Dubai - Desert racing
I wasn’t planning on racing in the dessert. I normally prefer the sand between my toes, rather than in my shoes and between my chain links. But an unexpected opportunity came up, so who am I to say no (well tbh to start with that’s exactly what I did…).
I was in Dubai as a stopover between Australia and returning to Europe. I have been finding these stops on my way through to make for much easier travel and less jet lag. Dubai wasn’t somewhere I thought of as a stopover more than through the airport, a city in-itself, but I can see the appeal to visit and they are very accomodating to tourism.
I was mainly riding my road bike, which is really quite restricted to the al Quadra bike path area. The roads are very busy there, and most roads are big, main, multi-laned roads that you better avoid. So most days involved us driving first to the car-park area before jumping on our bikes for training. And this was really how the locals did it too.
We were also there because Daan was racing the off-road MTB desert race, Al Salam Championships. This year was the 10th mens addition and the 1st ever women’s. Having just come off the Australian Summer of Racing and RADL GRVL recovery was more my focus for the stop over. Until I was asked to race...
Dubai off-road riding hits a bit different to what I know. The climbs come from the dunes, the sand can be both soft and hard packed, or the most deceiving when the top layer looks hard but cracks beneath you and you sink underneath. You learn to look for the ‘firmest’ line, sometimes through the small shrubs is best, and running sand dunes is no easy feat.
The women’s race came first, and being the first edition was a more conservative course than the mens. A short and spicy 20km meant from the moment you started you were already racing a final. Nina Kessler was my teammate, reunited again from our time on Tibco-Silicon Valley, with her experience in beach racing I knew we could have some fun, though I didn’t know what to expect. A longer distance suits me, and I don’t normally race MTBs (or did I mention sand). But we do our best.
Nina went off solo some 2min into the race, the exact opposite of the race tactics she proposed before. We allowed the gap to open to a sizeable distance before I first took a little lay down and then attacked myself, jumping across the gap. We road the final 5-6km together and took 1-2 over the line, before our final teammate surprised herself taking 3rd. A fun and successful day if you ask me.
Next up was the mens race. Like this weekend of racing wasn’t unexpected enough, this was also unplanned. The women were so enthusiastic for the event that the organisers decided to allow us to also start with the men and see how we would do.
This time Daan and I were teammates again. And while I started on his wheel, I would estimate I lost it faster then the final countdown to the gun. The rules say keep the cones to the left, but it became clear that ‘rule’ was best ignored if you didn’t want to ride 5km longer than the rest of the field. Better you follow the wheel in-front of you.
I don’t know what happened in the ‘women’s’ field within this race. I just know I tried to follow, it really hurt, running dunes looks much easier on TV, I spent a lot of the race solo or towing some guys around, ended the race with a slow leaking flat for the final 5kms and crossed the line as first female.
But we took the win for the team in both the mens, the women’s, and the sprints and I experienced something new. Dubai is certainly a country of opportunity and exciting experiences and I think I want to go back for the 2nd women’s edition if they will have me.
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Distance: 19.9km
Time: 43:27
Average Power: 229W
Normalised Power: 254W
Average Speed: 27.41km/ph
HR: 162bpm
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Distance: 49.97km
Time: 1:56:31
Average Power: 218W
Normalised Power: 235W
Average Speed: 25.73km/ph
HR: 158bpm
