“From couch potato to Dakar competitor in just two years!”
RIDER FACTS
- iminas Satkus lived in Tanzania for ten years and used to go trail riding on a succession of Honda XR400s. They were reasonably tough, all-day outings, but they weren’t races.
- Then he moved to Dubai and inevitably desert racing came up on his radar. His first two rally raids didn’t go exactly as planned but some training from fellow Lithuanian Arunas Gelazninkas brought him up to speed.
- Being based in Dubai, rather than having to fly in to train, has been a big help to Gedas’ apprenticeship and now he no longer falls off 20 times a day. Nor does he use up all of his airbag cartridges in the first 10 kilometres!
- Next year Gediminas will be moving permanently back to Lithuanian and that and the fact that he is self-financing means that the 2025 Dakar might well be a ‘one-shot’. But then they all say that! A couple of beers and a lost bet or two and he could well be back in a side by side for Dakar 2026!
2025 AMBITIONS
“I was drinking with some friends and lost a bet -the forfeit being to enter the Red Bull Romaniacs- in the Iron class! That was my competition debut and extremely favourable weather conditions -not too wet not too hot- helped me get to the finish. Then a friend who had a rally bike said to me ‘I’ll never race it, why don’t you enter the Dakar on it’. So here I am, two years later, from sofa to Dakar competitor. My first event was the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and it was a bit of a disaster. Then I entered the Rallye du Maroc and had a big crash… which is when I decided to contact Arunas Gelazninkas at the AG Dakar School and get some coaching. And it has transformed my riding. I did this year’s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge to qualify for the Dakar and I was a different man on the bike. I still don’t really see myself as a racer but I think I have a much better chance of getting to the end now. That my only goal for next January.
