Looper

following is the convoy order. we will be on channel 6

Following you behind

Is it? I am here

No worries. I will rather think about the tail of the convoy.

my glove collection. There is one more, the first one I bought initially to handle the hot compressor a cheap 5 AED one. Let me see if I can get hold of it I will share its pic as well.

I present to you my latest video which from last week's Fewbie Plus drive at Al Fayah, Abu Dhabi. My videos are best enjoyed on a TV rather than phone or computer screens and this one more so. I was finding it difficult to use phone for recording on my Insta360 X3 action camera while leading the drive as well, so I got myself a remote. The side benefit of the remote is that it records the GPS data to the video as well. Well a phone does to but it was buggy. I was able to add few widgets with Telemetry Overlay on the video. This was the first time I used the camera mount bracket attached to the flagpole mount. I hope you enjoy the video, it is a musical as well - and if you do, as all You-Tubers say: Like and Subscribe ☺️

This is the most appropriate gas station. Yalla Let's go. Weirdly enough I have some furniture delivery at my office at 1 am. I will have to start after that.

Congratulations @Bashar Beasha on your promotion. Well done!

Some time back I was in India and tried to drive a stick shift. god oh god how miserably I failed. I drove stick for 20 years before I came to Dubai.

@Gaurav calls the drive Razeen but the entire planning needs to be done for Al Qua. Normally that involved us reaching the evening prior and having a nap at the desert and may be loose an iPhone or two in the process.

Just a cautionary note that for the last 90 km or so the drive towards the end will be in complete darkness as there are no lights there on that road reaching the meeting point in this direction. My plan involves avoiding jerry cans. If not, then this is the way to go. In the other way it's about 60 km in darkness. For most parts, it's an 80-100 km road but very few radars. In the other side it is a 140km road in Abu Dhabi except from a small section in Al Ain town.

What is your fulling plan? make a round of Al Qua?

@Pacific, @Deepak Eswar, @Juan R, @Mahmoud Taha, @Juzer Gandhi, @Haneef Thayyil, @Bjoern Thank you all for signing up for this drive. Winter is almost here; I could see the early morning winter fog today while driving to the office. But I think it will be another week before it is going to have winter temperatures. For this week expect it to start at 28-29 degrees and by the time we finish it should be around 35 degrees. When I was here last time a couple of weeks ago, I found this area technically challenging yes, but did not find this area to be super soft as I anticipated. We drove on a track that would take us to the Last Exit, but the area is so bushy towards the later part of the drive that we were just trying to find sand and drive. This time around, however, we will spend a lot more in the sandy technical dunes and then go towards north and trace our way back to the Bab Al Shams exit near the cycle track. It won't be a long drive and we will be exploring every bit of the small patch of sand and increasing the pace as we keep driving in this area. Just a mid-week reminder that you make sure that your calendars are free to drive this week and there are no planned late-night activities causing you to have emergencies exits from the drive late in the night.

This means that I need to take E95. I will start after I have dinner and go there. take an hour of nap in the car somehow. It is going to be Epic. BTW last time we did a drive there at Al Qua, I and @GauravSoni stopped at a Mandi Restaurant at Al Quaa and had a good feast and took an hour of nap before we started from there. It was quite relaxing TBH.

Nissan Sunny GTR, go vroooom Nissan Sunny tow package. What is it going to tow? Source: r/dubaipetrolheads in reditt

