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Ever wondered what that big tower on top of a rally bike is for? Join GasGas Factory Racing’s Sam Sunderland as he explains what the roadbook is, and how he uses it in races like the Dakar Rally.
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Hey I’m a Dakar Rider and today I’m going to be showing you how to navigate through the desert while racing this is called a road book and yeah there’s a lot of information to read today I’m going to show you how to read it the first thing you need to do
Is take your road book and put it into your road book holder and uh yeah it’s quite like a old school system in the end but I think that’s like part of the beauty of rally you know like we haven’t changed to uh a GPS just follow an hour
Through the does it yeah it’s a little bit finicky to put in we’ve obviously got a screen that we have to pop off and yeah Stick it to the bottom rail and yeah it basically rolls in and when you start out rallying you’re always like super nervous about it
Getting twisted or getting jammed and honestly like the more that you worry about trying to keep it straight the more problems you have this part’s a little bit harder to put in normally again thread it through again the tape is stuck right every time find
The rail in in the back there stick it on and then find your way to the first note lock it in place and then put your cover back on I’ll explain to you a few of the buttons that I got here on the handlebars obviously start the bike turn
The bike off this is traction control map so we don’t need them to navigate horn lights fuel tanks uh basically the navigation equipment is uh these this sort of device here normally the start of a stage you want to be matching your kilometers to the kilometers that you have on the GPS uh
Here you have a compass heading electronic Compass some of the notes you’ll see have caps on just to reconfirm the route like especially if you go off pieced so you’re not actually foll in a track you you’re in like no man’s land as we are right now as you
Can see around me and in them situations you have to follow a cap so this is electric Compass um and then we’ll certain along the Route we have way points and this is what this arrow is for and yeah back to the toggle switch one second then so when I toggle the switch
It moves the road book as I sort of progress through the stage and need to go through to the next kilometer uh the buttons on the left hand side are to adjust your autometer so occasionally when you’re in the off piece and then you rejoin a a track you might have more
Kilometers or less kilom so you’ll either add or take away to make sure that you’re always matching up to the the road book the green buttons are a spare one which is this one which normally I have on speed because we have uh speed zones throughout the stage
Sometimes where we have to do the correct speed so you need to know what what speed you’re doing um but we can also use it as a backup uh autometer in case um this one breaks or you have some some trouble and it’s basically the same
You can go up and down with the kilometers basically a quick explanation of the actual Road book diagrams before we set off obviously I said before you want to try and always have your autometer Match Into the kilom as you go you’ll accumulate kilometers and um yeah
Obviously so at 0.4 I’m supposed to exit the piece in cap 358 for 150 M and then rejoin the next piece which is Sandy and rough that’s the sort of rally code um it’s all in French obviously the most important thing is is where you’re going because you don’t want to ride into
Something or off something or into a rock so that’s like Priority One is look where you’re going and then you’ll try and look down and look back up sort of really quickly that you don’t take your eyes off the road for too long so you always want to kind of have
An idea of which kilometer you’re at to know what’s coming up next so 0.9 for example is quite a an important note because it’s two sand spits like um sand dunes across the track which is quite is a danger too and also the pie is twisty
And a little bit uphill at 1.1 which obviously then your autometer would have accumulated and you would arrive to 1.1 km again I need to exit the track I exit the main piece on tracks in cap heading 303 so it’s like another mindset then because youve you’ve left a 4×4 track or
Like left the road which is defined and now you’re sort of in no man’s land following the the cap 1.3 you exit the main piece this is uh still on a track but you exit the main piece down a drop in cap 286 towards the palm trees that’s
Another explanation of a a tulip but you need to be doing it sort of on the Fly um and then yeah try and go really fast and and win yeah so now I’ve done a basic explanation of it um let’s see how it goes so yeah here we are at the start
Of a stage um need to make sure everything’s at zero here the first note is uh 0.0 obviously where we start um and it shows a danger one which are the two sand mounts uh cap 357 we’re 355 right now so we know we’re more or less on the right
Track back so let’s Go um as you can see coming up there’s like a a sand F into vegetation yeah now we’re at 1.1 we need to ex the P to the left on tracks in cap 303 so now we’re 305 X next not is coming around really quick so 1.2 already uh and yeah we’re already
At the next note but it shows that we have to go around the the hole so we’ve come from this direction we’re going to go around this and REO the so 1.3 we need to exit the pie to the left down the hill and towards the
Oasis palm trees which you can see there in the Distance slow down for the D two and then at 100 me change to 197 only at 2.7 coming up we rejoining the Fe we need to go left Right1 Corner we’re Chang to 51 we got some friends out here go speak goat so thankfully they all get out the way hey boys what’s going on they’re up me so now it’s a bit tricky so we’re supposed to be 151 but you can see those Lo heels are tun so
Need to find our way Through than 10 there you go 5 kilm right so that was just 5 km normally we do 3 400 as you can see um there’s quite a lot going on uh quite a lot to think about while trying to go as fast as you can um for
14 days and yeah when you start adding in fatigue and dust and other races uh there’s a lot of things to think about but it’s also what makes it such a cool sport and something quite different from other disciplin so hope you enjoyed the little tour here with me and yeah see
You next time
43 Comments
Riding flat out AND reading this roadbook at the same time 🤯
We never get our way with the French it’s why Concorde had an E at the end of it! Bless Minister
I always wondered how that all worked Even more respect to you guys.
