Islam Hassan

9 hours ago, Gaurav said:

TRIP REPORT

Picture perfect drive with amazing drivers.

When you show up at the meeting point and see almost everyone is on time, your day is made. At least for me, because that tells me a lot about person's mindset and willingness to learn by waking up early and respecting everyone's time, rather than showing up late with a long list of excuses.

That's a very first sign of good and responsible offroader + good team player.

As we started on time, we had enough room to play along on the right side dunes of Pink rock and stop for couple of refusals and stuck. Everyone drove very well and we only had 2 tow rope stuck in the whole drive and couple of minor refusals. Watching the sun rise from dunes and mountain is an amazing sight. While rising sun looks so nice and serene but it start showing its real power within an hour or two, especially when you are offroading, then slight heat is enough to cook the sand and make it super soft and less forgiving. As we start approaching the Pink rock we started seeing different convoys and one of which was SUPER TERRIBLE to sit down together with 10-15 people like pre-covid days and exchanging breakfast - Real scary and irresponsible way in today's pandemic era, where govt's are formalizing the social distancing laws and desert goers are just breaking those laws. Thank fully none of our drivers are like that and everyone behaved very responsibly by staying in the car at all times. Really appreciate it guys.

As we reached the pink rock, fewbie and above had their chance to play along to scale the heights of pink rock and test their skills and vehicle limitations. We had a good playtime and then we descend to the base of pink rock and headed on the left side easy climb with less steep angle. Almost everyone made it on top and enjoyed the beautiful view of the other side of pink rock and headed back down safely. By 9 AM, as planned we all headed back to 2nd Dec cafeteria where everyone gave their positive feedback while inflating.

Thanks @Mohamed Seidam for my second lead and helped in re-routing the convoy responsible. I really admire your precise communication skills which is very comforting for trip lead to rely on.

@Ammar Naji you seem to be enjoying the Ford expedition, very well now and hope you find the permanent solution for side airbags, as it's 99.99% sure that sooner or later your expedition side airbag will get deploy. 

@Islam Hassan it was very nice to see you developing lot of confidence and comfort with your Dodge Ram and manged to follow the track easily without any issues. Keep it up, and you will learn offroading the right way by choosing the right lines than just hitting the gas.

@Ashok chaturvedi it was impressive to see a binocular on your passenger seat, means you really know what you are getting into and respect the nature and sport with utmost caution. You will take few drives to get the hang of your Pajero as sometimes I feel it wasnt listening to your command. As we have tons of Pajero here, I suggest share your struggling points (downshift, less momentum or any other issue) on the Pajero forum and other owners will share their expertise.

@Hatim Patharia its always great to see a smiling face on the drive and I love your creativity with your wrangler to make it look more adventure ready with little detailing and mud splash. Seems you are still learning your wrangler capabilities and understand how to go with flow, just be careful while learning as excessively lifted vehicle offer increase risk due to higher center of gravity.

Thanks @J J for covering the center forward position and congratulations on your first tow rope recovery you did very good. Always maintain the same calm and careful approach while recovering anyone, and you will be good.

@Arun Mathew as I haven't heard much from you on the radio so I assume you were doing good. As we have tons of wrangler here, I suggest share your struggling points (downshift, less momentum or any other issue) on the Wrangler forum and other owners will share their expertise. I feel while long hill climb your wrangler wasn't downshifting to the first gear.

@Newton Rozario love your FJ extreme and how well you manage it, it's one of the best off-road vehicle in stock shape. I totally agree that pace was little slow yesterday but on the other hand @Andrei just behind you in wrangler gave me a feedback that it was too fast. Newbie drives are actually a leveling ground for new off-roaders to sync with the pace as some must have done 1 absolute newbie drive and others must have done 5 newbie drives. So hang on until you get promoted to fewbie level and you will have plenty of moments to cherish your FJC.

@Andrei I have a special respect for manual gear drivers and it was nice to see and drive a wrangler with a stick yesterday. Driving manual car offroad is totally different than on road, as on road half clutch let you have a spin-start, but the same half clutch will bury your tires more deeper in sand. Learn your way to handle the manual gearing and leave the clutch fully as soon as car moves the first inch, initially you will stall few times (everyone does that) and after that you will learn how to play with gas peddle and steering instead of clutch to learn the real art of offroading with stick.

@Ilya Golubinsky as I haven't heard much from you so I assume you are doing good and enjoying your new wrangler and love experimenting the D and tiptronic (which is good). More you experiment, more you will learn the vehicle capabilities and after that you will enjoy it more.

@Sreejith Sreenivasan It's always nice to see how you mange your LR2 with utmost ease and enjoying it thoroughly on all drives. Keep it up and keep a close eyes on everything on your LR2.

@Tero Vallas thank you very much for wonderful and responsible sweep position. Hope you and your daughter has enough thrill and good memories. You Prado is very powerful beast but wrapped in a cosmetic shell, the way you are handling so far with full caution and responsibly is the way to go without damaging front or rear bumper. Keep it up and continue doing the same.

Thank you very much @Gaurav for the detailed report and the useful tips, It was a pleasure to be part of the convoy and have drive experience in Sharjah Pink Rock.Also, I wold like to express my impress of @J J Amazing calm approach during the refusal recovery. Keep it up.
Thanks to the all team for the wonderful day @Mohamed Seidam@Ammar Naji

see you in the next drive 
 

Thanks @Gauravfor the my first enjoyable drive with Carnity and all team under your leading and special thanks for Tuk ..it was externally fun. Thanks @Lisa Pemberton for the nice shoots .Thanks to all team for being patient during usual hiccup occurred in some spots . @Islam Soliman@Kieran McKeown@Veedooshee

See you again on next drive  ! 

@Gaurav Thanks for your guidance ,see you in next drive  

Noted @Denizzalbayrak thanks a lot 

Thanks @Gaurav for guiding and sharing the above useful video and the link for the hitch hook. Also, Thank you for giving me the chance to educate myself on this kinda stuff. I am looking forward to joining the next newbie drives.

Hi everyone, 

It seems from @Gaurav post that the drive was awesome, However, how much I wished to be part of the convoy and enjoying the off-road journey as well but unfortunately, I have been eliminated due to non-compliance of the rear tow hook hitch of my RAM, so next time I shall get all gear ready for the lovely adventure.

See you soon,