Thursday, June 19, 2008

Day 8 - June 19, Botakara to Ayaguz

Updates from David on Patricia's Rally progress.

729 km (of which 446 km Special Section)

Today (Day 8) was the longest special section of the Rally - but in fantastic terrain according to Patricia : "Great Fun". Patricia's trip-meter broke off it's fitting today which means she had to hold it on while she rode along. It is key to navigation. That should be fixed tonight by the team. I spoke to Patricia this evening about 10.30pm their time, and the organisation vehicles were still not at camp and no-one seemed to have an ETA. It seems the logistics of this Rally are causing as many problems for the organisation as for the riders!

Patricia was 21st in today's special section, placing her 21st overall to date, of a remaining 51 riders in the Rally.

Sorry for the brevity of this report, but information is getting thinner the further East they progress - as phone reception becomes unreliable. Overall progress is good, with largely minor issues on the bike and careful attention to navigation paying off. Touch wood.

Over and Out,

Your humble and intermittent reporter.

Reminders if you are glued to progress and want up to the minute news:

Motors TV is a good watch each night (21.00 GMT and 23.30 GMT) , repeated the next morning (10.00 GMT) , if you have access to it...

Online progress of each stage is allegedly going to be available on the www.transorientale.com website, although it is still not working from what I can see. I might be the only person in the world who cannot get it working, so feel free to try for yourself.

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