Interview by Chad de Alva
On January 3rd, 2025, Skyler Howes will take the start of his seventh Dakar Rally – a race that’s widely regarded to be the hardest in the world. Over the course of 13 stages (counting the prologue), Skyler will cover nearly 8,000 kilometers (just shy of 5,000 miles), using only a list of directions (called notes) that comprise a road book, a compass, a trip meter, and a waypoint system that occasionally lets him know he is going the right way. Typical days in Dakar start before the sun is up, and usually have riders blasting through the cold pre-dawn darkness to get to the start of a Special stage where competitors have to go race pace and simultaneously navigate from the roadbook that’s written in French. After riding hundreds of Ks of wild Saudi terrain going flat out, competitors return to the bivouac where it’s time to work on their bike, and rest up to do it all over again almost every day for two weeks.
Skyler thrives under the brutal pressure and conditions of Dakar. A look at his past finishes charts a clear trajectory: In 2020 he finished 9th, in 2021 he finished 5th, and in 2023 Skyler became one of five Americans in history to stand on the podium at Dakar with a 3rd place finish. In late 2023, Skyler signed with Monster Energy Honda see Upshift 86, but he was forced to retire from the 2024 Dakar in Stage Five. In the last year, Skyler has also had a couple of major crashes at other events. Yet despite this adversity, Skyler continues to put the work in and do hard things to ensure he’s Dakar-ready. We caught up with Skyler right before the Christmas holiday to see how he’s doing heading into Dakar 2025.
Chad de Alva: Saudi is half a world away. How do you train for that? Do you ride books out of St. George? Do you head out to Barstow or Ridgecrest to ride books?
Skyler Howes: I've made my own books around here in Saint George, but now there's a movie set right in the middle of one road book, and there's a couple of washes that you no longer can get through. So I have to pretty much go through and remake them. Plus I know these books, so it’s not a training tool if you already know where the book is going to take you.
Honda has a guy that can make the roadbooks for us for training. So if I give him a zone, he can make a roadbook.
This year so far, I did five days of books in Sonora. Three of them were the Sonora rally camp. And then after that, we did two weeks of training in Nevada and Arizona. Then we did a week of training down in California. So call it four to five weeks of specific navigation rally training. It's been pretty heavy, like legitimate, proper Dakar training.
CD: I’m always struck by how big the dunes are in Saudi. Is there anywhere you can go in the US to practice on terrain like that?
SH: No, not really. The hard thing is that in Saint George, we have really good terrain that mimics Saudi a lot, but we're limited on the dune size. We can go to Coral Pink or the Sand Hollow Dunes, but they're tiny. Glamis is bigger, but still pretty limited. Sonora is probably the best place. But even Sonora has most of its biggest dunes in an environmental preserve, so we can’t ride them. There’s no place in the world like the Empty Quarter. That’s for sure.
We are spending most of our time doing the really tricky navigation because dune navigation is pretty straightforward. Just follow the compass. But the tricky navigation is always when you’re in riverbeds and all that stuff.
CD: What else goes into the training regimen? I know you’re pedaling a ton, but what else?
SH: I spend a lot of time just on either the gravel bike or road bike. I do a lot of maintaining the heart rate and then doing intervals on the road bike. I also do some swimming. Then just stretching and yoga, things like that. Mostly it’s time in the gym. I'm running much less now, with my ankle injury, that's for sure.
CD: You'll be stoked to hear that Happy Dave told me that he thought you were in the best shape he’s ever seen you in when he saw you at the Caselli ride day. Would you self-assess the same way?
SH: Yeah, I'm probably in a really good spot. I felt like I was in a good place before the Vegas to Reno crash. My goal for now is to just get back into that spot and hopefully try and get a little better, which I feel like I have. Mentally, I'm definitely in a good place. Physically, I'm putting out good numbers on the bicycle. Better numbers than I ever have. My strength and my body, my gut health, and all that stuff is getting into a really good spot. So I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. With this last navigation training, I did pretty good there. So I'm pretty happy with what I've done as far as training and how it's gone. I’m looking forward to the race. I'm definitely the most experienced and probably in the best headspace. So now we just have to see how it unfolds.
