Here it is, friends, a chance to own a compelling double serving of digitised desert adventuring.
Factory fresh is Austin Vince’s latest caper: Mondo Sahara, shot while his XR400-mounted crew push deep into the arid wastelands of the Adrar plateau. A stirring soundtrack carries you with the gang as their ingenuity and resourcefulness are tested against the pitiless Sahara.
That 91-minutes of cache-sniffing nuttiness is paired with what collectors recognise as the last few remaining copies of Desert Riders. Filmed a decade earlier when ‘HD’ still signified a type of weekend motorcycle. Just weeks later the lid slammed shut on central Saharan moto-adventuring.
Sit back, hit play and marvel at the ‘quaint’ production values as the plucky trio navigate their XR650L tankers from cache to cache, riding out beyond Algeria to the Lost Tree of Niger’s Tenere Desert.
Three lucky individuals will win the two vids by correctly answering this satisfyingly taxing query of moto trivia.
Q. Provide three examples of motorcycles with desert-themed names. They can be a geographic feature in the Sahara, Mexico, Utah or Brazil, the Arabic name for a landform, a nomadic tribe, a capital city associated with a desert rally, a large-eared mammal which, when lost might wander into the desert, or a buck-toothed marsupial that rarely wanders out of the desert.
All these are clues by the way, but for example sending in Aprilia Caponord, Suzuki Katana and Morini 3½ will not win you hours of sun, sand and starting issues set in the desert of deserts. Still stumped? The silver-haired chappy pictured right is sat astride an eligible example.
Winners announced here on New Year’s Eve, along with the full set of names.
Good luck and season’s greetings to all desert riders.