There is something utterly romantic about riding an off-road multi-stage rally. At first glance perhaps it will be tricky to see how spending 10 hours completely alone while flying over rocks, not having the time to really eat anything except dirt and dust, while second guessing your navigation choices equals moonlight and champagne.

@dinaricrally was my first ever rally and it indeed lended me some vividly raw and instructing moments. Sometime in the late afternoon of the first day of solitude on the mountain, as I realized I would be racing not only against the clock but also against the daylight, I suddenly grasped a key component of cross-country racing.

I suddenly understood you can’t muscle through a 1500 km 5 stage race of rocky off-road madness. Instead, you have to do the opposite and relax into it. When you accept that the next piece of rocky terrain is going to dictate your line and as you let your body, mind and choices surrender to the circumstances, you can find the rhythm that will almost make you forget you are moving. You will be in a forced present state of mind, where everything but; attention to yourself, your motorcycles response to your input along with the commanding reality of the environment, becomes irrelevant. If you can understand this perhaps you will grasp how it is not unlike the act of love-making. Sensual and intentional, honest, surrendered, naked and somehow raw but mostly immensely present. Now tell me, if this is true, how is this in its essence not romantic?

By Emma Cases @dualsport_emma