Looper

Congratulations @Talal H on your promotion ! Cheers! 

Somehow I have a feeling the subject is befitting to the drive on offer … Cheers! 

@Matt - monkeywrench I suggest you sign up only when the promotion is announced. Do not worry we will have more than enough space in the convoy if & when you are ready for it. Cheers! 

DRIVE PLAN

In this drive we will test the limits of our capability to endure g-force; starting at 2nd December Cafe in Nazwa and end it near Big Red - Badayer.  We will do countless short, small but intense sidees thought our drive testing our endurance.

There is a high likelihood of motion sickness for passengers as they won't be able comprehend where we are going, as it occurs when one's brain can't make sense of information sent from their eyes, ears and body and they will feel queasy.

IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE THAT EVERYTHING IN YOUR CAR IS PROPERLY SECURED

GENERAL OVERVIEW

We 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: 26 May 2024, Sunday
Meeting time: Be deflated by 6:00 am (Briefing will be from 6:00 am to 6:15 and we will start the drive at 6:15 latest)
Meeting Point: https://maps.app.goo.gl/oruTNyEgbbGL3zwu5
Approximate finish time: 09:30 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.

RECOMENDED OFF-ROAD GEAR:

• Tire deflator & Tire pressure gauge
• Compressor (MANDATORY)
• Walkie-talkie radio (MANDATORY)
• Off-road flag (MANDATORY)
• 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 Saturday - 12 PM.
• 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 THE CALENDAR

The track might look like that of FB+ drive we did in September; but the speed was much higher. The area was pristine; there were not any tracks there; except from some faded ones here and there; so, we had entire area to ourselves. It was a relentless drive and never before that I took a break so early out of exhaustion from driving. There were some very technical areas, but the last bit was especially tough. It is best done at the start of the drive instead towards the end. Great performance behind the wheels by @Jona at the second lead; @Gurcharan Mehta on his first IM, @Batuhan Kulac - he is getting hang of my driving & @Beide Worku at the sweep, who came after a long break but fresh. Thank you all for joining the drive and see you next time looping somewhere in the desert.

Congratulations @Rk ram on your promotion. 

@Gurcharan Mehta, @Batuhan Kulac, @Beide Worku & @Jona hope to see you all tomorrow morning. Since it is a small convoy; I will declare the order tomorrow itself. Please note that we will cruise on Ch 2 tomorrow.

The plan of action would be to end the drive at Tilal Sweihan starting at Fayah. 

23 hours ago, Batuhan Kulac said:

@Looper I feel like this upcoming drive will be last Sunday's drive, reloaded... based on the size of those dunes in Fayah on google maps. 

We will initially see a lot of long-range dunes; they are not very tall but will give us opportunity to be quick, which of course we are going to be. Next, we will have some very tall but narrow dunes. They are super technical and on a hot day very soft as well. They will test us on our skill of not getting stuck. By now we should know where not to apply gas, because if we are not moving forward, we are going down sinking ourselves. 

Please note that there is one lone fuel station on the way that is a bit away from the meeting point. Not many refreshments available there, so stock up before you move from your homes.

The entrance to the meeting place was flooded. Seemed like the water from the great rain did not subside. We struggled a bit to enter to the meeting point. We moved a bit ahead of the meeting point to deflate. The weather was pleasantly chilly at about 20 degrees C. As we entered into the desert it was obvious that the water puddles were from a recent rain event. There has been no off-roading activity in this area for at least since the rain a day or two before and only met one convoy of 2 TJs during our entire drive. We were climbing dunes from standstill like a turbo charged v8 Y61 with 1000 bhp could do; so, it was quite fun to do what we did and then we overdid. By about an hour into the drive, I felt I was tried. The cars could do everything we were trying out, but we were mentally getting tired as it takes a lot of mental effort to those delicate climbs on very narrow paths.  So, we decided to do some technical drive back and that's what we did. 

We did not utter the word "Refusal" even once. There was a refusal, but there was no utterance of the word. An excellent drive by @Batuhan Kulac on hi JK. I was very pleased with him wherever he was driving in the convoy. @Anoop Nair is a seasoned hand at it and loved the noise @Imteeaz was making with his VTC. Thank you all for joining this drive, see you soon once again.

DRIVE PLAN

Have a fast-paced flowing in the tall dunes of Fayah, Abu Dhabi.

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:  Intermediate and above
• When: 19 May 2024, Sunday
• Meeting time:  6:00 AM - Sharp (Without any exceptions)
• Meeting Point: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gyd9yeW3owJGqKNj6
• 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

@Emanuel insta360 X4 is released, so that’s what you want to buy. Buy directly from Insta 360 and add flexicare so that if any damage happens to your camera you can have it repaired for cheap. (I damaged mine last week and had to send it to be replaced). 

@Emanuel here you go, the first 15 min till we lost track of the tail. Click on this Gaia link for the track of this video. We drove 7.80 km in 14:50 min at 31.5 kmph. 

Congratulations @khlief on promotion to Fewbie level. Enjoy 😊 

Congratulations @Jerry Han on your new level. Enjoy 😊.

Congratulations @Ishak on your new level. 

DRIVE DESCRIPTION

Last I drove here, it was almost a year ago. I have been planning to take another stab at it as I couldn't have enough of it. It was a Fewbie Plus drive the last time around and now we are upping the ante. We will do a loop though some technical areas in Nahel Area and exit hopefully where we started.

