Here is an account of my recent trip to Dubai involving the best days buggying of my life, buggying will never be the same for me.


Dubai Buggying Trip

The Video Dubai Desert Buggying Video

From the first time I saw Sand-yeti's videos of the terrain he rides I have thought of how sweet it would be to give that a go. How fun that has got to be. Awesome you got to do it. Can't wait to see the videos. BTW, are ALL the women as pretty as the ones in your pictures? *smile*

cool trip / nice pics ... hurry up and come to nabx too, popeye.

sunny jimmy, road trip? you can eat my dune sand too.

That's pretty profound about just buggying on a flat beach going fast being boring compared to playing in the dunes. The one thing that made my hair stand up was the absolute need for the dune buggy for support. Without that key element, you really couldn't venture into the dunes very much. That would be a fantastic odyssey to go on a desert buggy adventure with those great folks in UAE. Popeye your performance there is a testament to your base of buggy skills. You went into a completely foreign terrain in a strange buggy with unfamiliar kites and did it. That isn't something all of us would be able to pull off.

whos gotta dune bugggy?

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Originally posted by USA_Eli_A whos gotta dune bugggy?

Sand Yeti's wife. Gas powered though.

that is very cool. I am jealous

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Originally posted by BeamerBob The one thing that made my hair stand up was the absolute need for the dune buggy for support. Without that key element, you really couldn't venture into the dunes very much.

Carl did well in the dunes & it's only a pity he didn't stay longer because there is one harder run (The Half pipe) that I'm sure he could have managed. We hope to see him again in the UAE as his buggies are legendary here with the Desert gang. I'm the only one from here who has been privileged to ride in a couple of them in the UK.

Brig never managed to fly a kite well enough to get into the buggying scene but is a proficient off-roader (known as dune bashers here) in 4X4's plus of course her 800cc Polaris Razor (dune buggy). She enjoys riding the Razor immensely in the dunes.
She does provide a great support but there is no absolute need for it.
I sometimes go alone in the desert (usually Thursday afternoons) & have no qualms about running the dunes.
It is a lot harder in the summer where shade temps sit between 120 & 130F. Of course other than the occasional tree, there is no shade.
I have been doing it for years and only got caught out once. The wind dropped & I was faced with a 2 mile trek back to the car. Fortunately at that time is was in spring where temps are relatively cool like now.
In the event that something bad happens like buggy breaking or getting injured, I always have my mobile phone with me and GPS. In an emergency, I can call Brig or any one of the Desert Gang to rescue me. I hope it will never be necessary to call for a rescue but it does give me piece of mind that I won't die if something does go wrong.

I always carry a 3 litre Camelbak of water like the one I lent to PTW.

I have been dune buggying with other buggiers here without motorised support and have had a couple of occasions where someone's buggy has broken. In those cases, one or two of us has buggied back to our parked 4X4's & then driven the dunes to retrieve the broken buggy and waiting pilot.
As you can imagine, our GPS's & phones are an important part of our kit to find a distressed buggy or pilot.

Sand Yeti, my concern was not for you guys since you seem to have the skills and the system to do what you do safely. I often just go to a field and buggy with only my cell phone, but I'm within a quarter mile of shopping centers and traffic going by within eyesite. I wouldn't feel safe doing that in the more harsh environment. I'm getting old I guess. Maybe someday I can come stay in that 7 star hotel (Do they use priceline?:tumble: )and spend a few days with you guys in the desert, and then I'll see how it all works "in 3d". :bigok:

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Originally posted by BeamerBob Sand Yeti, my concern was not for you guys since you seem to have the skills and the system to do what you do safely. I often just go to a field and buggy with only my cell phone, but I'm within a quarter mile of shopping centers and traffic going by within eyesite. I wouldn't feel safe doing that in the more harsh environment. I'm getting old I guess. Maybe someday I can come stay in that 7 star hotel (Do they use priceline?:tumble: )and spend a few days with you guys in the desert, and then I'll see how it all works "in 3d". :bigok:

I'm old BeamerBob and I guess my philosophy is that even if I did get the chop, I'd have lived a pretty exciting life and know that I'm closer to sunset than sunrise so I'd sooner check out with a bang rather than a whimper.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not a suicide case and preservation of my life is very dear to me but being realistic , we both know that we can't go on for ever.

You are welcome to join our Desert buggying gang because we enjoy meeting overseas buggiers. I have had just two exceptions to that comment so far.
The Burj Al Arab (7 Star hotel) isn't so far to drive to the ghaf tree (about an hour). They'd probably take you there in one of their Rolls Royces reserved for guests.
I don't know what 'priceline' is but guess it's some kind of hotel discounting system. The Burj Al Arab room charges don't include breakfast, service charges and municipality fees.