on race, are the black buttons will be disabled to lock the odometer?
I mean, if you accidentally push the button, your odo meter will be out of synch with the Road book.
This almost smacks of the old Soviet-era spacecraft with their mechanical clock-based globe that they used when orbiting the Earth. This is a reliable system… But, WOW! A paper map in modern times? At least it won’t fail when the power or technology goes out.
Siiiick
Man! I thought it was mega, mega hard before.
Now, it seems even more difficult.
Wow!
Thanks for this, Sam.
✌️
The bike categorie in this sports is most hard and more interesting, 🤔 the riders are heroes 🦸♂️ how he said 300km one eye 👁️ on road one on road book, one on trucks ,
Why didn't they digitalize it as well?
5 kilome_ers
I would lose myself inn the middle of nowhere after 10 minutes, even if I could ride for more than 5 min on the sand…. ahahaha
WHO is writing those books?
😫👍
I guess problem is high sun and low visibility of screen. I would sugest GPS on e=paper cause this thing looks…. problematic.
Great explanation! Although I wonder what method they use to relocate if they make a mistake and lose the track. It should be tricky without a map.
It must be extremely difficult trying to navigate through really challenging terrain while maintaining speed. Amazing what these guys can do. I take my hat off to them. Really impressive and inspiring viewing. Thanks for sharing this excellent information.😊
Damm thanks for the explanation helped. A lot looks very hard.🤯
This is crazy. A Dakar champion needs to be a fast and skilled rider and also be able to navigate themselves too…. absolutely crazy!
I find it stressful enough mountain bike racing with a gps track never mind going 5x as fast in the middle of nowhere with the dead sea scrolls to navigate by. Respect!
God forbid the paper runs out of battery.
Crazy. . Desert racing/sprint format like the Finke are hard enough when ya know where you are going. Lol. .
Too much multi-tasking for me. I couldn't keep up with these guys at all much less ride that fast and keep track of milage and the map and everything else.
This is awesome. I wonder how these roadmaps are made with so much accuracy. Man made maps or satellites?
That was interesting ❤
Moto class is probably the most difficult one in Dakar especially for the guys in Original by Motul class, where they don't have any mechanical support team.
Every competitors have the same roadbook?
Reading and using the pace notes is a feat in itself don't get me wrong, but to me it really seems like the easy part, the hard part would be making the pace notes, that's where the real stress lies. If you mess up in creating the pace notes, you do not have time to correct a mistake mid rally. Compared to WRC type rallies having two minutes in between each pace note is forever but you must be accurate or you drive off in the wrong direction 😂😂 Unless the pace notes are provided, then ya 400k on bumpy bike is inane, I just couldn't imagine coming up with 400k of pace notes
Holy shit. That navigation would really up the metal fatigue rates x100
"Kilomeher"
Thats was awesome. I always wonderd how you used that navigation. The amount of concentration and focus is insane, plus the distance you ride everyday. Your a beast. Good luck on the rally.
I didn’t understand a single damn thing 😂
Why are these paper but others appear to be digital, like in the trucks? Is there an advantage to the digital ones besides not the obvious issues with paper? Cant motorcycles use digital?
I always wondered how they used the road book. such an interesting video, thank you Red Bull and to Sam for taking the time to make this tutorial 👌
Who writes the road book? Are you allowed to ride the stage beforehand to take notes?
Great explanation, seems like a very cool adventure
Moto rider is self navigation. must have a high skill of reading map. it's a respected on.
That's very simple tbh! Is tooo easy!😅
🫡🫡🫡🫡
Thanks a lot
Who writes the road map? Is it the riders themselves or part of the team? What about independant riders?
So many electronic equipment yet manufacturers cannot affort to build a digital GPS screen… Ridiculous
a satnav would blow your mind
GPS is overrated