“5. Dakar on a motorcycle”. In his list of 101 things to do in life, Alex Book He had planned to compete one day in the toughest rally in the world. However, he will never be able to do it. The young Catalan Tragically died in a motorcycle accident in November 2017, but that list, written in his own handwriting, has been the engine that has moved the life of his twin brother, Carlos, since then.
For him it began to be a way to grieve for its absence… but it has become anything else: “ALL1 expresses values, beyond grief. We are not here to feel sorry, but for something aspirational: fulfilling dreams and making them shared.“, Carlos Llibre tells MARCA. Dreams like the Ironman de Barcelona“where we have 320 people with the largest team in the world doing a test of this type” or the cycling tests Titan Desert y Cape Epic. And now, point 5: the Dakar.
101 things to do in life
“It all started because I – Carlos tells us – saw an article that encouraged create a list with 100 things to do in life. I shared the last month of Álex’s life with him in his apartment in Madrid and it was one night, around one in the morning, when I told him about the list and I encouraged him to do his. “He logically told me to go to hell at that time,” she jokes.
Doing the Dakar on a motorcycle was part of Álex Llibre’s life desire.
That conversation came up again. ten days after Alex’s deathwhen his brother collected his belongings: “I found your list in your bedside drawer. His was 101 things, because he was very competitive and wanted to beat me at everything,” he recalls. Like good twin brothers, They shared 80% of those dreams.
“On that list there is everything. Sporting events like the Dakar but also simpler things like take grandma to the mountains…but one of the most ambitious is, without a doubt, the Dakar project.” A long road, which began in the Morocco Rally 2022in which all the members of the team who ran it achieved the requirement that every motorcycle participant has to meet to run the Dakar: finish a World Cup test.
All except… Carlos, who suffered a fall that caused him to fracture his collarbone and arm: “When I was lying there on the ground in the Sahara I looked at the sky and told Álex: ‘You bastard, why are you doing this to me?’. It almost made him responsible. Then the rest of the team arrived and they had an incredible group together. Are some emotions that you think you will never experience…and they are not emotions of victories, but of people…” Their classification was pending for the Route 40 Challenge of 2023 in which he finally, this summer, achieved the Dakar ticket.
Carlos Llibre (left) is the promoter of the ALL1 project.
He ALL1 team (acronym for Álex Llibre) will be made up of six pilots, with Carlos Book to the head. Some of its members were close friends of Álex (Pepe Marti, Xavier Pes o Fernando Conde), but others treated him less, like Javi Amat, and even Josep Pedro He didn’t get to know him. “It is a movement open to everyone. We want to extend this spirit to everyone, that anyone who has a dream with us. There has been people who have climbed Kilimanjaro or crossed South America from end to end… personal challenges that have been supported by this spark of ALL1. They do it but they identify with us. And that is a source of pride.”
Even one’s own organization of the Dakar has turned to the idea give space to six members of the same amateur teamsomething very complicated in a category, motorcycles, which in recent years has seen its registrations reduced.
A complicated path
He road to Dakar It has not been easy at all, neither in sports nor in budget (in fact, the initial project was with eight members), but now comes the part of enjoy the roadwith the help of the assistance from Pedregá already on the backs of Catalan motorcycles I laugh. They know that they are going to suffer to reach the goal of Yanbu, but also that there will be something big that will move them: “When we are suffering, have a bigger reason to keep going It’s going to help us,” they say.
The ALL1 guys will have a special boost in this Dakar 2024.
And, although the January 5 They will be able to cross out the number 5 on the list…when the Dakar adventure has concluded on the 19th, there is already a next step: he Red Bull Romaniacs, the most extreme test in the world in Hard Enduro: “This must be done… and we will do it,” they say.
