To start Motorcycles journeys deep into the deserts or even just camping on the side of the road, camping skills and good equipment are a must. My first hiking/camping experience was a very uncomfortable one. I believe that most of all campers had similar trend in the learning curve. In other words it is normal to start with a very bad experience and then as you do more trips you get to know more the value of things.
- Getting all the essentials for camping: sleeping bag, Rug sack, tent or hammock, Foam pad, toilet paper, tooth brush, whistle, sun block, flash light, ect..
- Never take things that will not be used to minimize load that would be carried.
- Try to get the right sleeping bag according to the season.
- Wearing the right clothes. This is also explained the next point.
- Staying in the area for one night before going deep in the desert to know exactly how the weather will be. Also to prepare your body by walking or cycling around the area and finally to finish off all the toiletries needed. As much as all of this is important physically, it is also very important for mental preparation.
- Minimizing used space by using compressing straps and multi purpose tools.
- Taking the right amount of water in the right type of container.
- Packing a minimal 1st aid kit
Thinking about camping in general it is mainly all about perfecting comfort in very remote areas. Hiking is a step further, which requires more skills but with the same concept of perfecting comfort. Therefore it is most commonly known to have a bad experience camping or hiking on most of all first attempts. That is what makes the whole thing a challenge. In other words, all campers are challengers who like to be part of nature no matter how harsh it may be. This is to witness its beauty and be enriched by it.
Moving on to Motorcycle equipment, now this differs from one to the other by many aspects. The motorbike itself defines its necessities as for tools and spare parts. I don’t have much experience in this area as all my motorcycling trips were not backed up mechanically whatsoever. Even if I would have had a flat tire I would have to go for the rescue plan, which would be either to walk or stay.
I have done 3 off-road trips so far and they were always just me and my bike. That means no instant help when needed. In order to do so I needed to make plans for any problem that I might encounter.
Planning Safety:
- Trips are very short, as long as I am doing trips by myself, they cannot take longer than one day.
- To always tell at least a friend where I am, in case of an accident or so. Therefore if the bike breaks or some problems leave me stuck in the desert, someone out there would know and would come looking for me. (Have to tell someone near)
- That leads to one thing, that's to stick to the plan that I had given to this friend.
- Wide scotch tape is one important item that could be very useful.
A motorcycle was like a bliss making discovery much faster and as enjoyable. Unfortunately other preoccupations and things to put in consideration came along. So at the end it is just a different style to travel. I don't have a GPS, so I travel the old fashion way. Sinai seams to be a place where it would be really easy to learn how to navigate. There are many land marks everywhere which can be easily identified according to maps. Actually there are so many land marks that this might be probably why people might get lost. Still, Sinai is an easier place to navigate which is much better than the western desert where it's just sand and more sand 360 degrees around.
This trip was my first off-road motorcycling experience in Sinai. I Left my friends at Dahab, gave them a copy of my Google maps and told them that I should be out at the other side near Nuweiba right after sunset.
The Route taken shown below in dotted black
This trip was composed of two parts - Wadi Kudr and Wadi Ghazala. The map below shows only the first part, Wadi Khudr. Following the entire Yellow dotted path displayed on the map would lead to Ein Khudr which is an Oasis and the starting point where people visit the white canyon. The plan was to make it all the way till the oasis and have a sneak view at the start of the canyon.
This sandy area on the right is where Wadi Khudr begins
I started off following a sandy hard terrain. Very briefly this track was to an end and the fine sand area followed all the way till the end of the first 10 Km. The tricky parts of off-road motorcycling navigation is composed of many aspects.
Fine sand means you have to keep the motor running at a high RPM which means relatively fast. If you are going fast you need to be looking very far ahead in front of you to be able to avoid traps. Car tracks are considered traps as they may shift the bike in a tricky way making you fall off the bike. Looking at those car tracks more closely from a biker's point of view, they consist of 2 parallel carved tracks and a small bump in between separating them. The problem is simply when going from one lane to the other and having to cross this small bump.
The bump is small, but the problem is that the bike is going parallel to it. It's as if going very close and parallel to a pavement and suddenly wanting to hump on the pavement. This is a difficult task which requires experience. The small bump is made out of all the accumulations of small particles that flew to the sides of the carved tracks made by the car wheels. Therefore it is usually deep fine sand or deep penetrating accumulations... Crossing this small bump creates a sudden heavier resistance on the handlebars and also shifts the front wheel to unwanted directions. This move must be taken with agility creating harmony in the balance.
