BACKGROUND

Why the Dakar?
I have always enjoyed a challenge, particularly the seemingly impossible ones. When I was at school I dreamed of owning my own house, an impossible dream for a 16 year old, but just a few years later, at 20, I did own my own place.
At the age of 17 I dreamed of travelling overland across Africa, This took a little longer to complete but in 1994/5 My girlfriend, Cass, and I took a 1973 long wheel base series 3 Landover from Bath in the UK, to Cape town and onto the southern point of Africa.
Having first seen the Dakar rally raid on Eurosport TV in 1988 I decided that it would be interesting to take part in this, reputedly the hardest Rally in the world. It's all a case of pushing myself to the limits and beyond in order to learn more about life. During the Dakar rally it is common for 50% of the entrants to fail to reach the end and most years there is one fatality. I intend to be one of the entrants that can ride onto the podium at the end of two weeks of gruelling riding and say that I have completed the Dakar.
TV + press coverage of the event is normally huge with broadcasts in over 15 countries and hundreds of web sites dedicated to the rally. As UK entrants are not common (only 5 in the 2002 rally) they are often picked out by the British media and gain good status on both TV and paper publications.
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Suzuki...
I got my first bike when I was 7 years old. A 125cc Suzuki dirt bike made from something else. We never did know exactly what this bike started life as but I had many years of enjoyment out of it. I'd ride it around our large garden/field trying little jumps and other such things. The bike stayed with me until I was 15 when it was sold for the princely sun of £80 which paid for my first road bike, a Honda MT5.

My first Bike.

My father was a Builder and we had a few Acres in our back garden that I used to ride and practice trials in. Even when not riding the Motorbike we were on push bikes and we were constantly trying new tricks, such as six on a bike or the longest jump and riding backwards etc.
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1984 Honda XL600.
I purchased this machine in March of 1999 in order to get some off road experience in the run up to my Dakar attempt. Being an old trail bike that was never meant to seriously compete off road it was a serious handful. It was terribly heavy and had completely the wrong gearing for off road work but it did the job and was cheap to buy. I would travel to and from work using green lanes where ever I could and any other off road sections that I could add in. Being a heavy machine it certainly built up my stamina and showed me just how much hard work was involved in dirt bike riding.

My Practice Bike

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1999 Husqvarna WR250.
This machine was bought as an upgrade from the XL in February 2002. I'd done enough on the XL to prove to myself how much work might be involved and the XL was now looking very tired. I've gained enough knowledge from the XL that riding the Husky is much simpler. Watch the news section to see how I'm getting along on this machine along
with this new ride.

My Current bike.

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