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© Bob Mullins   

Tamsin Jones

Congratulations Tamsin on your wonderful achievement of completing the Dakar. I Know it has long been your dream to compete in this event . It took a lot of effort to make it happen and even more to get to the end but your determination got you there eventually. Many people have been following your progress day by day on TV and web sites and would love to let you know what a fantastic job you did. Often keeping us up very late at night waiting for you to reach the days finish. You join a very exclusive club of only 2 British women to achieve this. You are now a LEGEND !!

Lots of love . Chris, Jemima, Mum, Dad, Emily, Mitz, Aunty Bar, Simon, the rest of your family, all your friends ,Lee ,Paul, Matt, Plumby, The Paveys, George @ motoden, Dom @ kriega, Simon @ TBM, Dylan @ docklands, Most of Wales, Joe, Martin, Joe, Alex, all your internet fans and supporters, sponsors and any one else I may have forgotten. 

Red bull ROMANIACS!!!!!!! My experience of one of the craziest things I have ever done

"Red Bull Romaniacs!! No way! Never! You're mental!!", was my first response to the suggestion I go and ride it. "I'm not gonna jump off a house"………"Yeah, but you can go round that bit".

After a couple of weeks of considering it and the thought of cancelling the Welsh entry I'd just put in, i decided - You only live or die once so at least I'd do either doing what I loved to do.

Step one was to up my game a bit so I'd been invited to go and ride with Hugh the Mill up in mid Wales and persuaded myself that what ever he did I'd at least have to have a go at it. It wasn't as difficult as I thought and within about 15 mins I'd learnt more than I had in the last year.

I'd also been invited to go and train in South Wales with some other Brit's who had entered the event. Lee Walters was to put us through our paces and with some good advice had me riding up and down really steep climbs that I would have normally found a route around. Myself and Andrew Neri who was to be my team mate spent a couple of weekends riding with the guys in South Wales and without that experience we would not have stood a chance in Romania.

I'd also watched Mat Hall's DVD of last years prologue which included riding over tyres, big logs up stairs and jumping huge gap jumps so the weekend before we left I talked my boyfriend into grabbing some tyres, wood and a chain saw and we went to our local riding spot and put together a rather tame in comparison Romaniacs prologue section.

We'd decided to drive out to Romania in convoy with Mat Hall and Chris Salt. It was actually really enjoyable as we stopped at a couple of crazy hippy campsites on the way. The Tent in Munich and the Biker Camp in Budapest are definitely worth a visit if ya passing.

We arrived in Sibui a day before the event and met up with Plummy, Craig Bounds, Liz Millet and a few other Brit teams who had entered the event. Sibiu is a great city and far more advanced that I thought it would be. It's the European city of culture and was packed with kids as there was a 3 day music festival.

So we had a look at the street course. 40ft walls of death, 30ft ramps made of pallets through tree's. The course went through an old building up the stairs then out the window with just a wooden pallet covering up a 30ft drop. The ACU's biggest nightmare and scary as fu**!!!!

Shit, I decided I was gonna do all the chicken runs…………… after a few beers I decided I was gonna do all the course…………then on the morning of the practise I was gonna do all the chicken runs again. When it came to the practise we were told we had half an hour to ride any obstacle we liked in any order we liked. It was mayhem. I decided to just go for it and did the biggest wall ride first then everything else felt abit more manageable. In the mayhem I met up with Chris Salt and we decided to go and ride up the stairs in the building. He gave me some good tips and I managed to get up them Ok. They'd built some huge steep ramps through the tree's which were actually alright once you'd committed to doing them although there were quite a few that came unstuck and it was a long way down.

So the day of the prologue was a scorcher and just to begin the punishment they sent us off at the hottest part of the day. The hobby class went first and when I got round the first corner into the first big log section, everyone was on the floor - mmmm abit like Western. Me and Andrew managed to do 2 laps and most of the obstacles. I think Paul Bolton saved by life as my yammy stalled at the top of the biggest wooden ramp and then wouldn't' start luckily he ran up the ramp and grabbed the front as I began to fall backwards off the top PHEW!!!!!

The Expert race was as entertaining as the hobby with riders falling off and getting stuck everywhere. What a day for the Brit's though Craig Bounds and Nick Plumb won the prologue and Jon Woods cleaned the tyres section then got wrapped up in the red bull inflatable arch and dragged it along the course along with some of the crowd control barriers. He got a standing ovation for that one.

There were 2 Brit's in the pro race. Paul 'superhero' Bolton (he had just saved my life) and Geoff Walker. It was brilliant. Paul was in the lead for most of the race before taking the wrong line on the parallel logs where Cyril Despres got into the lead. It was a battle to the end but it was Cyril's day.

Not really knowing what to expect we set off at 7 ish for our first hard enduro day and yes it was a hard enduro day. The hills are more technical, steep and longer than in the UK. Our second ascent was up a black ski run, which didn't look that bad but the hobby class was directed on another route which in hindsight was a lot harder than the ski run. We must have gone the wrong way somewhere as we ended up in a rubbish dump and then some one's back garden after having to pull each other over lots of huge tree roots. It took about an hour of man handling the bikes to get them to the top. Paul Bolton had been doing really well in the pro class and was on Cyril Despres back wheel most of the day until he had a big off and was out of the race.

You're given a GPS route each day with about 500 waypoints and have to follow a course. Some of the route is marked quite well with little bits of KTM banner and some isn't. The Hobby, Expert and Pro class are split a couple of times a day to do different levels of 'extreme' sections. Don't be fooled into thinking the hobby class is easy - of 24 teams that started only 12 finished and that is because most timed out. The riding is difficult enough but there are also sections that you end up pulling and carrying the bikes through and in the midday heat it's a killer. Also when you think it's all over and you have been riding for 10 hours they put a gnarly section in just to finish you off. Me and Andrew finished the first day with minutes to spare.

