Dunes, Dyno, & Deadlines

News about sidecars competing in the Dakar Rally and other enduro related items

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Dunes, Dyno, & Deadlines

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We made another trip to the dunes, but this time it was in Mexico. This was a HUGE place with monster mountain size dunes. Two days of riding gave us some valuable new experiences, much more than can be told here. I'll stick to photo captions. We joined up with several other Dakar competitors and support folks for this trip.

Part of the group at secret base location. A few KTM's, Buggy, and Hummer for support:
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Just the bike guys. Buggy got lost, but later found via radio.
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Kevin Heath took a brief spin with me on the sidecar. This was his first ever ride on a sidecar. LOOks like he's having a FUN time!
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Tire problems again! The large 10 pound chunk of melted plastic from inside the tire is not supposed to look like that. I'll explain some other time. Thanks to Kevin and James for helping us get out of the dunes with our flat tire.
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After the dunes, we put the bike on the dyno for some tuning adjustments. Got 108 horsepower out of this stock V-Rod motor. In some cases we have been getting as low as 10 miles per gallon, so we were looking for more with a better tune. Don't know yet if the mileage improved.
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The sidecar goes onto the boat next week with other Dakar bikes and a support truck for another team. We won't see the sidecar again until late December when we arrive in Portugal a few days before the start of Dakar.

All the preparation for this race is a full time job, and has just about killed me over this past year. DO NOT build something yourself for this race. Just buy one of those "other" orange bikes (2 wheels) and have a fun time!

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The latest official Dakar Newsletter came out recently. It's five pages of assorted news about the upcoming event. The last page is all Hog Wild! Our Press guy is really getting the job done!

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Newsletter - .pdf

Newsletter Pg5 - .jpg
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