Dakar Stage 7 – Simon Pavey Blog

Simon Pavey is going from strength to strength in the 2011 Dakar after claiming an impressive 48th place on stage seven to escalate himself up the leader board further to 64th overall.

He said: “Today’s stage turned out to be so difficult. People were going crazy fast, motocross style, like they always do after the rest day and they were coming apart left, right and centre. The dust was really bad this morning and it made it very difficult to navigate. There were lots of little tracks to find etc. but you couldn’t see them.

“After the refuel the going changed dramatically, from fast and dusty to a bloody time card enduro! The riding was so hard this afternoon, it was the sort of going you’d find a good challenge on an enduro bike, but we’re riding rally bikes with tall gearing and shed loads of added weight. There were massive dunes and really difficult river beds, always dropping in and out of little ravines. It was so much fun.
 
“It turned out to be an extremely long day and many people were still in the stage late into the night. I had a few dramas and found myself riding like an old man again today, I was riding a bit too cautious and started making little errors. It was annoying, but I really didn’t want to push in the dust. It wasn’t until we got to the difficult sections that I got my head together.

“There were some really memorable parts, one of the waypoints was sat right at the top of this mountain. Everyone had been riding along the ledges to get to the top but there was three tracks up the middle so I went for it. I didn’t make it and had to run my bike the last five or six metres. We were riding dunes and off piste like that for hours, it was really good.”

“After making the decision to stick with the Marathon class I was happy enough not change the engine in his BMW G450X, but as I was working on the bike I was informed that because BMW had never ‘homologated’ the standard G450X with the F.I.M he was not going to be classified in Marathon class because he machine is not considered a ‘standard’ bike meaning that I’ve been moved to the ‘Semi-Marathon’ class, or Malles Moto.”

Pavey currently sits third in just over eight minutes behind Hugo Payen who sit’s in second and an hour behind first place Kemal Merkit.