Learn to use a Roadbook, ICO / IMO Trip Computer, GPS and practise your map reading

Pitch yourself against long rally-raid style stages across the pistes and remote tracks of the French and Spanish Pyrenees

Camp out at our special Bivoaucs where our support vehicle will meet you each day and re-supply you with fuel, food and water

Ride a 'tricky' overnight stage isolated from other riders and with limited fuel

The emphasis of this course is on navigation and endurance - skills that you will need for any attempt at an African rally-raid event. During the ten days you'll ride more than a 1000 miles, prepare and ride five complex rally-raid type stages using a roadbook, trip computer and GPS and learn to use all of the navigation equipment effectively.

This is not a race and none of the stages are timed or run against the clock. However you will experience every other element of a rally - you ride from one bivouac to another, the stages are long and require more than six hours in the saddle each day without rest stops, there is an overnight stage, rider briefings and early starts. By the end of the course you'll not only be ready to compete, you'll be a lot fitter too.

This course is aimed at novice rally-raid riders and is open to all classes of bike or quad. The course starts on a Monday so that you can use the weekend to transport your bike down to France.

You need to arrive in our base town of Luz St Sauveur on Monday evening, in time to meet at the Hotel Montiagu for dinner at 7.00pm. We'll circulate names of participating riders well in advance of the course so that you can share transport costs of your bike and equipment down to the Pyrenees if appropriate. Email Simon for advice on driving to the Pyrenees.

THE COURSE

DAY ONE - Roadbook Training Day
We spend all day riding on trails through the forests and hills of the Pays Toy and Pibeste areas of the French Pyrenees. The focus of the day is on preparing and using a Roadbook and calibrating your IMO / ICO trip computer.

After an early start and briefing, riders are given a short time to prepare the Roadbook and set off. We'll be riding for six hours today and each rider will lead a section of the route with our lead rider checking progress and giving feedback. We ride together as a group today and return to out hotel base in Luz St Sauveur for a BBQ.

DAY TWO - Roadbook in Practice 1 and Bivouac
Riders are given a new Roadbook and a start time. We set off 10 minutes apart to minimise the chance of riders meeting each other. The route is a long ride through the foothills of the French Pyrenees to the Pays Basque. Then you cross the border and ride a short series of trails and pistes to reach the first Bivouac campground and our support vehicle / supplies. In the evening there is a full briefing, time for informal questions and answers and time to prep the Roadbook for next days riding.

DAY THREE - Roadbook in Practice 2 and Bivouac
There's an early morning start today - riders set off at ten minute intervals starting at 7.00am. 80% of the ride is off road today and the navigation is quite tricky in places. The ride ends at our secod bivouac site and as you arrive we check the track in your GPS to make sure that passed all of the points on the roadbook. Dinner and briefing over a campfire.

DAY FOUR - GPS Training Day and Ride
Today is a shorter but much more complex ride using your GPS only. The Roadbook has no directions in it today other than a list of longitude and latitude co-ordinates and compass bearings. You ride a circuit around the mountains looking for a number of checkpoints that we've set up. You'll know all there is to know about your GPS by the end of the day. You return to our Bivouac in the afternoon. Tuition is ongoing throughout the day for those who are not experienced GPS users.

DAY FIVE - A Very Long Ride
We set off on an eleven hour ride today, leaving at 20 minute intervals to ensure that we each ride on our own throughout the day. The idea here is to make sure that you focus on your own navigation and endurance skills and don't rely on following another rider. There is a brief 20 minute stop for each rider in the middle of the day. You arrive at the next Bivouac by dusk.

DAY SIX - Map Reading 1 and Night Ride
We spend the first part of the day training in map reading, not often needed these days but an essential skills if you get lost. We look at electronic mapping and how this can help you prepare for a stage. There is a short circular ride in the afternoon followed by a briefing for the night ride - three to four hours over the mountains in the dark ! Obviously you need to approach this ride with extreme caution and pay attention to the navigation details in the Roadbook.

DAY SEVEN - Rest and Bike Maintanence
We take a day off from riding today and use the time to carry out maintanence and repairs to the bikes. There's time to catch up on sleep and explore local villages (and bars!)... but tomorow we hit the trail again with another early start.

DAY EIGHT - A Very Long Ride 2
A 7.00am start and another 10 - 11 hour ride along the little known pistes of the Spanish foothills. There is a mix of road and off road throughout the day and we end at another hidden bivouac.

DAY NINE- Roadbook in Practice 3
Today's ride is slightly shorter but includes some complex sections through woods where your navigation skills will be used to the full. Ends at the final bivouac.

DAY TEN - Roadbook in Practice 4
A final day's ride takes us back across the border to France and then over a series of high mountain passes. This is a mix of off road and road. You end the day with a long mountain climb on rough tracks to a final rendezvous with the support truck before heading down to base at Luz St Sauveur and the Hotel Montaigu.

Gear for Your Bike
This list as intended as a prompt - not an exhaustive list. You need to bear in mind that you'll know more about your individual bike than we will so make sure you have the right spares with you. We recommend that you carry:

- a puncture repair kit
- two tyre levers
- spare spark plug
- replacement electrical fuses
- spare throttle cables
- spare brake and clutch cable
- replacement clutch lever
- replacement front brake lever
- replacement rear brake foot lever
- light bulb set
- small, appropriate tool kit (we carry a full tool kit in our Landrover)

Bear in mind that we'll be riding about a 1500 miles in total so if you have the kind of bike that needs an oil change or air filter change during that period you'll need to bring those parts with you as well. These can be carried in our support truck.

You'll also need your bike to be equipped with:

- A5 road book reader
- an IMO trip computer
- a GPS
- a USB connecting for your GPS so we can upload waypoints to it daily

The best place to buy these is from Touratech (see www.touratech.co.uk) - please order early if you are buying these especially for the trip as Touratech have quite long delivery times.

You also need appropriate tyres for this ride. We recommend that you use a mixed terrain rally tyre like Pirelli MT21s or Metzler Saharas. Motorcoross or Enduro tyres will wear too quickly and any road tyre will just not hold up on the off-road sections. Email Simon for advice if you're unsure.

For the preparation of the Roadbook you need two rolls of sellotape, coloured highlighter pens and a pair of scissors.

Gear for You
We don’t propose a full riding kit list as this is down to individual preference. You should wear a protective vest, knee pads and hard boots. Bear in mind though that the weather can be very hot in the day and cold at night. We might be unlucky and get rain (or even on rare occasions slight snowfall!). So you need enough riding clothing to cope with these changes. Spare clothes can be carried in the Landrover. We also recommend that you ride wearing a camelback with a 2 or 3 litre water capacity.

For the camping sections of the trip you'll need:

- a 3 or 4 seasons sleeping bag
- a sleeping mat
- a tent (we will try to arrange for people to share where appropriate)
- a mug, plate, bowl and cutlery
- a 1 litre plus water bottle

There are a few things that we think are really well worth taking that you may not normally have thought about including:

- binoculars, you will see a lot of big birds
- warm clothes…even in the summer months it can be quite cold up in the mountains and sometimes wet.
- your mobile phone so you can call us when you or we are lost!