You can borrow my Death Buggy if you like when you come.
Avoid May through October as you might be struggling with the desert heat. Best time to come is in late March/early April for cooler weather & the best winds.

SY thanks for the warm welcome. Somehow I don't worry about you being harmed in the desert. You seem to have layers of support even on one of your Thursday trips alone. And its not like you are going to crash into a tree or something. Well maybe the occasional blade in the top of one.

Yes, priceline is a discounting finder service. But heck, if the Burj Al Arab doesn't include breakfast then I'll just have to find something else. ;-)

Thanks for the warm welcome and offer of hospitality. I hope someday I can take you up on it. It would be an honor to take a ride in DB. Reputation of buggy skills would be on the line since Popeye survived it unscathed.

You guys continue to play safe but have fun.

I'm Happy you got to show Popeye around and I'm glad you all had a good time !
I had heard about your infamous natural 1/2 pipe from a friend who visited UAE a few years ago.


I hope that everything works out with your work on return Popeye! Maybe Sand Yeti knows of a job in the UAE for you ???

How about building Buggies to stand up to those conditions ? :bigok:

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Originally posted by BeamerBob its not like you are going to crash into a tree or something. Well maybe the occasional blade in the top of one.

I guess I'm never going to live that down; plonking my 6.5 Blade on top of the only tree for miles around.
Still, I'm not alone. PTW forgot to mention in his diary that on the run from the Ghaf tree to the Buggydrome (about 6 miles as the crow flies) there are just two trees on the way.
He somehow was drawn like a magnet to one of them and dropped into a sand bowl close to it. In escaping the bowl he had to have his lines almost straight up and even then they brushed the tree.

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Originally posted by Bladerunner I had heard about your infamous natural 1/2 pipe from a friend who visited UAE a few years ago. :

We had a Canadian guy & his friend visit us at the Ghaf tree quite sometime ago - probably him. He lost his mobile phone I remember. We never did find it despite searching for it after he left. He was more of a landboarder than a buggier. I pointed out to him where the Half Pipe runs in a long string of dunes but didn't even think about taking him there as wind conditions weren't good and he was too inexperienced anyway. It's a long run and once in the Half Pipe there is no coming back and trying to escape from it is very difficult. It's best to keep on going until you come out the end of it.
Despite the complexity of that run it's a beautiful ride especially after the rains (very rare here). You can run up and down the dune walls much like a snowboarder descending a half pipe on snow. We call it the Half Pipe because of its similarities to the snowboarding scene.

Way frickn cool! Dubai is beautiful! Would love to see it in person!

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Originally posted by shehatesmyhobbies Way frickn cool! Dubai is beautiful! Would love to see it in person!

Pity it's such a long way from the USA. I'd love to see some North American Buggiers running our dunes.

I fly to Chicago & Houston once in a while and am usually dead tired for almost a week when I arrive. When I return to Dubai I find myself jet-lagged for almost another week.

YES,

I'm pretty sure we are talking the same guy. Brian sort of drifted away from kiting. He was sort of out to get injured and fortunately His lack of motorcycle skills got him before his lack of kite skills did !

Dude had AWSOME kites though !

Just trawled through 3 1/2 hrs of video, and couldn't bare to chop any more out so sorry for it being a bit long...One thing you will notice is how smooth Sand Yeti's buggying is in his videos in the desert, he makes it all look far too easy. Unfortunately, my buggying and video production is not in the same calibre as his...there are one of too moments that scared the #@%$#! out of me and you will see these in the video.


Dubai Desert Buggying

Wow, that was pretty intense. The gently rolling stuff would be very fun but crossing those sharp peaks is sort of daunting. That sand was very soft when you were going slow but the tires seemed to get back on top of it once you were moving again. Nice vid popeye. Seemed unusual to see Flexi handles in your hand! LOL.

That was an incredible video Popeye! Looks like the trip of a lifetime. Good audio track too. What edit of Synaesthesia is that?

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Originally posted by BeamerBob Wow, that was pretty intense. The gently rolling stuff would be very fun but crossing those sharp peaks is sort of daunting. That sand was very soft when you were going slow but the tires seemed to get back on top of it once you were moving again. Nice vid popeye. Seemed unusual to see Flexi handles in your hand! LOL.

I was using Sand Yeti's 40m lines and handles in the video, rdavis, I trawled through 1000s of track to find a suitable sound track its Thrillseekers version

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I trawled through 1000s of track to find a suitable sound track its Thrillseekers version

Definitely the perfect tune. Knew it was Thrillseekers, but was wondering which mix/version....i'll send a U2U about, so as not to take your thread off topic.