Welcome to the Mongol Rally: the greatest motoring adventure on the planet.

The Mongol Rally thunders 13'500 miles across the mountains, desert and steppe of Europe and Asia each summer. There’s no backup, no support and no set route; just you, your fellow adventurists and a tiny car you bought from a scrapyard for £11.50.

If nothing goes wrong, everything has gone wrong. Bollocks to tarmac, ABS and gadgets that help you find your navel. The Mongol Rally is about getting lost, using your long neglected wits, raising shedloads of cash for charity and scraping into the finish line with your vehicle in tatters and a wild grin smeared across your grubby face.

Neither your car, nor your life, will ever be the same again.

The rules of the Rally are gloriously simple…

  1. You can only take a farcically small vehicle
  2. You’re completely on your own
  3. You've got to raise a £1000 for charity

This is the story of Alpha Squad - the plucky UK team taking part in the 2016 Mongol Rally with Mickey - a 2002 Nissan Micra Tempest, Reza - a Persian tour guide, filmographers, lost puppies and a whole host of interesting characters.

THE FIRST TIME WE ALL MET

OFFICIALLY THE FIRST TIME ALPHA SQUAD HAS MET!! Ucci got a phone call at 1 o’clock this afternoon telling him to get to London as soon as possible… 40 minutes later he is on a train and 6.5 hours later he has joined myself and Oli for the Softcat May Ball 2016 whom are sponsoring Dreams Come True our second charity we are raising money for! This feels surreal, the rally is real and actually happening 😱

the gang

We 3D Printed a Centriphone and swung an iPhone above Oli’s head

That’s right boys and girls; the future is here!

Oli found this video of this a crazy Swiss swinging his iPhone above his head and we thought it was pretty cool…
Well thanks to Nicolas Vuignier over at www.centriphone.me for uploading the 3D design; and Aidan Postle from Plymouth Uni for printing it for us.

A video of how it is supposed to work can be found here:

A video of us printing and trying to get it to work can be found here:

Massive thanks to @ifyouseeaidan for printing the team our own #CentriPhone and #CentriPro! This is a trial run and rinsed our batteries but hopefully in the future and especially on the rally we can get some fun footage! Having issues with maintaining focus but more practice will fix that! Rhys nearly got it stuck in a tree, stuck in the ground and stuck in someone's face but Oli being nearly 7 foot tall cleared most of these obstacles and got some great footage! Check out our previous updates and follow us to stay up to date 🙋 🌏 www.alphasquad.co.uk 💷 www.gofundme.com/alphasquad 🖥 www.facebook.com/alphasquadmr16 🐥 www.twitter.com/alphasquad2016 📸 @alphasquadmongolrally (www.instagram.com/alphasquadmongolrally) #AlphaSquad #AlphaSquad2016 #MongolRally #MongolRally2016 #3DPrinting #Video #1minute #Editing #Spin #OlloClip #Fisheye

A video posted by Alpha Squad (@alphasquadmongolrally) on

Sorry we haven’t been posting a lot but dissertations are not fun and quite important.

As always please check out our previous updates and follow us to stay up to date 🙋
🌏 www.alphasquad.co.uk
💷 www.gofundme.com/alphasquad
🖥 www.facebook.com/alphasquadmr16
🐥 @alphasquad2016 www.twitter.com/alphasquad2016
📸 @alphasquadmongolrally www.instagram.com/alphasquadmongolrally

We bought some kit, and sent our passports to strangers.

About time I posted on here.

So there was a considerable sale happening down at a large trekking supplier. Taking a not-inconsiderable list of things to look out for, and a quick revision of the website the night before, we hit the shop armed with voucher, discount card and a loose budget.

Roughly £700 later out of the Scrooge McPayne Investment fund, we got ourselves:

  • A 4-man, 3-section tent with central porch area
  • 3 tri-season sleeping bags
  • 3 self-inflating sleeping mats
  • 3 large foldable chairs (with a special one for Rhys)
  • 3 mosquito nets for the non-camping accommodation
  • 3 60(+10) litre bags for personal clothes and kit, separable sections for day-bags
  • An array of pots, pans, mess tins, water tablets and food related tools
  • A sizeable knife and fire-starter pack

So all in all, not a bad haul. We’re now juggling a few suppliers to see what they can offer in terms of tools and other equipment, so there’s still much to be sourced. At least now we have a roof over our heads and something to cook roadkill with.

