I've cracked Dakar Rally..and my ribs

Published on Friday 29 January 2010 09:52

A LAWYER has told how he completed the world's toughest endurance race, despite cracking his ribs in a horror crash.

Paul Carlyle, 38, from Leith, quit his day job for a month to compete in the Dakar Rally.

The biking enthusiast said he was "over the moon" to cross the finishing line and become only the second Scot ever to complete the rally on a motorbike.

But Mr Carlyle, who was also the top British finisher on a bike, revealed how a "stupid" crash 11 days into the race nearly brought a premature end to his dreams.

He said: "I went out and found a nice fast bit of track which I was really enjoying riding. I started passing a lot of riders, made a small mistake in the dust and next thing I know I'm flying through the air.

"I cracked a couple of ribs. I think I landed on my head and I'd given my neck a bit of a shake around, some soft tissue damage, but I was able to continue riding."

The rally, which historically ended in Dakar, Senegal, took place in South America for the second year running this year.

Starting in Buenos Aires, the route headed north over the mountains to the Atacama Desert in Chile, then south to Santiago and back to Buenos Aires.

Mr Carlyle, who could not even ride a motorcycle ten years ago, had to travel the equivalent of the distance between London and Edinburgh, off road, every day for more than a fortnight.

The intellectual property lawyer, a partner at Shepherd and Wedderburn in Edinburgh, spoke of his delight at finishing the 5,600-mile marathon after five years of planning.

He said: "My plan and ambition was to get to the rest day halfway through. I thought that was a realistic target, so I'm over the moon to get to the end."

Mr Carlyle said being back in the UK was "surreal".

He said: "It is slightly odd, it was a very intense experience. The Argentineans are completely mad for their motorsport, so all the riders were treated as major celebrities for all the time they were there.

"I'm still letting it all sink in a little bit, it was a long project to work towards. Coming back to the UK, the whole thing seems slightly surreal. I think maybe over a period of time it will slowly sink in."

He said he was not ruling out a repeat of the experience at some point in the future.

He said: "I always said I would do it once. If the race does go back to Africa, which there is talk of, I think that would be very hard to resist."