For all of its challenge, is the Dakar actually fun to ride?

Craig and Carl Searles became the first pair of British brothers to compete in the Dakar Rally in the same year in 2026. In this second part of an exclusive interview with Visordown, the brothers speak about the challenge of the rally itself, whether it’s enjoyable, and if they’d like to go back.

With over 500km ridden every day at the Dakar, with almost that distance sometimes covered by only the ‘special’ portion of the stage and the overall distance sometimes stretching towards 1,000km, the event throws up a variety of terrains to tackle.

Craig and Carl Searles both feel they have their own strengths and weaknesses as the surfaces change. 

“I think we’re both a little bit different riders, as in what we prefer,” said Carl.

“I quite like the faster stuff, I feel quite confident in it, fast, flowing, and you’re clicking the kilometres off a lot quicker as well. I find the fast tracks easier to navigate, whereas – for me – I can see that in the sand dunes Craig is better at riding, better at navigating, and anticipating what’s over the dunes. 

“I was struggling in the dunes quite a bit, whereas I felt like Craig was more confident and better in the dunes than me.”

Craig added: “Definitely Carl is better at navigating at higher speeds, but I think everyone has their pros and cons, whatever you do. I think that’s why we did so well: the combination of two different abilities and the two different ways of navigating across those different terrains. 

“There were some trial sections, really, as well. I wouldn’t say it’s extreme enduro, but it’s definitely hard enduro; there were some technical, rocky sections that you couldn’t just ride up to it, [...] there was a bit of hopping off some big rock faces and it wasn’t just hit it flat out, you did have to pick your way through the bigger rocky sections. 

“From the enduro in the UK, that came into play, it did help us get through. We would catch a lot of riders through some of the rocky sections, the more difficult terrain, [...] but then as soon as it opened up on the faster stuff and in the dunes they would absolutely blitz us. I think we excelled in the harder, sort of tricky, rocky stuff.”

The challenge of rally raid is obvious, from mental and physical perspectives, but also from that of the riding: not only are riders heading more or less blind into a stage, but the terrain is hugely varied as the brothers alluded to.

But is the riding actually enjoyable?

“There were definitely points in Dakar where I was like ‘This is amazing’, sweeping through some of the landscaped on a motorbike is like ‘This is insane, this is unbelievable,’” said Carl.

“Equally to go with that, there were points where I thought ‘I don’t want to ride another motorbike ever again after riding this.’ 

“You kind of get it from both sides, but I think, with rallying, the distances you cover and, especially with Dakar, all the different terrains and landscapes. I know at the time I was thinking ‘I don’t ever want to ride another motorbike again,’ but what we rode through and how long we rode through it for was incredible, absolutely unreal. I

“f you showed someone some of the obstacles we went over… The day after the second Marathon Stage there were some sand dunes that were probably 6ft high and probably 30ft apart and we rode those – difficult, some were soft, some were hard, and the bit between them some were soft, some were hard; and we rode those for four hours. You’d look at it and you’d think ‘No vehicle in the world would ever go over that,’ but we rode it for four hours, got through, and carried on with the rest of the stage.”

Craig added: “There was one particular point for me in that rally, the second-to-last day there was a big open plain, a sandy open plain, but with a bit of grass growing on it and it went in to a bit of a canyon and it felt like we were the first things to go through there since the dinosaurs. 

“I told a lot of people, it’s like you’re in Jurassic Park, that type of thing. You could just imagine one of those great big leaf-eating dinosaurs just walking around the corner. When you see movies, you think ‘Where do they film these movies?’ Your imagination just takes you all sorts of places out there in Saudi Arabia.”

A shared experience

The brothers’ achievement as the only British brothers to have completed the Dakar in the same year means they stand out. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t do it alone, but riding is so strongly something they share with each other that one doing it without the other seems almost out of the question.

“We’ve both got the ability to get through it,” said Craig. “It’s just from our preview experiences, a couple of crashes that we’ve both had, it’s helped us finish those other rallies.

“So, with Dakar we just thought ‘It’s a big event, it’s a lot of stress, a lot of pressure, if we can both ride together then it’s half the pressure, half the difficulty’. 

“When your brother is there, if you have a problem – we did have problems – someone just to change your outlook on that issue, it did have its advantages, 100 per cent. But I think we could ride it individually. 

“But we’re both the same speed, there will be days where Carl has a good day or I have a good day, so I don’t think we would’ve been that many positions apart anyway.”

Carl added: “To be riding alongside your brother through that scenery and through those tracks and over that terrain, for me – if I was by myself – I would find it a bit boring; whereas to look over and see a rock formation, and look back at Craig and point to it and it’s like ‘thumbs up’, and you can have a chat at the end of the day and say ‘Did you see this, did you see that?’ 

“Whereas, if you were by yourself, [...] I’d probably find it a little bit boring, to be fair.”

Moving forward: Returning, possibly on four wheels?

Completing the Dakar, a two-week event putting immense physical and mental strain on competitors, perhaps understandably raises the question of whether someone would like to return to the event.

The initial feelings from the brothers was that the Dakar has been completed, but they aren’t ruling out completely the possibility to return in the future.

“To start with, we were pretty much ‘Never again, that was dangerous’,” said Carl.

“At one point, it gets to a certain point in the rally – after rest day, there’s one-in-three riders finish. So, for us to both finish, unharmed, both got that finishers medal, went over the podium together… It’s rare for one person to finish but for two brothers to go over it’s extremely rare and I just don’t think we would experience that again. 

“All the staff there were like ‘Oh my God it’s two brothers riding together, this is amazing’. If we go back with that kind of same story I think it’s going to be ‘Oh, hey guys, you’re back’.

“I’m not sure if that story’s been done now, but for sure if someone gave us two rally bikes and paid the entries I’m sure we’d be on the next plane out there. 

“But it’s a lot of time for us to raise sponsorship, a lot of money paying for bikes and flights, and entry fees and kit and everything else. Obviously, we’re buying two lots of everything, so whereas a sponsor might sponsor someone a set of tyres, we need two sets of tyres, for example; two helmets, two sets of boots, two sets of riding gear, so with two of us going it’s a lot to raise.”

Craig added: “It consumes your life a little bit as well. Carl’s either on social media doing something, or I’m planning something, getting licences, getting medicals, so it’s not just a ‘You’re doing Dakar and you’re putting your entry in,’ it’s training three or four times a week, no alcohol, it’s none of those nice things that you usually do on a weekend. 

“You have to go racing, you can’t go to a party, you can’t go to your mate’s birthday because you’ve got to go racing, you’ve got to go and do stuff. 

“So, there’s lots of sacrifices as well that no one really sees that goes with Dakar. 

“It can be quite a lot of pressure on your family as well, being away for such a long time is a lot of pressure on your loved ones back at home.”

For two brothers riding together, one obvious possibility is to return to the Dakar on four wheels, one sibling driving, the other navigating. But this presents its own challenges.

“We were literally looking at the rules and regulations on the flight home for how to do it in a side-by-side,” said Carl.

“There is a lot of danger [on a bike] and you do have a lot of cars coming past you and they get close. At the end of the day, we’ve got a family to come back to and we run our family business so there’s a lot of dependency on that; you don’t want to come home injured and spend six months in hospital and things like that. 

“We were looking at ‘How can we do it in a side-by-side? Can we do it? What do we need?’

“We think there’s quite a bit involved, to be fair, with getting international race licences and things like that. Again, never say never I suppose, but then I suppose we’re chasing a whole other sponsorship package – Bennetts maybe wouldn’t want to be tied in with us if we’re driving a car. I wouldn’t say never. It would be cool to do it in a car, for sure.”

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