Paul Carlyle didn’t even have a motorbike licence ten years ago. In January, Shepherd and Wedderburn’s IP law specialist completed the formidable Dakar rally, covering 9000 km over 16 gruelling days alongside the world’s best, under desert skies and almost killing himself in the process.

It all started as a diversion during what he describes as a “horrendous” outsourcing deal, and learning to ride a bike was a way of “getting out of work for a couple of hours”. Another 6 months passed before he got round to buying a bike, and if you have ever been along the A82 and seen the troops of bikers taking advantage of one of the world’s best roads, he probably overtook you. That’s usually about as far as most serious bikers go in pursuit of their hobby, and a pretty fine lifestyle it is too. Carlyle however took the definition of “fast learner” to a whole new level.

“I ran around in sports bikes and got a bit bored, so I ran in a few track days and was tempted to get into some track racing, but it proved very expensive,” he told the Firm, now safely returned to Shepherd & Wedderburn‘s Edinburgh offices.

“I was sitting in the office one day and was sent information about a week long charity fundraising event in Morocco riding motorcycles across the Sahara. I hadn’t ridden off-road bikes before, and went out there and got into a week’s worth of riding. Very addictive, very intense. The bikes are immensely capable. You end up in tiny little villages in the Atlas mountains that you otherwise can’t get to unless you are in a Land Rover or a donkey.”

It seems he was bitten by the bug, and was quickly looking into entering what used to be called the Paris-Dakar rally, for the obvious reason that this was its route, but which has since relocated to South America, where it has become an even more formidable challenge to both man and machine, claiming casualties from both each year.

“It is the toughest event in the world. And this is probably the first year when we haven’t killed any riders. Although one spectator was killed. Last year two riders were killed. The gear has gotten a lot better, but there was a long stretch since 2004 when a lot of the top riders were killed,” he says.

“In 2008 they had to cancel the whole thing the day before it started due to a terrorist threat, so they moved the whole thing to South America. I went out there with the aim of making it to the rest day. The race is designed with the aim that 40% of those who start will actually finish. We had 160-odd bikers start the race, and about 80 finished. Its designed to break the bike, and a moment’s inattention could leave you with a broken collar bone or worse. If I made it to the rest day then I could come back home without feeling like a complete idiot. It was a survival thing. Getting through it and getting to the end was my main objective.”

Such a trial is not everyone’s idea of a good holiday, especially when it comes with the added attractions of a hefty race entry fee, paying for practical support, tricking out the bike adequately, investing in spares, not to mention hauling the whole kit and caboodle off to South America. All before you start 16 days of daily and nightly automotive punishment. Taking the One Ring to Mordor might seem fairly simple by comparison.

“You could pretty easily drop 40 to 50 thousand pounds on one event, which is fairly intense,” he concedes.

“We got to the middle of the second week, and I had being going very, very carefully and trying not to be caught out by anything. People were crashing left right and centre and getting carted off to hospital. By just keeping going, riding smoothly and not making navigational errors I was working my way up the standings. So I started to look at where I was placed. The team manager, who was the first British female to ever finish the Dakar in North Africa, grabbed me by the neck and said “Stop. You’ll start to race, and if you do that, you’ll have a real big off.” That was day 12, and on day 13 in the evening, sure enough I was off.

“There was a fast piece of road and I started passing lots of bikes, and I knew I was making up a lot of places. I got caught in the dust of a quad bike couldn’t see, and he pulled off to the right and there was a wall I couldn’t see. I hit it at about 70kph. I was very lucky. I flew a long way through the air, knocked myself out and cracked a couple of ribs. But the bike was OK, so I got back on and managed to finish the day. That could have been me out. Then I got lost.

“Clearly I wasn’t thinking straight when I got back on the bike, and made a couple of navigational mistakes. And I was following someone else, but then they also got completely lost. So I got started and able to think again, riding along this dry river bed with lots of boulders, when the TV helicopter pitched up.

“They are amazing. You turn round and they are at head height. They fly round in front of you and sideways, filming you. It is quite hard work not to look. The temptation is to look at them and not at the rocks you are about to drive in to. And part of you is thinking you want to look good for TV, too. It made me concentrate and probably got me to the end of the day.”

Carlyle ultimately finished 72nd from 160 starters, but that masks the scale of his achievement. He was the top British finisher in this year’s race, and one of only 20 British people since 1976 to have ever finished on a bike. Despite his own modesty, by any standards that places him firmly in the elite of British bikers, something that was not lost on the supporters at the finish.

“On the way across the road to the hotel I got stopped for four photographs just because I was wearing my helmet and number. They were equally enthusiastic about me as they were for the top guys. It just all got very silly. It is a really weird world that you have fallen in to,” he says.

“The first day back at the office afterwards was a little weird. But it is easy to compartmentalise. It is almost two different lives. I find it easy to separate it. I don’t really think much about it now.”

If Carlyle brings any of that spirit to his work, then Shepherd and Wedderburn hopefully consider themselves lucky to have such a determined character on their side. Carlyle reckons he’ll be back in the saddle one of these days, and the unique combination of thrilling competition, hard work and splendid isolation seems certain to draw him back.

“To me its not just the racing. It is all the planning and the seven years it took me to do it. To sit drinking with Cyril Destry, who finished third in 2003 and subsequently won it 3 times, and even to be in the same race as him, its is trying to compete in that environment. That’s what attracts me to it. And things like stopping on top of a dune, looking round and seeing nothing for miles and miles around. Its dangerous, you are out somewhere very remote, and it’s a race.”

Anyway, back to those outsourcing deals….