous drive. After a good 20 mins fighting with the crazy bolts on his wheel, we were just ready to replace it with the spare, only to discover that the release mechanism of the spare wouldn't work... It was then unavoidable the decision to escort @Shehab Alawadhi to the nearest exit point on the west side, along the dirt track leading back to Tawi. After greeting our unlucky friend, we took another dive in the dunes, making our way to the top of Suhail Dune, reaching which always gives great satisfaction. At this point @markshad moved in 2nd lead and @Jeepie was our new sweep. We then had a very nice stint, approx 30 mins, riding really nice, almost virgin, ridges as we slowly made our way towards Iftaar Bowl. It was not far from there that @amir amiri had his 2nd pop-out. This time, the lesson learned from the first one allowed to fix it fairly quickly. Unfortunately, by the time we were back in movement, our time was over. We made our way to Iftaar Bowl, where everyone made a single attempt to the top, where only @Goutam made it with me, and then quickly exited on the tarmac by 10:15am on the east side, towards Hatta Rd. Overall we drove for 3h 55', of which only 2h 15' moving and 1h 40' stopped. We covered 41 km, against the approx 70 that had been planned, with an average moving speed of 18.2km/h and a total ascent/descent of 440 / 520 m. We didn't make it to Shuwaib, but it was in any case a nice and challenging drive. I'm sure, even if we didn't have the chance to go along all the crests we were supposed to, the drive was still worth the title, as for most of the time we were at very high points, with nothing than the sky higher than us. Congratulations to everyone for getting through this challenging drive, especially the newly promoted Intermediates. A great thanks to @marksand @Jeepie for their great support.

Fixed thanks. It is 6am.

Dear Desert Wanderers, this RSVP is now closed. Please find the convoy order here below: @amir amiri, @Arman, @varunmehndiratta, @Hisham Masaad, @Mario Cornejo, @Goutam, @Shehab Alawadhi, @GauravSoni, @Shaaz Sha, @marks this drive is going to be extremely technically demanding, both mentally for the drivers than mechanically for the cars, as we are going to climb some high and complex dunes and to drive through some long stretches of technical ones, with little or no time to relax, all of this while covering quite a long distance. This drive will require your full and undivided concentration at every step, so make sure you come well rested and well hydrated (especially those who will be fasting) and you don’t have any reason for being distracted. Also, please consider carefully if you wish to bring passengers along with you. We will be using Carnity Channel 3 (446.05625MHz). See tomorrow morning, ready to go (i.e. already deflated, flagged and briefed) by no later 6:00am (sharp), so make sure you make it to the meeting point at least by 5:45am, so that you have enough time for your preparations.

No problems @imranaasghar81, it will be for another time. @Tariq Carrimjee, you are the next waitlisted. Are you going to participate? Pls confirm

Hi @Ilya Golubinsky I'll remove you, no problem. It wil be for another time. @Shaaz Sha, if you are still interested, pls confirm, as you are the 1st waitlisted for the drive.

@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?

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.

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 an 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 certainly came home with a series of good ideas to make it better next time. We hit the sand at 5:54am, 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 as everyone has a job waiting at the end, 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, possibly briefed and ready to go. We were just 700 meters into the drive when @Islam Soliman announced his pop-out. The sign was clear and 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 in front of him. @Antoz was also a relatively fresh Fewbie but managed his Prado extremely well. @Werno was totally relaxed in 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. @Lawrence_Chehimi 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. @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. In the end, I collected a few scratches on front and rear bumper, tested the Rubicon sway bar disconnection, and, indeed, 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 Solimanto take his partial lead, as he deserved at least a good full hour for himself. We soon exited the long range dunes where we had spent so much time 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 non-trivial trajectories for us to follow. Well 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 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 in order to reach 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 and thanks to @Islam Soliman, @Ahab Shamaaand @GauravSoni for their precious support.

Sorry to hear that @Paul Zeitoun. It will be for another time.

Not too important, as luckily no one was at the meeting point this morning at 5:45am, but fixed. Thanks

Thank you for letting us know @Rawad Bahsas, I hope you can make it in the end.

Fixed