My buddy, Bird, doesn’t resemble a bird. Not even close. As mentioned in a previous post, his mom, Hurricane Cheryl, tagged him with that nickname a zillion years ago when he was young. Truly, a zillion. I suppose the nickname could mean any number of things to describe him in some way, like “naked as a jay-bird,” or  “shiftless yard-bird,” or even “low-life shit-bird.” He’s fits neither of the last two descriptions and I’ve avoided the first one altogether.

This quick post is about Bird’s adventure last weekend at the AltRider “Taste of Dakar” Adventure Riding Thingy 2014, hosted by the legendary Jimmy Lewis near his off-road riding school in Pahrump, Nevada. Jimmy is considered to be a straight-up badass in the riding community and has competed in the real Dakar Rally.

I didn’t attend this event. Come to think of it, I wasn’t even invited. Hmm.

Anyway, the “Taste of Dakar” offers an opportunity to ride terrain similar to the Dakar Rally, which for security reasons, is no longer actually held in Dakar, which is in Senegal, Africa, where it’s apparently completely acceptable to “open carry” automatic weapons. Chew on that, Arizona!

This multi-stage race for motorcycles, cars and trucks (I’m way over-simplifying the vehicles used) is now held in southern Chile, where they don’t carry guns and they make a nice Malbec; bold, but not over-assuming in the finish and generally good when paired with BBQ.

Bird created a short video using his GoPro and posted it to YouTube. It’ll give you an idea of what we see and experience when riding our adventure bikes off-road. I especially liked the part at 1:30 where he gently keels his BMW F800GS over in the sand.

Sand. I hate sand.

Enjoy.

Follow me on this blog (hankshawblog.com) and look for more hankwentthataway posts coming your way soon.

Travel safe. And often.

h