HITTING THE DIRT WITH DAKAR STAR
Mick Extance has ridden seven Dakar Rallies and is a former World and European enduro champion. But he was now facing his biggest challenge ever – teaching me how not to make an idiot of myself off-road.
I arrived at the Welsh mountain estate where he’s been running the Bridgestone Mick Extance Experience since he retired from the Dakar in 2009.
And after he’d talked me through the basics, we set off up a dirt track enlivened by patches of ice, mud and gravel during which I managed to fall off only once, although not before carefully selecting the hardest rock on the entire estate to land on.
After half an hour, we arrived at a spot marked by a sign saying The Dark Side. It wasn’t joking.
Down the steep slope past it was a maelstrom of mud and water, all submerged in a way that made the Western Front look like a bowling green.
“We’re not, er, riding down that, are we, Mick?” I said. “Course we are. Just use the clutch and your feet. I’ll talk you through it,” he said. And he did. Even after I did it, I wasn’t sure how I’d done it, but I suspect it was more down to Mick than me.
The next challenge was a ravine called the Top Trail, complete with frozen water crossings, rocks and low branches.
But the remarkable thing was that if you just relaxed and let the bike sort itself out, it did. And as Mick said several times during the day, you can do anything if you want it enough and put your mind to it.
The next challenge was a steep, slippery slope made of rock. It looked smaller than Everest, but only just, and impossible – a word I was beginning to realise that wasn’t in Mick’s vocabulary.
“Second gear, look up, keep your speed up and go for it,” he said, grinning. And and much to my astonishment, I found myself at the top with a matching smile.
It had been a brilliant, inspiring and knackering day, and as I crawled gratefully into a hot shower back at the hotel, only one thing was bothering me.
After seven Dakars, including one where he crashed at high speed and had to wait 17 hours in the desert before being rescued, Mick’s thinking of doing it again in 2019. He is, obviously, quite mad. And long may it last.