Due to the weather conditions, it will be super-hot, super soft with lot of push.  Emphasize check your car, to make sure you don’t have any overheating or any mechanical issues in your car. It's going to be a challenging drive, hence please be prepared and lets Loop with Looper!

MUST READ AND COMPLY

• Environmental Policy
• Off-road Flag Guideline
• Two Way Radio Guideline
• Off road Driving Etiquette's
• Emergency details for all off-roaders
• Off Road Driving - Roles & Responsibilities

DRIVE DETAILS

RECOMENDED OFF-ROAD GEAR:

• Tire deflator & Tire pressure gauge
• Compressor (MANDATORY)
• Walkie-talkie radio (MANDATORY)
• Off-road flag (MANDATORY)
• 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 - 12 PM
• 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 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 CALENDAR

A very intense drive. Thank you all who could manage to join this drive. My initial idea was to go to Shuwaib and turn back so that we could end the drive at Badayer Shops. But I got so engrossed looping at the dunes before we reached Iftar Bowl that, this plan was not executable anymore. I did however wanted to go all the way and reach Shuwaib, exactly what we did. We started on the dot at 7:00 am which seemed a bit late due to the temperatures and finished exactly at 9:30 as planned. 

@Emanuel & @Zulfikhar Naiyar you drive very well, kept up with the pace. Behind you were the experienced lot, @Anoop Nair, @Amir Amiri and @Mahmoud Taha - the last two have been on every Badayer drive I have done till now 

Thank you all for one more exciting drive today. See you soon in the next one. 

@Emanuel, @Alphin Aloor, @Zulfikhar Naiyar, @Gurcharan Mehta, @Ranjan Das, @Anoop Nair, @Amir Amiri, @Mahmoud Taha, @Stumpy.

I will be driving for the first time on an Intermediate drive with some of you. The drive plan is to march straight to the end of the desert as fast as we can safely and turn back. In between we will climb all the dunes we encounter. Hope the desert sand has dried up a bit in the meantime. We will plough on Channel 2 and following is the tentative convoy order:

@jinoy it’s an intermediate drive my friend, and you would be driving in Newbie drives now. I am removing you from this one. Suggest join one which is Newbie - there’s one scheduled at Al Fayah on Sunday add yourself to waitlist.

It’s going to be a muddy drive, but let’s try to drive through some seldom used tracks so that we have a bit of decent experience. We will also try to avoid cross tracks as much as possible. Climbing tall dunes should be slightly easier, due to better traction.

Normally we come come via the service road but suggest we take a U turn from a bit ahead of the meeting point, will perhaps be tad bit quicker. 

On 4/30/2024 at 10:11 PM, Derick said:

Have u tried sticking camera inside car at back window for extending car battery life or wiring with usb c coz in sun it drain battery very fast?

Shooting from inside is best done with an action camera (like go pro) - instead of using a 360 camera. I did however once shot and have one video - (actually it was part of a drive) but never got around to editing it.

My jeep from inside is very dark, so the camera will have hard time picking up detail inside. I have seen few videos on Instagram of a Y61 doing this; you can see they keep the moon roof open to let a lot of light in.

With regards to batteries, I have 3/4 batteries that I bring to the drive so I don't have any issues. One battery lasts for about an hour of mixed use and I can very well be done with the drive withing that time.

5 minutes ago, Marek said:

Man of numbers! Respect. I am only missing the fuel consumption stats here.

I have that too.. may be I will do it next in a couple of days.

Taking this opportunity to show more global charts:

1. Which day? This one shows from start on September 25, 2020. As our weekend used to be Friday and Saturday, I have a lot of Friday drives as well. Having said that I was always on a Monday to Friday week since I came to Dubai - now it makes me wonder how I managed so many of them Friday drives 😁 

What time of the day? Clearly Moring and Afternoons.

Number of drives by drive level - I drove a lot at Fewbie level. and very less Fewbie+; till April 2023. Now adding up those Fewbie+ & Intermediate drives to balance them. 

Drives by Driver level: I spent a very little time as Support Team member but a lot at the advisor level, a lot more than what others do or did from my observation. Expert is my current level. 

Drives by Participation role: Obviously a lot more drives as an attendee than in support or lead roles.

Average drives per month: May seems to be my favorite month. Also happens to by my wife's birthday month - I don't know if it has anything to do with my excessive drives.  August is my birthday month 🤣.

number of drive a month. There are a couple of months when participated 10 drives in them and there are 3 months when i took sabbatical.  A couple because I was off and one just because.

Following two are my vehicle analysis:

Car Brands of the participants (excludes my drives)

Car Models by current participants (excludes my drives):

Some analysis of leads (DISCLAIMER: this is my own personal experience and is not a good matrix)

Number of drives by leads (obviously excludes mine) 

Average distance covered and speed. Ale is the king of both.

Average drive time and moving ratio. (Obviously with those leads with whom I have supported a lot of (absolute) newbie drives are going to be slower on average than those with who I have done mostly Intermediate drives.  

1 hour ago, Marek said:

to be fair, @Looper was often replying to you guys while my baofeng (with antenna) was only receiving static. And I was in 2nd position:

- [somebody]: shhh shhs shhs
- [Looper]: copy that, slowing down
- [somebody]: shhh shhs shhs
- [Looper]: it's OK, standing by

 

Interesting… What you are saying is that you were able to hear me but not the guys at the back; while I was able to hear what they are saying. I could often hear and understand their displeasure with my radio 😝. 

It could be some kind of solar flair interaction with our radios.

@Simon D would you like to weigh in?