Looper

“Your focus determines your reality.” —Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Today I observed one of the longest time in Radio Silence, which only indicated that everyone was really focused and was enjoying the drive. A great drive @Wrangeld, thanks a lot. @Niki was fantastic in the sweep as well as @varunmehndiratta was phenomenal in the 2nd lead, great job buddy. I had a 3 refusals, which were on account of me missing the line while crossing over the ridges, which were all obviously taking a one full circle back to the line and crossing over. @Watteau you were behind me, do you have any observations as to what I might have been doing wrong. I must confess that somehow still I don’t like criss-crossing the ridges. I think its weird to have such a dislike - who does that?

I have Orient Takaful, came free with the Jeep when i bought it and i have been renewing. They have honoured the claim i had last year. Haven't compared with anyone but this year added all the upgrades to my car (eg. rear bumper, lights and compressor) to the value of the car.

Yes it is sand, happened right after the drive. I was thinking I'd take it to the car wash where they have high pressure air, which might have cleaned the sand. But foolishly took it to service centre. I have to kick myself for that may be...

After last week's drive I pressed the rear defrost button unattentively and it got stuck on the "On" position because of sand. It is causing not only to AC to not work but blowing hot air inside the cabin as the front defrost is also getting activated. I tried but failed to pry it out and took it to a off-brand service centre mentally deliberating whether I should have taken it to the service centre. The off brand person advised me to take it to the official service centre, so I did. My Jeep has been at the service centre since Saturday morning, and they are trying to figure out some jugad or something to rectify it. As usual their first intention was to replace the entire switch panel, but they don't have any here and it will take months to order one here. Apart from ranting, the purpose of my post is to ask what could I have done differently.

My drives journey has hit a milestone. I have scored half century this past Friday. While my drive count shows 51 on the forum - I was absent on one afternoon drive, which was my 2nd drive of the day. These are a snapshots of my drives till date. Looking forward to many many more. Any and all criticisms are welcome.

Desert driving is always a learning process, it never ends. I had a good run at criss-crossing on Friday as was promised by @Kailas - and thanks for a wonderful drive. I too had a 2-3 minor refusals but nothing I couldn't recover myself from and @varunmehndiratta behind me was of considerable help guiding me whether I wanted or not 😁. Towards the end though the terrain became bit difficult as the sand became very loose due to the heat. A big shout out to @Dodi Syahdar for all the hard work you put in, at the Sweep end of the convoy. I got the way 4 hose from the same place you got. I had known them before but wasn't sure about them, but thanks to you I was now confident to buy one from them, it was promptly delivered COD next day.

My Rear and front defrost buttons got stuck, which is causing the AC not to work plus hot air being pumped into the car. I tried my best but I was unable to do anything about it. I have vacated the drive as it would be unbearable for me to be able to drive without ac.

@Kailas Please waitlist me for my 2nd drive of the week.

@Srikumar My tires are 245/75/17s, yes they are AT. Bridgestone Dueler A/T. I have been told by the service center that the tires have unevenly worn out, I assume it is a by product of driving in the desert.

On the way to achieving the quest of reaching 1 km in ascent, recording of the drive on my car said we did it and then did some more. 1.644 km to be precise. Thanks a lot @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the drive. It was an unrelenting drive, and towards the end the heat affecting the car and I getting a bit tired caused a couple of refusals. A big thanks to @Alexander Alcala for guiding me out of them. @Alexander Alcala you mentioned I fishtail a lot. I explained to you that due to the lower clearance of my stock car coupled with stock tires cause me to scoop sand and I loose momentum. That is my assessment, but could there be any other reasons? Also a big thanks to @Shaaz Sha and @Hisham Masaad for the support roles. @Javier Lucero, you did well as the second lead.

update: The clinic gave me an test ID number and said should call DHA to ask them to update the app. But gentleman at DHA advised me that the Turnaround time is 30 hours within which the DHA will update the App. I had my test done yesterday evening and got the negetiv test result in the morning. Did the test at a private clinic because it is near my house in walking distance.

My COVID test results are not showing up on the App, I am trying to resolve it. I am trying to call AlHosn app help line which is turning on some kind of podcast like message and also trying the clinic. Can anyone let me know what I should do?

@Kailas can you place me in waiting list ?

I am in. Thanks a lot @Islam Soliman

Please waitlist me for this drive. It will be my 2nd one.

Does anyone have Gaia GPS stats for this drive?

@Ale VallecchiThank you very much!

@Ale Vallecchi if there is any spot available I would like to join this drive. This will be my 2nd drive for the week.

It’s gorgeous clip. Download Garmin VIRB application, and open this clip. You might be able to add some cool gauges. I was not successful becauseI think I recorded at full 2.7k, which is not supported perhaps.

Did I not hear that before? I was trying to keep enough distance to not break the momentum but yet not too far away that I loose track of the lead, and the terrain did not help. I try to anticipate the moves made by the lead and try to keep up but those technical dunes made it a bit difficult to judge sometimes. The terrain was a deceiving one as mentioned by @Lorenzo Candelpergher in the beginning of the drive and was made abundantly clear by my many refusals. The sand would look compact only to be discovered that is it smoother than baby powered, and I would find myself having a situation that I would eventually get out anyways. I enjoyed the drive every bit as much as all of us did. Normally the intermediate drives are fast, and one might not find any time to take any photographs, but not this one. A few I took are in the gallery.