Madrid to Dakar, 5000km on inline skates
Some time ago I saw a YouTube video of the trip of an inline skater behind a small car. It turned out to be one of the 24 videos the skater had presented on YouTube of his inline skating trip from Madrid to Dakar in Senegal. This was a distance of 5000km. On my website I have different stories about skaters and skating events but this was such a special case that I thought that I had to include it in my website. Here follows my short story of the most extreme endurance test I have seen..
Who is doing such a thing?
Looking for an answer to this question I became even more surprised. The name of the skater is Johann Camboulive. He has the French nationality and in Youtube he presents himself as an elite model with activities all over the world but also as an experienced inline skater. He had to be a good qualified skater to consider the possibility of going to make a tour on skates from Madrid to Dakar. However the combination of modeling and skating such a tour made me even more curious about his experience. |
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Of course I can´t and I don´t want to present his full report of his trip but I want to show some highlights to give you an impression. The whole tour can be seen in parts on YouTube.
How he started
If one likes to make such a tour one has to prepare. That means that one not only has to plan the road but one needs a facility to take with you clothes, some equipment to sleep along the road, spare parts for the skates or even different skates and one has to be able to carry food and water with you because a part of the trip will go through the desert.
How he started
If one likes to make such a tour one has to prepare. That means that one not only has to plan the road but one needs a facility to take with you clothes, some equipment to sleep along the road, spare parts for the skates or even different skates and one has to be able to carry food and water with you because a part of the trip will go through the desert.
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He decided to make a light small car with three wheels with hand grips so that he could push it while he was skating. He installed also a solar panel on the car so that he had some electricity and for his convenience he installed a mast for a sail which he could use if he would have wind in the back.
In the first video he made, he presented how he made the little car and how he tried it out on the roads going to the south of Spain. There he got his first experience with going up the hills and down and with flat tires. In this way he went all the way to Tarifa where he took the boat to continue in Morocco. |
From Tanger to Dakar
Arriving in Dakar he was looking for the road along the coast in order to go to the south. Of course I don´t plan to present the story of his whole trip but only two sequential episodes which illustrate very well the way he was travelling with luck (good wind), bad luck (broken parts of the car), good roads and bad roads but also as rewards the nice views and nice people he met, who helped him or even invited him to stay with them. In the second video he also met people he knew from the past. They invited him in their house and in their life and he also met people who are like him making trips which are even larger on bicycles and on a motorcycle.
Arriving in Dakar he was looking for the road along the coast in order to go to the south. Of course I don´t plan to present the story of his whole trip but only two sequential episodes which illustrate very well the way he was travelling with luck (good wind), bad luck (broken parts of the car), good roads and bad roads but also as rewards the nice views and nice people he met, who helped him or even invited him to stay with them. In the second video he also met people he knew from the past. They invited him in their house and in their life and he also met people who are like him making trips which are even larger on bicycles and on a motorcycle.
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The final destination DAKAR
Before he made the last trip to Dakar he stayed for a few days in an elegant hotel where he helped the owners with their website. When he went away he was so confused that he went in the wrong direction and had to go back again several kilometers. He had to hurry because, at the last day of his trip, inline skaters from Dakar would come to him to skate with him the last 40km. They had organized for him a triumphal arrival in the town. There he gave a course of skating to disadvantaged children. Some companies provided the skates for these kids. In this way he finished this remarkable tour.
Before he made the last trip to Dakar he stayed for a few days in an elegant hotel where he helped the owners with their website. When he went away he was so confused that he went in the wrong direction and had to go back again several kilometers. He had to hurry because, at the last day of his trip, inline skaters from Dakar would come to him to skate with him the last 40km. They had organized for him a triumphal arrival in the town. There he gave a course of skating to disadvantaged children. Some companies provided the skates for these kids. In this way he finished this remarkable tour.
I can recommend everybody to look at the different episodes of this tour because all of them have something special. I am extremely impressed by his endurance during such a trip and his positive attitude to life and his openess to different people. We can´t all do what he did, but we can admire his life on wheels in his videos (Inline nomad 1- 24).
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