Alain Duclos reaches the 15th place in stage 12th. Peru is the 27th country crossed by the Dakar, and tests the skills of the riders with its difficulties.

NASCA –It was expected that the Dakar difficulties were growing with its stages, as it was shown today with its 12th special between Arequipa and Nasca, known by its lines only visible from the sky.

It was the second part of the marathon stage, with a 245 kilometers special stage, which contained all possible kind of grounds. It started in the beach, followed by road tracks, canyon and the terrible dunes of Tacana, with a sand so softened that was almost a sacrifice for the engines.

The lands looked like Mauritania, a strong point of the Dakar in Africa, with lots of “camel grass”. It was a special where Alain Duclos had lots of fun on his Aprilia, and proved it with the 15th position of the day. Alain thought lots of the friction of the engine and took extremely care of it. He is one of the few riders that have not changed the engine yet, which demonstrates the liability of the v-twin engine of the Aprilia.

As the overall position is no longer a matter since stage seven, the French-Malian rider keeps rolling to acquire more experience and test the bike performance.

Alain Duclos: “I think this was the most beautiful stage of all Dakar. There were so many different kind of ground in only 250 kilometers! It seemed like if we were in Mauritania. I felt well and my Aprilia worked perfectly. I took care of the engine in the dunes; they were very soft, so soft that I needed to get out of them in 1st gear with the engine giving all of its power!”

The Dakar arrives to Arica, the last stage in Chile. Tomorrow the race will cross the border to Peru. Alain Duclos finishes the stage in the 23 position.

ARICA – The last city in the North of Chile, Arica, greeted the Dakar´s tenth stage, the last one in Chile. Tomorrow the race waves good-bye to go to Peru, to make its first stop in Arequipa.

Today stage was not so noisy. It was the Spanish rider Joan Barreda who marked his first stage win in the Dakar after this 377 km in the Atacama Desert, the most arid of the planet, and a place where riders found many navigation difficulties.

Started nineteenth this morning, Alain Duclos had a navigation problem at kilometer 138. The dust did not let him read his navigation instruments and made a mistake. Once he was able to get back to the right track after five kilometers, Alain fought to take back his position and finished the stage 23rd.

Alain Duclos: “Today it was such a beautiful stage, with steering, dunes, off road sections. I was in the dust and I couldn´t read my road-book so I followed some other riders… and I did five kilometers until I saw I was not on the right track, and I got back but I had to overtake many riders that went through while I wasn´t there…. I lost the right pace and it is harder to find it back when you have problems than when everything is fine.”
 

This week sees the 3rd birthday of THE BIKER GUIDE being live on the great world wide web... and what a three years it has been!

We have seen an astonishing amount of visitors to the site, with over 370,000 in just the last 12 months and with 2,888 in a single day in September 2011.

Our visitors come from 180+ countries, looking at over a million pages and have found the web-site from us handing out cards at shows and events, through our large facebook groups, promoting via various printed media and also from over 13,500 keyword searches... WOW - even we are amazed at the response!

We include an extensive lists of Whats On, news, bike club links, along with an easy to use Directory - think yellow pages for Bikers.

We also run regular competitions where we have given away many tickets to shows, ladies t's, holidays at Biker Friendly Hotels and B&B's and more...

We would sincerely like to thank all those who have visited our website in the past 3 years, contributed, commented and generally appreciate the many hours we spend on the development of THE BIKER GUIDE.

Last year over a 100,000 motorcyclists, coordinated by the French riders group The Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC – French Federation of Angry Bikers), demonstrated in France against their government’s plans to introduce a raft of road safety policies.
 
The proposal to make the wearing of high visibility fluorescent vests mandatory and the introduction of fines for non-compliance seemed to be the main focus of the French demonstrations. This was reported on and commented on by riders in the UK and Ireland.
 
After the demonstration, (which saw piles of high viz vests burned in protest by riders), French Government Officials claimed that bikers had totally misunderstood the proposed obligation for all to wear a fluorescent high visibility yellow vest!
 
Officials stated that it has never been a question of wearing that vest but rather to propose (not impose) to bikers that they wear a little yellow strap around their arm so that they can be better seen by motorists.
 
However FFMC now report that a new decree (NOR: IOCA1126729D No. 2012-3) on road safety has entered into force.
 
It was published on January 3rd 2012 and entered into force on the 4th January (2012).
 
French Decree
 
The decree provides that drivers and passengers of motorized two-wheelers (2WD) of more than 125 cm3 from 1st January 2013 must wear a retro-reflecting device with a total surface area of at least 150 cm ².
 
If riders fails to comply with the law they will be subject to a fixed fine of €68 which automatically leads to the reduction of two points from their driver’s licence. There is no mention of what the passenger faces for non-compliance, perhaps just a fine?
 