Day 2 was about 160k and was more technical than day one. One particular off camber section scared the crap out of me, the back wheel was constantly slipping down and below us was the edge of a cliff. I don't think I've ever been that scared riding a dirtbike. We also got stuck in an off camber mud pit for about an hour and had to get the tow ropes out. Even with 2 of us trying to get the bike out we were struggling. Luckily 2 Brit KTM riders, John Woods and Paul Skinner who had changed class from Expert to Hobby caught us up and helped us out. We also had to lift the bikes over huge logs and had a few fast flowing river crossing to deal with. The last section was a rock steppy, sandy canyon where we were having to pull each other up a lot of big rock sections. We were riding in a 4 and it did seem easier 4 people pulling 4 bikes than 2 pulling 2. At the end of the day on the last gnarly climb we bumped into Geoff walker who was riding the Pro class. He had no bike with him and said he'd got lost and got stuck in a ravine further down the road. It had taken him 2 hours to climb out and later took them 4 hours to get the bike out. This race is crazy. More and more people were timing out. Nick Plumb and Craig Bounds were going well in the Expert class. The Sandiford boys were having problems with their navigation and a few arguments on the mountain had lead to them coming back separately.

So day 3 was day 1 back to front and it was getting abit easier. I think because we were getting used to the riding and got into our heads the fact that whatever happened we just had to keep going all day. We were having big probs with some parts of the course on the first 2 days which meant we were just getting in on time. We were going really well until the battery went on Andrew's KTM and we lost about an hour in all with him having to kick start it. Just when we thought we were near the end they put a bloody horrible steep downhill in, with really tight switchbacks. When we got to the bottom there were loads of people looking absolutely knackered. Mat and Chris who had had problems on the first couple of days and were out of the race rode with us till the end giving us loads of encouragement and keeping us going. Just before the end we were having a bit of a race with a load of other riders and were approaching a big bog. When the riders realised I was a girl they decided to ride a bit faster and ended up right into the middle of the bog right up to the tanks. Mat noticed a sneaky line which avoided the bog altogether. - See ya boys !!!!

The expert class were given a section where the decent was so steep they had to get off the bikes and push them down with their feet, apparently this took about an hour and they then put the bikes on a set of ropes and were pulled across a canyon, proper Indiana Jones style.

We'd nearly finished, one more day. I'd never ached so much.

Nearly all the other Brit teams were out of the race. Geoff Walker was still in the pro class, Plummy and Craig Bounds still in the expert and us and the Sandiford guys still in the hobby. One of the Sandiford team decided not to ride the last day and no amount of persuading could get him to change his mind. So that meant even if the others rode they wouldn't get a finish. So off me and Andrew went, feeling really weary and very glad it was the last day but also shitting ourselves that they were gonna make it really horrible. It didn't go too badly - in fact probably the best and most flowing days riding we had. We had to do the off camber section of death that we'd done on day two again and managed to get through, it wasn't any easier and I wasn't any less scared. Some of the Brits met us at the really difficult sections to give us a hand if we needed it. Andrew nearly killed Liz Millet as he flipped his 525 on a rocky section. They did put a few nasty sections in. On one hill the guys at the top told me to get off and walk the bike down - so i did and it went on for ever and I wish I'd rode it now but couldn't get back on the damn thing. Just after the last fuel stop there was a long ascent, just near the top I had no drive and had burnt the clutch out. Shit we weren't gonna get to the end and we were so near. We decided to take the plates out cool them down bend them a bit and try and keep going. We only had about an hour left to ride. It worked and we made it to the next check where they told us the hobby race was over as some of the hobby class has ridden the pro course by mistake. What an anti climax to the finish. Where was the glory and the crowds?????

Ah well never mind we could still ride the rest of the course but it wouldn't count. During the last 4 days we'd passed this double seesaw they'd built across the river which loads of people had fallen off. When we got to it Chris Salt did it a few times and made it look easy so I thought I'd give it a go. I was really hyped up for it and hoped the clutch would last out. Anyway got onto the first seesaw and guess what No drive, gutted, clutch had really had it. Shit, so we just dumped the bike I jumped on the back of Andrew's and we rode to the finish. To finish off the pro's and experts had to ride up this really steep sandy, single track hill and I mean really steep. Only a few of the pro's managed to ride it, all the rest were pulled up by the spectators. I had a walk down to see Geoff Walker looking absolutely battered, he only had a little way to go. Luckily some other Brits from DBR were there so we all helped him up the hill. What a hero, I can't believe anyone can do that bloody race on their own - RESPECT!!!!!!!!!! Plummy and Craig had had some mechanical probs on the course but made it to the end in overall 4th place in the expert class. BRILLIANT!.

What a race!!! Enjoyable, No. A challenge, Yes. A test of endurance, Yes. Would I do it again, Definitely Yes. Gotta say all those pro riders really are superhero's and also thanks to all the Brits who were out there who supported and helped us out. I must say it was one of the rare occasions I was proud to be British.

Feedback

Hello Bob.

I hope you are well. I just wanted to drop you a mail about Tamsins Red Bull Romaniacs experience report. What an excellent read and I would like to express my gratitude for Tamsins kindness in words to myself and her fellow competitors. The whole event exudes a need for toughness, and Tamsin has this quality in abundance. It was a pleasure to see her on the course most days at some stages when the pro course rejoined the route and she never looked like giving up. I respect this quality as this particular race seems to dig deep into the soul. (Almost) Always wearing a smile and with a positive attitude, it was a pleasure to compete in the event this year with her, Andrew and the rest of the British crew.

Kind Regards.

Geoff Walker. Team KP-EQUIPE. DBR.