OFF-ROADER QUINN CODY
Cody ended up as the rookie of the year in this year’s Dakar, riding his Honda to ninth overall in his first attempt.
Cody leaves the starting area
during the opening ceremonies
for this year’s Dakar.
1000 on more than one occasion.
“It’s really brutal,” Cody said
just a week or so removed from
the Dakar Rally. “The riding itself
is really difficult, but the schedule
they put you on… the way they
design the layout of the race -
it’s kind of designed to hurt you.
Start times in the morning on
most days are 4: 20, 4: 30 in the
morning. You’re up at 3: 30 and
you’ve already done almost 200
miles before the sun even comes
up and you haven’t even made it
to the special [test] yet. There are
a lot of days like that and it’s re-
ally hard to sleep in the bivouac
with all the noise, the generators,
with guys working on their cars
and stuff. You’re just in a tent, on
a little pad. It really takes a lot of
getting used to, to figuring out a
system to deal with all your stuff,
your camelback, your roadbook.
Normally, we are used to getting
done with a race and that’s it –
you’re done. But all of sudden
you have to get ready for the next
day. There’s no time to just relax.”
Although the racing is fierce
and the terrain difficult, it’s the
lack of sleep that takes the most
getting used to, Cody says.
“It’s taxing on you. The sleep
deprivation, I think, is the biggest
thing. Your body gets used to
operating at this deficit. You are
getting three, four hours a night
of sleep. It’s the mental part. You
can’t really train for it. You have to
make sure you are making good
decisions, good roadbook deci-
sions, good decisions with the
bike… it’s hard to do on limited
sleep.”
So how does the little 13-day
jaunt through South America
compare to the legendary Baja
1000? For starters, it’s not just a
case of pre-running and memo-
rizing most of the course. There’s
no way to do that in the Dakar –
because every day brings a new
route. A course you’ve never
seen before.
“The riding… some of it is
pretty difficult, but I think it’s just
the length of everything that gets
to you,” Cody said. “You are on
the bike for so long. You’re doing
an average of 450 miles a day
so you’re on the bike for a long
time and it just wears you down.
There’s some really difficult stuff,
like in the sand dunes. The navigation, especially since it was
my first time, it really takes a lot
out of you to have to look down
[at the roadbook] and make sure
that you’re not going to crash.
Sometimes you’ll look down and