The upper body movement is very important to keep the balance in such situations. Unconsciously and most of the time upper body reflexes are in continuous action trying to keep the balance. I believe that is one thing about what rally bike riders mean by mental endurance.
All bikers prefer to ride on untouched land but the problem is that it is not always the case in Sinai. Unlike the western desert, it is sometimes very hard to go on a path other than the car track. Those cases are when valleys are just too dense with big stones making it much simpler to ride in the car tracks and having to put up with its dangers. Other than looking on the track, looking around for one aimed landmark(s) is another task that must be done. Once a landmark is reached it has to be relatively right with the monitored distance traversed.
Right before my turning point my target was to find this red circled place. It seamed like a nice and easy to spot landmark. Therefore expecting to see it after a number of Km and knowing that very close by it is the end of Wadi Kudr, my turning point and also the continuation of Wadi Ghazala.
I stayed for brief rest at this place eating a snack and refreshing with a juice.
Jumped back on my bike and very shortly 2 Km away I had arrived at the point where Wadi Ghazala has a turning point. Either go according to plan towards Ein Khudr direction south or continue towards the other tarmac exit all the way through Wadi Ghazala. Time was against me as I had to be out of the desert on the tarmac before sunset to be able to at least phone my friends and tell them that I am OK to cancel the rescue plan. Finally I decided to leave Ein khudra's plan behind for another trip and to continue North-East in Wadi Ghazala to the exit.
This was the turning point, the part where I had to go south west towards the Khudr oasis but didn't and continued North.
Looking North towards Wadi Ghazala from the same turning point.
North East directly to the second part of the trip, Wadi Ghazala Shown below. I assumed that going to the oasis and back to Ghazala would take a long time and I didn't want the night to come while I was still in the desert. I had in mind that I had told my friends in Dahab to come look for me if I wasn't out by sunset.
The second part of the trip (shown on the map above), is Wadi Ghazala. The Wadi took a long time to finish although it is about the same distance as the first one. It was really exhausting. At the beginning of Wadi Ghazala the terrain suddenly changed from fine sand to gravel which i like to call stony sand.
What I mean by stony sand is very small stones like big gains of sand. Going fast would still make the front wheel drift. These stony grains (gravel) slide over each other very easily making the front wheel sink not very deep, but very fast which causes sudden difference in resistance and even change in direction acceding to its preferred molding direction. Going too slow doesn't change the physics and would still make it difficult. Having to fight all those drifts in slow-motion is a very good workout but it stresses the body. That’s why I would recommend to bring many snacks as resting is key to keep up. After a while a trend starts building up and seeing small differences in the same track which allow you to understand it better. Bit by bit, I got to know when to slow down and when to speed up.
A nice website describing how to ride motorcycles on gravel: http://www.whybike.com/motorcycle229.htm
Just knowing very well when to slow down and when to speed up, felt like an invitation to pushing limits and expanding those ranges. That's when off-road felt like a rally. One tackle after the other it feels great until a reminder comes and tells you, that's not very safe. But the important thing about this sport is making a balance between is self confidence and knowing limits which are constantly put to the test. This terrain was very hard to ride. Other than the stony sand issue, I also had to stick to the car tracks as elsewhere was just impossible to ride (big stones everywhere).
This damp was very near the end of the Wadi
Along the winding track I came across this little feller called camel spider. At the time I didn't know what it was, I thought it was a scorpion but I didn't find a tail so I was really amazed I had to take a picture of it. Luckily it was just under where I stood. It's very fast and moves in very irregular lines. I am sure it was aware of my presence. Instead of running away or hiding, it was moving making a pentagon shape as if it was marking it territory.
Came back home, Googled Camel spider. Apparently it has a very nasty bite. Next time I would go camping I would remember this little feller...
Finally, I arrived at the end of my off-road trip and at beginning of the tarmac. It was just after sunset. Right on time, I was glad that I had made the right decision when I was deep in the desert in the intersection point. After a couple of kilometers on the road, I found my friend Moustafa Roushdy along with Emad in their car going the opposite direction. They were going to start the rescue plan. Thank God for having such good friends.
