Training programmes
Motorcycle, SSV and navigation training for rally raid.
We plan training around your off-road experience and the rally you are preparing for. Beginners start in an SSV with a coach. Motorcycle training requires previous off-road riding experience.
Levels
Choose your starting level.
First sand
No rally experience
For your first dune training, we begin with vehicle control and choosing a line on sand. If you have no off-road experience, you start in an SSV with a coach beside you. Motorcycle riders need previous off-road experience. This path ran as Zero 2 Hero on the previous site.
Goal: enter your first rally raid safely prepared.
Competitor
Competing, improving
For riders and drivers who already finish rallies, we work on the errors that cost time, including navigation decisions and dune crossings.
Goal: move up the results sheet.
Dakar entry
Entered for a rally, or about to be
A training block before a major start. You ride at rally pace on real terrain, work the roadbook with your own co-driver or with our coach, get the setup signed off and leave with a strategy written for your specific entry.
Goal: complete your preparation for the start and scrutineering.
The syllabus has seven blocks.
Open a block to see what it contains. Your camp is assembled from these, weighted towards the event you are preparing for.
- Soft-sand throttle and body position
- Choosing the right line across an open dune erg
- Braking and steering when the surface keeps moving
- Keeping technique clean when fatigue sets in
Taught by
Jean-Loup Lepan · Konrad Dąbrowski
Both coaches ride Rally2 at world level and teach the technique they used on their last start.
- Technique on cut-off dunes
- Cresting: how to arrive, and when to lift
- Ascent and descent lines on soft and wind-packed sand
- Rock, hard-pack, wadi and camel grass at rally speed
Taught by
Marek Dąbrowski
Reading the dunes helps you choose a line and manage the crossing.
- ERTF UNIK 4 operation until it is automatic
- CAP heading navigation and heading discipline
- Waypoint types and what to do when one is missed
- Cross-checking terrain against the book at speed
Taught by
Konrad Dąbrowski · Jean-Loup Lepan · Jacek Czachor
Training roadbooks written to replicate Dakar special-stage style and complexity.
- Opening the stage versus following tracks
- Managing a gap over multiple days
- Refuelling, neutralisation and time-control discipline
- Deciding when a stage is already good enough to ease off a little
Taught by
Marek Dąbrowski · Jacek Czachor
How to manage risk across a twelve-day race, including when to back off.
- Suspension and ergonomics for your weight and terrain
- Tyres, mousses and pressures per surface
- Daily service routine on a rally bivouac
- Field repairs that get you to the finish
Taught by
RTC technical crew
Run with the DUUST Rally Team workshop, the same crew that services our race entries.
- Heat acclimatisation and hydration across a long stage
- Nutrition on a bivouac schedule
- Managing fear after a fall, on the same day
- Sleep and recovery inside a race week
Taught by
RTC coaching staff
Training covers heat management, hydration and recovery.
- Recovering a loaded bike or car alone
- Sentinel, tracking and distress procedure
- First response for another competitor
- Deciding to stop, and making yourself findable
Taught by
RTC coaching staff
Every camp runs with a support crew trained in first aid.
Morocco
Eight training roadbooks around Erfoud and Merzouga.
Each roadbook is a stage of its own, graded for the terrain and for the navigation. A camp opens on the warm-up loop and moves up the list as the days go on.
Warm-up loop, 30 km
Hard, flat terrain. Terrain: beginner. Navigation: beginner.
Erg Chebbi dune loops, 59 and 70 km
Two loops in the dunes of Erg Chebbi at Merzouga, including the road sections in and out. Terrain advanced, navigation intermediate.
Duust 3, 150 km
Hard-pack terrain with broken tracks and a crossing of the chott, a dry lake, on a broken track. Terrain intermediate, navigation advanced.
Roadbook 8, 165 km
Hard-pack terrain at medium speed, with a section of bigger dunes in the last 20 km of the stage. Terrain advanced, navigation advanced.
Duust 2, 200 km
Softer sandy tracks, a section of dunes and dry river beds. Terrain intermediate, navigation advanced.
Duust 1, 250 km
Hard-pack terrain with broken tracks between the mountains. Terrain advanced, navigation advanced.
Roadbook 7, 250 km
Hard, stony terrain with broken tracks and sections of small soft dunes. Terrain advanced, navigation advanced.
Tell us your season and we will send back a plan.
We can put an offer together once we know the machine and the months you can travel.