What was lost in the desert? Curiosity, I suppose
Miguel Indurain
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“The most important thing is for anyone to get lost, by God,” Manu tells me.
And nail the fork in the cuscous and take a bite. It is closed night and a fan of journalists we had dinner next to Tajada in a restaurant on the outskirts of Erfoud.
Outside it is cold that pela, cold from the desert. The wind blows and shaped sandy shades and the chatters fly without ton or they are.
The periphery of the town appears to the Dunas of the Sahara and the white wine and the desktop stimulate the memories. In the reserved, Tajada, one of the parents of the Skoda Titan Deserthe puts his forehead and recalls his adventures in the desert.
Two cyclists pedal in the desert, in 2024
While Titans They rest in the Haima of the camp, hugged to their bicycles, they sleep dreaming of tomorrow, Manu Tajada tells us of liturgies, rituals and routines: he tells us that every year, when winter arrives, he grabs the binoculars, the bell and The GPS, climbs to an airplane to the Atlas and then to a jeep and leaves inland, towards the Moroccan sand.
Like a surveyor in Daniel Kehlmann’s novels, Manu Tajada invests weeks by measuring journeys, analyzing surfaces and fixing milestones, and then mappes them and makes them a navigable route in Mountain Bike.
Each winter, the same.
When we created the Titan, we wanted to found a bicycle version of the Dakar Rally ”
(He has been doing it in recent days).
The route book he designs is Fetén and months later, already entered into spring, the endless will be followed Titans.
– When design the routes, I do it looking for a balance between dunes areas, serpenteante canyons, forests, asphalt links and passable channels – he tells us to the reserved in Erfoud. And of course, there must always be a navigation stage.
Now they are serving us and Juan Porcar, then head of the race (the scene takes us to 2019) and founder of the project, adds to the conversation:
–The Skoda Desert baby from the Dakar Rally. And just like that was a motor race for the desert, we wanted to make a cycling version.
We all understand what he talks about.
Part of the group of cyclists, in a gorge in the Sahara desert
Any engine fan knows that the man had been an important pilot in the rally, especially in those years in which the race was born in Paris, ran Europe to the south, raffled the narrow and flowed into the pink lake, 36 km of Dakar.
– When we lit the idea, we decided that we wanted to create a test that would avoid the risk of motor races but maintained the values of that mythical adventure that I had discovered in my childhood, many years ago.
(The Dakar Rally, today in the Persian Gulf, was born in 1978; the Skoda Titan Desert will turn twenty years in this spring).
Professionals and media
In the camp figures such as Heras, Indurain, Luis Enrique, Edurne Pasabán or Oyarzábal have been mixed
(…)
In these twenty years, the test that has hyperprofessionalized. But in time, it has been forging in the trial-error: in its first edition, in 2006, when meeting at the Barcelona airport, the organizers discovered that the 143 bicycles of the 143 registered did not fit in the charter.
– Fortunately, we react right there: we chart two load planes and solve that problem. But there we learned that we had to move the bicycles in trucks, which not in airplanes – says Félix Dot, director of the race.
The aura of the test attracted the former route professionals: Melcior Mauri (a victory), Roberto Heras (four), Abraham Olano, Óscar Pereiro, Peio Ruiz Cabestany, Purito Rodríguez, Haimar Zubeldia, Claudio Chiapucci, Miguel Indurain or Laurent Jalabert.
And the presence of myths attracted the specialists of the Mountain Bike, people like Josep Betalú (four victories, as many as Heras), Konny Looser (two titles) or Roberto Bou (a triumph).
And the mixture of professionals and amateurs seduced popular athletes and also media characters. Luis Enrique, Juan Oyarzábal, Edurne Pasabán and Andrés Jiménez plunged into the desert. Àlex Roca is today one of its ambassadors. Years later, the test exceeded 600 registered.
– But we have a pending debt, we want to multiply the presence of women.
(For this 2025, the organization aspires to reach one hundred registered, never seen before).
THE ROUTE BOOK
In the winter, as these days, Manu Tajada grabs the GPS and Cartabón and designs the route book
Today, the Titan is a giant that moves elephantiásic figures, a campaign hospital, a helicopter that flies over the squad, 230 haimimas, a camp that emerges in the desert and hours later has disappeared and a soundtrack, the Ho Hey of The Lumineers, which at the Atrona Alba in the speakers and hints up to the Titans:
– You will swallow tons of sand. And while you do, you will be happy.
(In this year, Skoda Titan Desert will be played between May 1 and 6).
#Crazy #cyclists #dunes
