Red Bull athlete Mohammed Al Balooshi is a Red Bull motocross and desert rally rider, and the first Emirati to take part in the Dakar Rally. For the third article of his monthly column Balooshi talks about his favourite places in the world to get on his bike.
I’ve been lucky enough to race in so many places around the world. Just last week I thinking about this when I was racing in Spain, which was supposed to be summery conditions but there was a thunderstorm a few days before the race so it was muddy and wet and not easy. When you train in the UAE it’s hard to prepare for ground like that, but I enjoyed it, and I’ve enjoyed racing on other terrain around the world. Here are my favourites…
UAE
It’s very difficult to pick a number one because I’ve ridden in so many places but the UAE desert is probably my favourite because within the desert there are a variety of different terrains. For instance, Liwa is open with big dunes so the riding style is different than riding in other areas but there are a lot of different types of vegetation within the UAE.
Bahrain
The motocross track in Bahrain is great and I love going there. It’s a sandy course but it’s thick sand with lots of fun jumps and I look forward to racing it every year. Throughout my career I’ve always got a good result on this track and I still get excited to race there. In fact I still get butterflies in my stomach the night before I race there.
Peru
I rode it for the first time in my life for the Dakar rally and the dunes there are even bigger than Liwa. I think it’s because they sit at the base of mountains so they are over 2,000 metres high. I remember when I was on the road section and I could see these massive dunes in the distance and I thought they were the mountains, that’s how big they were, it was such a unique experience riding there.
Belgium
I’m more of a desert rider so most of my best riding is done outside of Europe, plus it isn’t blessed with many sandy deserts. I have done a lot of training a lot in Belgium though, and I actually didn’t enjoy it to begin with because it was muddy and the sand is tough but by the end of my training I was having a lot of fun there.
