Cyril Despres gets pulled over by the police, but gets away in time to carry on his Australasian Safari. We get Cyril in our custody long enough to hear how things are going Down Under.
I could have been in big trouble this morning before I even got out on the stage. As I was leaving the bivouac I was stopped by two policemen who wanted to talk to me. They told me to blow into their breathalyzer to check I was not over the alcohol limited to ride my bike. I told them they must be crazy if they think that I’m going to race while I’m drunk.
I blew into the breathalyzer and of course the reading was 0.00 because I had only had some coffee and water with my breakfast. I thought that somebody was playing a joke on me because the idea of racing a rally bike at 140kmph while drunk is something that nobody should ever do.
'I told them they must be crazy if they think I’m going to race while I’m drunk'
I know I wasn’t drunk out on the course, but some of the things I have seen out there have had me questioning my own eyes. Yesterday I nearly hit a massive lizard during the stage. I couldn’t believe the size of this thing, it was easily over a metre and a half long. It made me think of Steve Irwin!
The lizards I’m used to seeing are never more than about 15cm long but this looked like something out of Jurassic Park. When I saw it I was so surprised and just managed to hit the brakes in time to stop my bike from running over the lizard’s tail. The lizard was just lying there looking at me wondering what all the fuss was about.
'This looked like something out of Jurassic Park'
On today’s stage I saw a wallaby that was nearly two metres tall. There are some really fascinating sights out here in the Australian outback. This wallaby was just cruising along in the same direction as I was travelling so it wasn’t as much as a problem to avoid as the lizard.
You can probably see that with all these weird and wonderful creatures out on the course I’m having to pay attention to what’s going on around me all the time. This is made more difficult because the rally is so fast. The average speed out on the stage today was 117 kmph, compare that to the average speed at the Rally dos Sertões which was about 60kmph and this race is twice as fast.
I’m also having big trouble following the roadbook and I think that this has now cost me my chance of winning the Australasian Safari. This is a shame because I always ride to win. What I can still do though is get plenty of kilometres on the bike. This is so important for testing the engine, the tyres and other essential items
Cyril
Keep track of Cyril and his outback adventure at the 2011 Australasian Safari by checking back in for a read of his daily blog.
Want more?
- Check out more Cyril Despres blogs
- Official website cyrildespres.com
- Official Australasian Safari website
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