Dakar Diary: Brutal reality begins to set in

Bisha, Saudi Arabia – Jan 3, 2025

Although I’ve raced in the Dakar Rally before, this year is all new for me in the Original By Motul category as I have no support crew.

I’ve had a few bike problems that I only managed to get sorted out last night before this morning’s prologue.

And we’ve had some sandstorms the past three nights which have filled my tent and all my gear with sand.

I’ve given up cleaning it out as it fills up again in 30 minutes. I’ve got 8000km of sand over the next two weeks so a little bit more in my tent won’t matter!

The bivouac is bloody massive. It’s a small town that has to cater for 4000 competitors and support staff. Unless you can witness it in person it’s hard to imagine something built this size and dismantled every few days and re-built in a new location.

Despite what’s happened over the past few days, and for the first time in my life being nervous and anxious, I managed to get a good night’s sleep.

Today’s Prologue was only a short 79km in total with 29km being timed. I was the 75th bike away.

The route was quite rocky and tight in some sections and I’m having issues with the new digital road book. It sits on an angle that’s difficult for me to read, and I almost have to be sitting down to read it which I rarely do on the bike. It’s something I will no doubt get used to over the coming days. So, I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks and rode a lot slower today.

My simple goal for the race is just to finish each day safely and manage the bike and my body as best as I can. I was happy to get through prologue without any problems, albeit a lot slower than I would have liked.

There wasn’t much to do on the bike after Prologue other than checking everything is tight and ready for the real action which begins at 5am in the morning (1pm AEDT time).

Stage 1 is about 500 km long with a 413 km timed special stage. From the briefing notes it looks like there’s some very fast sections.

The last two nights have been quite cold. I will be putting on some warm clothes to sleep in tonight.