DRIVE PLAN The objective of the drive is to learn how to avoid refusals. This area, being super technical with uneven dunes, will give us a lot of situations where we find ourselves facing refusals or worse a stuck. We will start our drive from Bab Al Shams with a brief on why and how refusals happen, why those refusals turn into stucks and how to avoid them. We will also try to find some nice dunes and practice ridge riding and crisscrossing. After that, we will enjoy a drive that will take us back to where we started. Request every member that joins this drive to go through the information below and strictly follow these guidelines, etiquette, and responsibilities. MUST READ AND COMPLY Environmental Policy Offroad Flag Guideline Two Way Radio Guideline Off road Driving Etiquettes Emergency details for all off roaders Off Road Driving - Roles & Responsibilities DRIVE DETAILS Level: Fewbie and above When: 24 September 2023, Sunday Meeting time: 6:00 AM - Sharp (Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: https://goo.gl/maps/f782dd5PLRj9sRV36 Approximate finish time: 9:30 AM 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, enthusiasm, and willingness to learn. MANDATORY OFF-ROAD GEAR: Tire deflator & Tire pressure gauge Compressor Walkie-talkie radio Off-road flag Shovel, Tow Rope & 2 Shackles First-aid kit Fire extinguisher LIMITED SPOTS AVAILABLE This drive is limited to 10 cars only. RSVP will close on Friday If the RSVP is full, you can add your name to the waitlist, once anyone drops, you will be moved to the RSVP list. RSVP will close a day prior to preparing a convoy list. Latecomers will be returned - Without any exceptions. Members without RSVP will be returned - 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 BELOW CALENDAR

I have a small poll on this post appended to the first drive post at the beginning of the thread request participants of the drive to respond to it. Please keep reading the Drive Report to learn more. Drive Report: Encouraged by my previous drive a couple of weeks ago I wanted to redo it again as an easy drive. I even tried to change the track a bit to make it even easier; but we were mostly driving on the same track as last time. As it turned out, in the end it was anything but easy. There were some initial hiccups for sure, it was a good learning experience; I hope for everyone. While at every break and at every refusal I kept telling myself and the team that it is going to be easy next - that easiness seemed elusive for most part. There was a section where we could drive effortlessly and at a fast pace in between wide-open dunes but soon we ended up in a technical area. After the first few refusals and the couple of breaks it seemed we would have had to extend the drive a bit if we were to finish at Lisaili. When I saw that we were on a track that was going towards Qudra, I decided that it would be better for us to exit at Qudra on time rather than go to Lisaili and extend the drive. I have a survey question in this regard my decision on ending the drive when I did. What is your opinion on it? The Learnings: One important lesson we have learnt today is that one should sense if one's car is moving or not in a stuck situation and decide how much gas they must give. A simple formula for it is: Is the car moving? Yes - yes, then give gas No - no, don't give much gas because the car will dig itself and make the situation worse. But in either case the RPM must be about 1500 not more. Another thing that we also experienced & hopefully learnt is that one must feel the sand under one's car, and if it seems soft on the wheels, then must give more gas, but avoid getting stuck, if one does get stuck or has slowed down significantly then avoid giving any more gas. In the first refusal where we had 3 cars get stuck, what did we do? We reversed and then tried again. Often reversing from a stuck position helps becuase, the car gets out of the churned-up sand that is stopping it in front of the tires plus the car moves to a cleaner patch of desert. Reversing also has more torque that helps to move the car a bit more easily than going forward even in first gear. After reversing, look for a clean track and move slowly at first and then floor the gas to get out of the patch. Credits: The Jeep gang had a remarkable drive except for just one refusal where we had to pull @Deepak Eswar from a crested position. @Ben Williams love to see your TJ doing its magic in every drive. Thank you @Juan R for an excellent 2nd lead and you were perfect. The Pajero gang and just one refusal at the start but with @Ishak opening the account but thereafter it was smooth sailing. @Srilakshman Karthikeyan - you had a great drive. In the Xterra mafia, @Zulfikhar Naiyar - you have shown your expertise with the car and the terrain. @Sreenath G after the initial hiccup where you too got stuck behind Ishak, you drove well in the rest of the drive. Also, thanks for the sweets in the first break. I realized it is a tradition to offer sweets when you have a new car. Hope by the end of the drive you have become a bit more comfortable with the manual gears. The FJ gang had one new Fewbie with @Shiju Raju and you too faced the first batch of refusal. and thereafter it was mostly smooth sailing for you. I will look forward to seeing you in many more drives in the future. @Johannes Roux you too had almost a perfect drive. It so happens that FJs do get stuck unnecessarily where others are having a break. I had this experiance first hand from yesterday when the FJ somehow decideded that it is too soft and it should get stuck when we were having a break. I would like to take this opportunity to thank @Rob S and @Imran Asghar for their support to the drive. I could not have done this without your help at the back.

From Qudra to Lisaili on Sun Sep 17, 2023