Paperwork has been the bane of our existence of late; visas are confusing beasts and very much a case of each country having their own “thing”. If the UN wanted to do something great, I tell you – unifying visa processes across the world would make life for a lot of rally teams and travellers so much easier. Iran, surprisingly has been one of the simplest and smoothest visa applications, compared to the 500 acres of trees that had to be cut down for Uzbekistan’s requirements. Never the less, it’s all done, and now in the lap of the visa-gods to decide if we are worthy of processing.

More mechanical-related updates to come, and be sure to check out our introduction video, finished this week by Thomas – should be posted somewhere close by.

Taa-taa for now.

Christmas is two months late

We’ve been busy buying lots of parts to get rally ready.

New braided brake lines for Oli, some vanity mirrors for Rhys 💁 and a valet inside and out for Mickey!
Valet Mickey
Brake Hoses Vanity Mirror

We also purchased a new heat resistor pack because ours only works on full or nothing. This is going to be a pain to fit as the entire front console needs removing. We will likely film this for anyone else with this issue too as we follow the Haynes book of lies.
Heat Resistor Pack

So we can drive across places.
International Driving Permit

So we can blast the tunes.
Media Player

So we can stop our car from boiling itself to death in the Gobi desert.
Radiator

That’s all there is too it really for parts. We have contacted many companies to help us get rally ready so just waiting on their responses!

TTFN
Rhys

Whats that coming over the hill?!

Is it a monster?

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No, thats just our fabulous new sweat bucket chugging along the mean streets of Manchester, after trudging all the way upto Manchester our very own Mr Edwards had this to say:

“And with that a major milestone has been reached today. We have finally purchased the car which will transport us 11,000 miles, one third of the way around the world to the glorious destination of Ulan-Ude!
After countless hours of car hunting, many cars didn’t make the cut and with a few people messing us around, we took the plunge and headed on a 600 mile round trip to Manchester to pick up this Micra!

What a day!”

What a day indeed, with our new car purchased we can now focus on some crucial modifications, paperwork and the all important fundraising campaign. If you’re as excited as we are make sure to stay tuned for more updates and news on our progress.

We’re going on a car hunt

So today Oli and I set off to Weston Super Mare to have butchers at this Micra we found online; quick 200 mile round trip, it’s nothing.
Fortunately we gave the guy (who we’d been texting, so had our number and knew we was coming) a call to say we are on the way just as we left Plymouth.
“Na sorry m9 i sold it”
Yeah good one.

So basically this post is to say, we still don’t have a car, but we’re still hopeful and still looking!
We will be setting up a raffle to name the car (for when we eventually find one that fits our stringent criteria).

Also the website has had a bit of a shift around and is well on its way to being complete.

We have chosen a second charity to raise money for and that is Dreams Come True please check them out, the work they do is amazing.

TTFN!
– Rhys

It’s Official!

It’s October the 9th and we have officially registered our entry into the Mongol Rally 2016. Official dates supplied are July 16th 2016 through to 10th of September 2016.
It is early doors but like many other teams we need to be on our toes and get prepped, QUICK! Time is of the essence…
If you’ve got to our website but somehow don’t know what the Mongol Rally is then here is a quick over view –

  • England to Ulan Ude via Mongolia
  • ~ 10,000 km
  • ~ 40 days
  • Sub 1.2L, SHIT, car

Sounds fun right?

Here is a snippet of an overview taken directly from The Adventurists’ site:

What’s all this then
Welcome to the Mongol Rally: the greatest motoring adventure on the planet.

The Mongol Rally thunders 10,000 miles across the mountains, desert and steppe of Europe and Asia each summer. There’s no backup, no support and no set route; just you, your fellow adventurists and a tiny car you bought from a scrapyard for £11.50.

If nothing goes wrong, everything has gone wrong.

Bollocks to tarmac, ABS and gadgets that help you find your navel. The Mongol Rally is about getting lost, using your long neglected wits, raising shedloads of cash for charity and scraping into the finish line with your vehicle in tatters and a wild grin smeared across your grubby face.

Neither your car, nor your life, will ever be the same again.

The rules of the Rally are gloriously simple…

1. You can only take a farcically small vehicle
2. You’re completely on your own
3. You’ve got to raise a £1000 for charity

Still don’t think people do this? Have 2 minutes spare? Watch the video: