Finding Rhythm in the Dunes: Gavin Mourtizen's Rally du Maroc Journey
The emotions hit somewhere between takeoff and landing. After months of preparation, thousands of dollars invested, and countless hours of training, Gavin found himself thinking: "What have I got myself into?"
It's the kind of honest admission that rarely makes it into race reports, but it's exactly where many first-time rally racers find themselves as they approach their qualifying event for the Dakar Rally. For Gavin, a Decoding Dakar client working toward his Dakar debut, Rally du Maroc 2024 represented more than just another race, it was the gateway to his ultimate goal.
A Rushed Start
Gavin arrived with limited time before shakedown, he should have come two days earlier. Instead, he left himself only a couple of hours to get on the bike. The result? He never actually set up the bike properly for himself, struggling with both the cockpit and suspension for the entire week.
On the flat, fast sections, the bike was fantastic. But as soon as they hit rocks, it was "all over the place" with the back kicking out. The spring felt too heavy, and softening it created a kangaroo effect. He eventually put everything back to base settings and rode it like that.
The cockpit position created another issue. As a shorter rider, Gavin should have brought the bars back to tighten things up. Instead, it felt like he was hanging onto the bike rather than sitting in it. "That comes down to experience, that's my inexperience," he reflects. "Now I know, get there, give yourself more time, set the bike up a bit better for you."
Despite the setup issues, he arrived at HT Rally Raid and found them to be exactly what he expected. "I thought they're a great bunch of guys. Everything I thought it would be, it was."
The Prologue
The prologue ran on roadbook but was marked, with numerous 20-meter radius waypoints (WPP’s) to prevent cutting. Over what Gavin recalls as about 16 kilometers, he passed approximately five riders. It gave him a sense of where he stood in the field.
Looking back on his preparation, the training he'd done through the Namibia Roadbook Camp proved essential. The navigation skills built there, reading CAP headings, staying calm under pressure, would be tested repeatedly throughout the week ahead.
Stage One: Finding the Pace
After a long 270-kilometer liaison, stage one began with a steep, rocky, straight-up climb. Dennis, a friend from the Namibia Roadbook Camp, started just in front of Gavin, only seven seconds ahead from the prologue results, with one rider between them.
The nerves were there at the start, but Gavin likes rocks. By the time they reached the top of the climb and got into level terrain, he'd caught both Dennis and the rider who started ahead of him. He began questioning himself: "Am I going too fast? Am I gonna blow up before kilometer 300?" But monitoring his effort, he realized this was the pace he rode at home for 300 kilometers with occasional rests.
Following someone slightly slower was affecting his rhythm and focus, so he overtook them and passed Dennis, then several more riders. The navigation was easy that day. No dunes on stage one.
When he reached the end of the stage, his reaction was: "That's it? What's going on?"
Stage Two: The Breaking Point
Stage two changed everything…...ss he entered a very narrow ravine with deep sand, like a dry riverbed or slot canyon, with huge rocks scattered throughout.
"I felt the weight of that bike," Gavin recalls. He dropped the bike three times in there, unable to flow because the rocks prevented building momentum. He tensed up, telling himself, "Come on, you know how to ride this stuff, just get your rhythm."
Not long after that section, Gavin crashed. The ravine was down on his left as he exited on an off-camber section, with the camber facing toward the ravine. Going uphill, his rear tire caught a rock and kicked left, sending him over the edge. "It wasn't a cliff, it was just a steep embankment," he clarifies. The loose, tiny marble-like rocks made it slippery.
It wasn't a high-speed crash, but it twisted his knee under the bike as they went down. He had to pull the bike down the rest of the way, lift it up, drive down a bit, then cut back to get out the same way he'd entered.
The crash broke the brake lever off the bike and dented his new Akrapovic exhaust. It also stretched his MCL on his right knee. "I felt it as soon as I went down," he says. The knee brace held everything together, without it, he wouldn't have finished the stage.
He tried riding without a front brake through some fast sections. "I don't care what anyone says, everyone says you should never use your front brake," Gavin argues. "You ride your front brake all the time. When you really want to stop, without the front brake you don't have control over the bike."
He stopped mid-stage, took everything apart, took the brake off, got all the tools out. Then he realized there was no spare brake lever on the bike, only a spare clutch lever. HT's reasoning was that you can ride without a front brake, "Well, you can ride without it, but it's not nice."
He rode the rest of the stage without the lever, slowing right down. Then he remembered advice about not trying to make up lost time in a rally from the Namibia Roadbook Camp, once time is lost, it's gone. He just focused on getting to the end of the stage.
When they got into the dunes, things compounded. Gavin missed two waypoints, "that typical thing where you only know you've missed it when it comes up on the screen." He was way off to the left with very few tracks around him, but thought he was on the right line.
Then his energy crashed. "Everyone's coming past you after you've just done all that hard work, and now you've got no energy in you." That was his lowest point. "This is only day two and your mind starts playing with you," he admits. But he kept telling himself: "Tomorrow's another day. Just get through the day."
He finished stage two in 73rd position.
Stage Three: Damage Control
Stage three was about one thing: finishing. Gavin rode conservatively, focused entirely on completion. Some riders were getting lost, and the navigation remained tricky, but he kept his head down. It wasn't about speed anymore, it was about making it to the next day intact.
Stage 2 showed him how quickly things could go wrong, and how important it was to focus on consistency and finishing a stage strong.
Stage Four: The Breakthrough
The queen stage brought epic views, the most beautiful scenery of the entire rally. And something clicked for Gavin in the massive dunes.
He got into a really nice rhythm, jumping into the downhill sections, building flow. "Now it feels like I'm actually racing in the dunes instead of just going with training wheels," he realized. "That flow I got in the dunes, that was just beautiful."
Standing among those dunes, fully immersed in the race, Gavin had a moment of perspective: "So few people do this in their lives, and here I am."
He finished stage four in 67th position, his best result of the rally.
There was also a sunrise over the bivouac on one of the mornings that stood out. "It was so amazing," he posted it on Instagram.
Stage Five: Bringing It Home
The final stage required the same conservative approach as stage three. Gavin rode to complete rather than compete, finishing in 70th place and securing an overall finish position of 68th.
By this point, he admits he could have used a massage. His overall assessment of the training he'd done: "Just enough. I think I had maybe one, max two days left in me." It provided a clear benchmark, he now knows he needs to increase training by at least 50% for Dakar.
The Rally Community
Beyond the stages and results, Gavin discovered something fundamental about rally racing culture. Throughout the week, he had conversations with people across the sport, from team personnel to professional racers.
He spoke with a woman who worked as a PA to the Dacia team drivers, getting insight into what goes on in the factory teams and the different personalities. He chatted with Armand, the co-driver for Moraes (who won the championship), and asked him what the most challenging stage had been so far. "Oh, day two in the dunes," came the response. It made Gavin feel better, even the professionals found it brutal.
On his way through Barcelona airport on Saturday morning, Gavin was checking the baggage carousel screen when a woman next to him, clearly also coming from the race, told him which carousel to use. They walked together and talked. "What was the hardest day for you?" he asked. "Ah, day two in the dunes. I lost so much time." "So did I," Gavin replied. They chatted and said goodbye. He didn't know who she was at the time, it turned out to be Dania Akeel.
"You just feel part of a family, of a culture and a community," Gavin explains. "Everyone's speaking the same language. Whether they're the top guy or the bottom guy, they all understand what you're going through."
The HT team members became part of that community too. Eddie and Reuben, the mechanics, "these are just fantastic people," Gavin says. "I really appreciated what they did."
Having Dennis there made a significant difference. "It was so nice for the both of us just to have each other there," Gavin reflects. That shared experience, someone who understands what you're going through, matters immensely in the isolation of a multi-day rally.
Lessons Beyond the Stages
Gavin arrived at Rally du Maroc with his kit bag and one small bag containing two shirts and two pairs of shorts for the whole week, which he rotated. "Everyone was laughing at me because they all come with like four bags each," he says. "The Kenyan comes with his kit bag and one small rucksack. Poor African."
He was walking around the bivouac with no shoes on. "The guys are like, 'What the f*ck, who is this guy? You need some shoes. Can we buy you some shoes?'"
These small details, the logistics, the preparation, the equipment, all became learning points for Dakar preparation.
But the most important lesson wasn't about gear or training volume. It was about mental resilience. After the crash on stage two, after missing waypoints, after his energy crashed and his mind started playing tricks on him, Gavin kept moving forward. "Tomorrow's another day. Just get through the day."
That mindset carried him through stage three's conservative ride, and it set him up for the breakthrough on stage four when everything finally clicked in the dunes.
Racing for Conservation
Gavin's journey to Dakar carries purpose beyond personal achievement. He races in support of Big Life Foundation, an organization dedicated to conservation in Kenya and Tanzania. Operating across 1.6 million acres of wilderness in the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem, Big Life Foundation works to protect elephants and other wildlife through community-based conservation, anti-poaching efforts, and sustainable development programs.
For Gavin, who grew up in Kenya, the connection to this conservation work runs deep. Every kilometer he covers in training, every stage he completes in competition, and every challenge he overcomes on his way to Dakar helps draw attention to the critical work happening across East Africa's wilderness areas.
His efforts are supported by Healthy Kajuju, providing the nutrition needed for grueling multi-day rallies, and Riftline, a small startup graphics company that helps tell his story visually. But the ultimate beneficiary of this rally racing journey is the wildlife and communities that Big Life Foundation serves, a reminder that adventure and purpose can run on parallel tracks toward the same horizon.
Looking Forward
Rally du Maroc delivered exactly what a qualifying event should: completion, qualification, hard-earned lessons, and confirmation that Gavin belongs in this world. The bike needs proper setup time. The training needs intensification. The logistics need refinement.
But on stage four, somewhere in the massive dunes of Morocco, Gavin found what every rally racer chases: that perfect flow state where everything clicks and you're not just surviving, you're actually racing.
"That was special, man. That was so special," he reflects.
As the journey continues, he'll carry that knowledge to the start line of the Dakar Rally.
For 2026 we are looking forward to Ruta 40 in South America!
Gavin is a client of Decoding Dakar and a Namibia Roadbook Camp alumni. As he himself admits, the Namibia Roadbook Camp helped prepare him for Rally du Maroc, and without it, he would have struggled much more—perhaps not even finishing. At Decoding Dakar, we walk the road with our clients, building lasting relationships and investing in their success as deeply as they invest in themselves. For us, it's about more than just results. It's about making memories that last a lifetime.
Read about the Namibia Roadbook Camp recap.