Simon Pavey: “I won’t be able to ride the bike for him”
Simon Pavey is preparing to experience a Dakar unlike any other. With six participations so far, including a 40th place in the overall final ranking in 1998, this UK-based Australian can legitimately be regarded as an experienced rider. But for this 28th Dakar, he has been entrusted with an unusual role: that of a coach responsible for passing on his expertise to a novice, the actor Charley Boorman, with everything being filmed by a cameraman crazy enough to agree to shoot while driving, Matthew Hall.
The project is part of a documentary film for which Charley Boorman set off on a round-the-world bike trip with Ewan McGregor. After the arctic leg of the adventure, the backers wanted to organise a follow-up in the desert, which is when they turned to Simon Pavey: “Sky TV contacted me about the story of following a real Dakar novice in his daily travails. Charly Boorman is a biking fan, and my job has consisted of training him for a year so he’s ready for the start. On the Dakar, I will be his water-carrier with a single remit: to do whatever it takes to get him to the end.”
Used to abandoning himself to the delights of the dirt tracks and dunes, Simon will this time have to put his personal ambitions to one side and transfer his aims to his protégé, an exercise in self-sacrifice which holds no particular fear for him and which he is embracing as a new challenge: “I won’t be able to ride the bike for him, but I’ll be with him at all times, helping him deal with technical problems and pushing him to surpass himself and get himself out of tight fixes when he feels like he’s reached rock bottom.”
Pavey’s Dakar 2006 success will therefore be inextricably linked to the performance of Charley Boorman. In this respect, the coach is logically placing all his faith in the English actor: “He’s a determined sort of guy who has some real driving ability, but he’s not yet reached the standard of the kind of adventure he’s letting himself in for. I therefore believe that he’s going to come unstuck once or twice before he realises that he’s got to really give 100%. I think he’s got the ability to finish.” But the proof of the pudding will, of course, be in the eating.
The above is a quote from the Dakar website
Simon Pavey is preparing to experience a Dakar unlike any other. With six participations so far, including a 40th place in the overall final ranking in 1998, this UK-based Australian can legitimately be regarded as an experienced rider. But for this 28th Dakar, he has been entrusted with an unusual role: that of a coach responsible for passing on his expertise to a novice, the actor Charley Boorman, with everything being filmed by a cameraman crazy enough to agree to shoot while driving, Matthew Hall.
The project is part of a documentary film for which Charley Boorman set off on a round-the-world bike trip with Ewan McGregor. After the arctic leg of the adventure, the backers wanted to organise a follow-up in the desert, which is when they turned to Simon Pavey: “Sky TV contacted me about the story of following a real Dakar novice in his daily travails. Charly Boorman is a biking fan, and my job has consisted of training him for a year so he’s ready for the start. On the Dakar, I will be his water-carrier with a single remit: to do whatever it takes to get him to the end.”
Used to abandoning himself to the delights of the dirt tracks and dunes, Simon will this time have to put his personal ambitions to one side and transfer his aims to his protégé, an exercise in self-sacrifice which holds no particular fear for him and which he is embracing as a new challenge: “I won’t be able to ride the bike for him, but I’ll be with him at all times, helping him deal with technical problems and pushing him to surpass himself and get himself out of tight fixes when he feels like he’s reached rock bottom.”
Pavey’s Dakar 2006 success will therefore be inextricably linked to the performance of Charley Boorman. In this respect, the coach is logically placing all his faith in the English actor: “He’s a determined sort of guy who has some real driving ability, but he’s not yet reached the standard of the kind of adventure he’s letting himself in for. I therefore believe that he’s going to come unstuck once or twice before he realises that he’s got to really give 100%. I think he’s got the ability to finish.” But the proof of the pudding will, of course, be in the eating.
The above is a quote from the Dakar website
Wearing green jacket!
