Ever wondered what a rallye is like? Well, a group of mates decided to do more than just wonder, they threw themselves into the rallye world by entering the 2022 Edition of the Hellas Rallye in Greece with Desert Rose Racing. Once they had signed up, the lads took the event really seriously and booked a number of training days with Desert Rose Riding Academy, working through our Stage 1 and 2 courses, through our rallye evaluation day , a road book training day in East Sussex and a couple of them even managed to get in some road book training with us out in Portugal.

Wow! What an amazing weekend. Desert Rose were invited to attend the 2022 BikeShed show at Tobacco Dock, London. 2022 was the return of the show, the pandemic having stopped it in it’s tracks in 2020 and there was a huge amount of anticipation and expectation. It was billed as Europe’s best independent motorcycle show and it didn’t disappoint. We took along Patsy’s KTM 660 from her 2004/2005 Dakar entry, as well as one of customer’s rallye prepped enduro bikes, fresh from completing the grueling Tunisia Desert Challenge. In addition we had a selection of our Riding Academy fleet of Beta enduro bikes, from the 200cc Alp, the 300cc 2 stroke X Trainer, a 300cc RR racing edition 2 stroke and a 390 RR racing edition 4 stroke. Patsy’s Dakar bike sat in between Sam Sunderland’s Red Bull Factory KTM 450 rallye bike and Matthias Walkner’s Red Bull Factory KTM rallye bike. Both Sam and Matthius have won Dakar, Sam in 2017 and 2022 and Matthius in 2018.

On a fairly damp Friday morning in May, Desert Rose hosted a day’s off road riding instruction that had been donated to the motorcycle/healthcare charity Two Wheels for Life at a charity auction at the Malle Mile. Money raised through the auction will support Two Wheels for Life fund raising efforts and help provide much needed healthcare to some of Africa’s remotest communities. The successful bidders came down to East Sussex and it is fair to say they threw themselves into the exercises with enthusiasm. Huge thanks to the lads for supporting such a worthwhile charity.

Desert Rose’s Patsy Quick was invited to visit ESAM, East Sussex Advanced Motorcyclists for one of their regular club nights. Patsy was asked to talk about her Dakar history, the world of rallye support/assistance and the courses run at Desert Rose Riding Academy. There was a really good turnout and Patsy gave a great insight into what it takes to even get to the start line of an event as big as The Dakar. Attendees heard all about the the attempts in 2003, 2004, 2005 and the ultimate dream finish in 2006, when Patsy became the first British woman to finish what many still believe to be the world’s toughest motor-sport event.