CD: Tell me a little more about the headspace. You've had some big offs in the last we'll say year and change – I’m thinking of Vegas to Reno and Rallye du Maroc with the crash video that doesn't exist. How does fear factor into the equation now?
SH: My experiences with those crashes are just that things happen. It just is what it is. At Vegas to Reno, it was an unmarked danger on a blind hill, my bad luck, and maybe a little poor riding on my part where I chose a bad line. I shouldn't have been going so fast when I couldn't see 100%. But in those styles of races, you rely a lot on the organization to do a proper job of marking the course, and they didn't really do that. Then in Morocco, I was too far to the right on a trail. It just is what it is. I can't not drive my car because someone got in a car accident, you know what I mean? So I put those crashes behind me and hopefully, I can be in a little bit better head space moving forward. As far as planning ahead while I'm on the bike, maybe I’ll slow it down 10% that way I don't have a crash. I'm much happier getting a second or a third place and then not going home in a helicopter.
This year I’ve been focusing on not making a single navigation mistake. Maybe I’m not going as fast as my training partners, but when I get to the waypoint, sometimes I’ll have to wait 25 minutes because my training partner made a navigation mistake.
I know this first week of Dakar is going to be super challenging and difficult. Having the chrono stage right at the beginning, followed by a huge special and then a marathon stage. So I think it's super important to keep your head on straight, not make navigation mistakes, and just keep a solid good race pace. You're not going to be able to win the whole race in this first week, but you can definitely lose it.
My whole headspace is just to do the best I can. Ride as fast as I can without making a single navigation mistake, and then hopefully everything comes together. The thing with the Dakar is that I have to do my job perfectly and so does everyone else. So much has to work in your favor for it to happen. So I'm not gonna have a certain expectation or plan for exactly how this race will go. I'm literally just going to start every day and just do my best. And at the end of the day, it just is what it is. I ride better when I'm happy and having fun, and I'll have a lot more fun if I'm just taking every day as it comes.
CD: Well, talking about the dunes and having fun, how's the no-footer game doing this year?
SH: [Laughs] You know, I haven't been working on the no footers. We're just going to have to play those as they come. When the heli is following me, I'm just going to have to choose better dunes. Maybe not so soft dunes. [Laughs]
CD: We're looking forward to it! When you were talking about Vegas to Reno, you were talking about trusting the track. Scott Bright had what I thought was really interesting question: When they make the tracks for Dakar, is it all done virtually or is there ever, even if you're opening a stage, the faintest hint of a track from the guy that proofed the book three months ago?
SH: No, there's a faint track. Beforehand, they'll have a GPS track of where they want the course to go, but then they go out there in person and they'll hand draw every single note. So essentially, if they say take a left through this canyon, they're drawing the canyon on the tulip as you would see it in real life. The guys that that make the roadbooks do a really good job, and it's pretty accurate as far as the dangers go.
One year, Andrew Short was checking up on blind hills and losing a lot of time in areas because he was just focusing on terrain reading. Pablo Quintanilla said: “You value your life too much. If it's not in the roadbook, I'm not slowing down.” So if there's no danger in the roadbook, it's full gas. There are a lot of guys that really trust the roadbook 100%. So that's just a fine line that you have to do.
Everyone's going fast enough now that nobody's ever trying to play games. If you go the wrong direction, trying to get everyone else lost, the guy behind you is just going to be like; What? What are you doing?
It’s all about making sure you're doing the navigation right, as that can save you 10, to 20 minutes in the long run. That’s the way that Matthias Walkner won his Dakar. I think it was in 2017, all the guys turned left up a wash too early and he said, nope, we're supposed to turn like 200m later. He followed the navigation, and he ended up winning the Dakar. Everyone else got lost for 30 minutes and he didn't. So, staying on your navigation could be the difference between a win or not.
CD: It sounds like that's exactly what you're seeing in your training. Like you were talking about earlier, where maybe top speed, you're going a little slower, but you're getting to a waypoint ten, 15 – 25 minutes before your training partners.