FFMC say that, “bikers already have four retro-reflective stickers on the helmet and they ride with the headlights on. In addition, a retro-reflecting device is useless in daylight … We also know that the issue of visibility is not a problem of lighting or colours of clothing, but a problem of inattention of drivers inadequately trained to coexist with PTWs which is more and more prevalent. Finally, why are only bikers of than 125 cm3 included? They are the best equipped of all PTW users.”
 
This year the political elections are due in France and “noises” coming from FFMC suggests that they are not finished with this issue.
 
Right To Ride Comment
 
At Right To Ride we wonder if riders visiting France will have to wear a reflective device; where riders will be able to purchase these; how much these reflective devices will cost and who will make a huge profit from selling these to 3.5million registered PTWs in France (Powered Two Wheelers – Motorcycles – Scooters – Mopeds – 2009 ACEM).
 
Meanwhile in the Republic of Ireland, MAG Ireland has published interesting preliminary results of their survey on Hi Viz. These results suggest that riders are very aware of their own mortality and that the majority take necessary precautions.
 
Perhaps the French (and Irish) authorities should spend more time consulting riders instead of mandating ridiculous arm bands (or vests).
 
When a government starts interfering with the clothing of a minority group, there may be trouble ahead.
 
Read the full article on Right To Ride EU

The National Association For Bikers with a Disability (NABD) is in its twentieth year with a very proud record of helping around 10,000 disabled people to enjoy the freedom and independence of motorcycling.

Throughout this time we have remained dedicated to our belief that registered charities such as ours should not spend vast amounts of money on wages, expenses and fancy offices. To this end we have remained a voluntary organisation with only two employees (two lovely ladies who take care of the office and daily administration) and we have one of the least generous and most restrictive system of expense claims in the charity world. Our office and storage facility is small industrial unit on an industrial estate. The NABD is also one of those extremely rare charities that have guaranteed for twenty years that 100% of every donation has been used specifically for the purpose it was donated.
 
Unfortunately, like everybody else, the NABD has been hit hard by this current recession and now we need your support more than ever before.

Many bikers all over Britain get involved in raising money for a wide range of charities but most seem to support massively oversubscribed charities that already have millions of pounds in the bank like Children In Need, Comic Relief, Help For Heroes or Cancer Research. We all know that these charities provide much needed services and support for deserving people but the fact remains that they have vast resources and they enjoy huge support from all parts of society.
 
To give you an idea of what I'm talking about; on just one day in 2011, Children in Need raised more than £26 million in the UK. Comic Relief raised £74 million in 2011. Cancer Research raised an almost unbelievable £433 million in 2010 and each of these charities gets huge support from within the motorcycle scene.
 
The NABD has to rely purely on support from within the motorcycle scene and although this support has previously enabled us to become the world leaders in the field of motorcycling for disabled people and this in turn has given us the ability to develop new and better solutions to the problems faced by disabled motorcyclists, we have recently seen a marked fall-off in support from motorcyclists and motorcycle groups. And we do not need millions; in fact the best financial year in our history featured total donations of little over £68,000.
 
One of the most important aspects of the services offered by the NABD is our system for making financial grants to help disabled riders to pay for the necessary adaptations to bikes, trikes and sidecar outfits. Now for the first time since 1999 we have been forced by the current financial situation to suspend this grants system due to lack of funds.
 
It is our fervent hope that this awful situation is a temporary one, but without a marked resurgence in support from within the motorcycle scene this much needed service, and others, will not be available to those fellow bikers who need it so much if they are to regain their freedom and independence through motorcycling.
 
Please don't leap to the incorrect conclusion that the NABD is in danger of disappearing, this is not the case and nor will it be the case in the foreseeable future. However, in the current economic climate, more people than ever are requesting our help and we have already paid or agreed to over £74,000 worth of grants in the 8 months of this financial year. To put that into perspective, our previous record in one entire year was just over £70,000. Whilst we can afford to pay for these, we cannot, at the present time, agree to any more. We simply don’t have the money.
 
The NABD needs your support now. If your club is having a party, why not make it a fund-raiser for the NABD? Why not ask your local bikers pub to run a raffle or a party to raise funds for the NABD? Or you could simply become a member of the NABD for £20 (you don't have to be disabled to join and support our aims). You can buy NABD supporters patches and other NABD merchandise via the shop on www.nabd.org.uk we also have You've Been Nabbed 21 rally tickets for sale via the web site or by calling 0844 415 4849

Please help the NABD in its hour of need, it's the biker’s charity and bikers are the only people who make it all work.
 
Donations can be sent to: NABD, Unit 20, The Bridgewater Centre, Robson Avenue, Urmston, Manchester, M40 7TE or you can donate on line www.nabd.org.uk or by phone 0844 415 4849
 
The NABD, is a biker's charity run by bikers for bikers with disabilities and it needs your help now...
 
Rick Hulse
NABD Chairman