I’ve just finished reading the quite amazing book from Charley Boorman – Race to Dakar – First of all I want to make it clear that I really enjoyed Long Way Round, even though I’d watched ‘the real boys’ doing it several years earlier on no budget, with no support crew and certainly no big sponsors, in Mondo Enduro.
I was lucky enough to meet Charley at the NEC Motorcycle Show earlier this year, and he was obviously very warn out and sick to the back teeth of signing books and DVD – let’s be honest after you’ve taken part in the harded rally in the world, standing on the BMW stand signing things and having your photo taken must come a very poor second – I really felt for him standing there, and I’m sure he’d much prefered to be at home with his family, or out on the bike!
The book was a revelation; a stunning portrail of life over two weeks in 2006 as three men and the support crew fought against the sand, the special sections, the organisers and their own mental capacity to just carry on and make the beach at Dakar. When I finished watching The Long Way Round, (the book wasn’t that good) it left me wanting to do my own mamouth trip and was the inspiration for Journey To Russia, but the Dakar book (which is stunningly well written) has left me wanting to go and buy a BMW Dakar bike and find out what all thie enduro nonsense is all about.
