Off Road in Morocco 2017

The crossing looks easy, but I remember from last year that when you get to the middle, it's very deep sand.

I zoomed ahead and took pictures of the the guys crossing.

This is Paul D about half way across:
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All across no problems, we ride for another 30 mins, we are almost at the end of the trail, then Paul D suddenly stops with a puncture.

Off comes the wheel, off comes the tyre, out comes the repair kit. Repair No 1. New Inner tube gets nipped when we put the tyre back.

Repair No 2. Too many working on putting the tyre on. So Paul does it him self. Nips the tube the second new tube.

Repair No 3. We put a patch on the original tube. It works, the tyre stays up!! When back on just about to take it off the rocks, the tyre goes flat.

Repair No 4. Second tube repaired. Fit it to the rim, goes flat, patch didn't. Stick properly.

In the mean time Paul R is inspecting the tube from repair 3. He says there's nothing wrong with it, and that the valve properly has shit in it.

Change No 5. All done and working, proper team effort, to make matters even worse, Paul D only hade a cycle pump and not an electric one. The rest of us were on mouuses so we didn't have a pump either.

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We were all a bit hot and worn out, we still had a little way to go to our hotel, er were staying at a hotel on the edge of the desert near Merzouga. We got there a bit later than we expected but not too late, again another hotel almost full ! Last year I there was just us. I didn't take many photos as we were working on Paul's front tyre again. Then there was a power cut, so we spent most of the evening in the dark, I couldn't see what we had for dinner but it was nice, of course eggs and bread were involved.




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DAY 6

I was up early this morning (7am), mainly because of the damp smell coming from the bathroom and the sand in my bed 🙄

Breakfast was the same as every other day, but still very nice and filling.

Today is a shopping day, Mr B needs brake fluid and oil, Paul D needs a new inner tube and Paul R needs a clutch lever, I need a coffee.

We leave the hotel turn left keeping off the road but running parallel with the desert, we and come to a small town, we think its Merzouga but it's Et Taous, some how we manage to split up, I see Mr B's bike at a small garage, he's stopped for brake fluid, but the nice man in the garage is trying to remove and strip his calipers ! Even with my helmet on I can here, "get off me bike ya bastard."

So it seems all is under control, I head off looking for the others, I see a garage with a number of bikes and think the two Paul's might be there, no "ze Germans" are there.
 
Couple of minutes later the two Paul's arrive and the Mr B turns up all oiled and braked up.

We ride into Merzouga looking for inner tubes and clutch levers, it's the first time I've been here and it's a tiny place, fart and you'll blow past it. We find a small garage and Paul R explains what he wants, almost immediately the guy starts to take the clutch lever assembly off. Paul stops him and explains that all he want's is a lever.

The mechanic nods his head, smiles and then fucks off, in the mean time Paul D is talking to a tiny old fella who speaks really good English, the old man points and says something and off Paul goes to get his front tyre sorted.

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With the repairs it was a late start but we could still do it.
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So we were in the desert, we'd ridden for two hours and we were still in the middle of nowhere.
As you ride along you can see two mountain tops that look like they form into a valley.
This has the effect of drawing you towards it's there's nothing else to look at.
We should have started to drift on to a track to the east of the valley, the desert sand was getting deeper and slowed down the big Africa twin.
Instead of staying with the slower bike or zooming off and returning Paul R and Mr B were playing at sand fairies and vanished into the distance.


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