adventurelog
Leading a tour and chasing the Dakar By Shawn Thomas #91122
NO DOUBT ABOUT it, leading motorcy- cle tours comes with its own special sort of stress. Mostly, this is because people that are being “led” on a tour sometimes
forgo certain elements of what a nor- mal person might call due diligence, or common sense. I have a theory as to why this is so. In my line of work, folks are on tour to be challenged. Adventure riding is usually new to them, and learning new things means making an occasional mistake. But mostly they are on vacation. And we encourage the “vacation” mindset in just about every briefing. “Relax, enjoy the view! We’ll take care of the rest!” And that’s precisely what they
54 BMW OWNERS NEWS February 2016
do. So it’s no wonder a rider will blow past a designated turn, even though the guide is standing there waving a burning flare in the intended direction of travel. Knowing this as an inevitability, a good
tour guide will take exceptional measures to keep the group together. We count riders almost constantly (not an easy thing to do from a moving machine, tallying other moving machines, all of which seem intent on bobbing and weaving or hiding behind one another). We over-describe each leg of the trip, and we overemphasize eye contact and head nods. But this is a trap within itself, because the
more you micro-manage a person, the more they rely on you to handle said details. As such, I have learned to ratchet back my mother-hen attitude, seeking instead a bal- ance between disseminating important information and reinforcing personal
accountability. Works pretty well…in most cases, anyway. I was on tour in Chile, chasing the 2014
Dakar Race. For my eight customers, it was an exciting endeavor. For me, it was a dream come true. I had followed the Dakar for years but was experiencing it in person for the first time. It was also my first trip to South America, which brought with it a whole additional
level of awesomeness.
Every mile we rode was laced with child- like excitement. About a week into the tour, we were
scheduled to watch festivities from the sand dunes just outside Iquique, Chile. But these weren’t just any sand dunes. Competition vehicles would crest a dune nearly 5,000 feet high, dropping three quarters of a mile at breakneck speeds toward the valley floor. It was one of the most intense and popular elements of the race, and we were excited to
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