SH: Yeah, It’s tough, because you just have to be in a good headspace where you can keep a high pace because a lot of guys can navigate fast now. Anyone can go out there and do perfect navigation, but can they do it ten minutes faster than the other guy? The fine line you have to find is the point you're almost about to make the mistake, but you know you're not. If you're doing navigation perfectly, you're going to go slower than someone who's just pushing (following) the tracks. So you could be going so much faster than everyone else by pushing the track, but then the last ten Ks, you just let your mental game slip, make a mistake, and get lost and lose it all. So that's the fine line you have to find.
CD: And you have to do that consistently for 14 days and 8,000 K.
SH: Exactly.
CD: Tell me about the bike. I think the cool thing about the Honda is that mere mortals don't get to know what the Hondas are like, whereas anyone with $50K can get ahold of a replica of the Austrian rally bike.
SH: The Honda is a full works, factory, hand-built bike made specifically for us. And the cool thing is, the Japanese did such a good job of developing and building it that my job so far has been pretty easy. The Japanese know exactly what they're doing when they develop a bike, so it's in a really good position to begin with. I just have to kind of tune it to my riding style. For example, Ricky and I might be similar in size, but we have a different riding style, so we run a different suspension setting. Yeah, the bike's really good.
CD: Looking at the bike category this year, we’re seeing a big drop in Austrian participation and a stacked Honda team. What’s interesting is that the Austrians sell Rally Replica bikes, but Honda doesn’t. So why is Honda making such a big push into rally?
SH: SH: Well development alone. It plays over all the disciplines from supercross, motocross, and off-road. The data that they collect from us can definitely have an impact on all their other disciplines. And who's to say that in a year there's not a Honda rally bike on the market in the future? Wink, wink.
CD: Tell me more about your side of things with Dakar. You guys start at zero dark 30 in the morning. Sometimes you liaise for hundreds of Ks in the dark and the cold, and then the sun comes up and it gets hot and you're riding all day. How cold are those starts? And then how hot is it? The only time I've ridden with you when you were in Rally kit, you had a jersey on and it was pretty cold, yet you were smiling the whole day. How do you do that?
SH: Well I'm not what you would call your average professional athlete. I have a little bit more protective layer under my skin if you know what I mean. So I could be super cold, and it's affecting me a little bit less. But on the liaisons, I wear a big, giant puffy jacket, face coverings, and heated gloves and that whole deal to keep me warm for the liaison. But Saudi is crazy because you could be along the coast, and it'll be really hot, like, 80 – 90 degrees. Then you go 100km into the desert and then it's freezing. It's like 30°F. So you just have to be prepared for all of it.
CD: What about food and hydration? You have to burn a crazy number of calories in a day.
SH: I have a specific special hydration mix that I custom make, that has super high levels of carbs, electrolytes, and protein in it as well. Then I carry a bag of grass-fed jerky. I have these squeeze packs, almost like the applesauce packs that kids get. I also have energy gels and honey stinger stroopwafels. My drink mix would probably be just fine to hold me over for the full stage, but I do like to put something solid in my stomach, so that's why I have the jerky and the honey stingers as well.
CD: One fun question and then we’ll call it: How does your Volkswagen bug handle with a Rally Bike on the back of it?
SH: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s not very good. I can pretty much do a wheelie.
CD: [Laughs] Steering gets a little light?
SH: Yeah. It’s not a long-distance rig.
CD: But you’re still getting time to go out and play with that thing?
SH: Yeah. The bug has been a super awesome toy to have. I'm still into it. Way more than I would be a side-by-side. I don't get very dusty because it's a sealed cab. And it's fun to put a one-wheel drive Volkswagen in places that jeeps get stuck or jeeps can't figure out. You’ll see these $100,000 off-road or overlanding rigs, and I’ll come by in my, $8,000 Volkswagen. People are pointing at it, taking pictures, and smiling and laughing. I'll come up to this big ledge, or big rocky hill, or something that people are struggling on and go right up with the bug and people are just laughing. So it's been a super fun toy to have, and then to go out there with my lady and my dog and go camping and stuff has been super fun. It’s great to take a little break and have these little mini vacations and still spend time out in the wilderness.
The 2025 edition of the Dakar Rally starts on January 3rd. You can keep up with Skyler Howes’ progress by following him @skylerhowes110 and the Monster Energy Honda Rally Team @rallyteamhrc. Daily video updates are available through the Dakar Rally's social media channels and on their YouTube channel.
