BMW Advanced Off-Road Course

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SGB

Race Dog
Joined
Feb 4, 2006
Messages
3,157
Reaction score
11
Location
Bloemfontein, SA
Bike
BMW R1200GS
About a year ago, we did the Intermediate course at Country Trax, and found the learning experience extremely useful. Nice place to mingle with people who share the passion for motorcycles, although this crowd share the passion in a slightly more specific way, being the BMW brand. I am fortunate enough to have a few friends who ride BMW's, and therefore they tolerate me at these gatherings as long as I behave and stay humble. Piet and I made arrangements just after new year, and 20 April eventually arrived, time to head for Jan du Tiot's beautiful farm for some more learning.

The course starts at 19:00 on Friday, and having taken the day off, we had to make the best of the time. After some serious planning, we decided to meet in Harrismith the usual way and follow our noses from there. Left home about 6:00, and took a nice early morning ride upcountry.

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Some fog here and there, and I realized that summer is over - quite chilly that time of the morning around Mooirivier. Breakfast in Harrismith was good, then we took the Verkykerskop dirt road via Normandien pass to Newcastle.

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From there some more dirt, our "nose following" philosophy ended in some dead ends - just made a u-turn and took another one until we actually got somewhere. We really enjoyed the day and arrived at Country Trax late afternoon and setlled in after just over 600 km of great riding. The accommodation is top class - those log cabin type buildings are really impressive.

The course started with dinner and an introduction session / "ice breaker". The group was a bunch of really nice people. After dark, Jan took us for a ride through the farm, covering most of the routes and obstacles we rode during the previous course. The night riding with the only visible area being the patch where your light was shining was a completely different experience. You can now only see this spot, and when the rock, rut, mud, hill, drop or whatever becomes visible, you are right on top of it and don't have much time to think about the right line and gear and speed and all of that. Just RIDE! Great experience.

After a good night's rest, we were up and about early on Saturday and ready to ride at 7:00, after a loud wake up call by Jan's air powered diesel loco hooter.

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First half of the day was spent on skills covering the likes of balance, turns, bunny hopping, wheelies, braking, power sliding, uphills / downhills, ruts, rocks, etc. Jan has some really creatively designed places to exercise all the stuff in a slow and controlled environment. There is not much talking on this course, and the two groups lead by Jan and Stephen King (the Touratech guy) respectively rarely heard more than "follow me" as lectures.

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More like "Monkey see - Monkey do" with some individual feedback and how to improve as and when appropriate. This whole process works well for BMW's spares sales and Touratech's 1200 bash plate sales. At one stage the lawn looked like a fully equipped Touratech bush fitment centre....

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Saturday afternoon was spent doing a bush ride which was seriously technical here and there and kind of demonstrated the limits of appication of bike and rider. This game does tend to lean itself towards continuous improvement - there is always more to see and hear and read and do and experience. The bush has hidden stumps, holes, rocks, sharp turns, uphills, downhills and just about all the skills covered in the morning session are needed at some stage in the bush.

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Very good experience, and the team looked a bit flat by the time we arrived home. We then still did the sand pit just to keep us occupied - the sand was nice and soft and dictated a bit of paying attention to keep the bike shiny side up. Again, good fun. All of this was followed by a session in Jan's farm style wood fired Jacuzzi, and dinner. Elna and Elsie cooked up a storm that lasted the whole weekend, felt like home with all the real "farm" food. Nobody had a problem with sleeping - the bodies had done a bit of work and the team was tired after a full day of riding. Not many of us get the opportunity to ride continuously for this number of hours.....

Sunday was started with a session at the oval track - always a highlight. Great place to slide into and power out of corners and the crazy ones even find time for wheelies in between!

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Then breakfast and another outride. This time less technical, but a good mix of different terrain and just some good riding time. The route includes the famous canal, shoo - now this is an experience!!

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We all did the canal, which according to Jan is a first, great time was had here by all. Also rode in the canal and exiting by snaking up the sides until you have enough momentum to take you out was interesting too! The KTM ran out of fuel and Piet did a bit of towing to get us to the fuel station.

Back home, it was time for lunch, certificates and good byes. How fast can time go.... We saw the rain coming and loaded up quickly and hit the road. I headed straight for Volksrust, which is about 60 km away, mostly dirt. Piet went the other way to Amersfoort, headed for Pretoria. The rain caught both of us not even 10 minutes away. I stopped, donned my Briscoe rain suit and had another serious practice session on the slippery muddy dirt road. Filled up at Volksrust and stopped again in Ladysmith. Rained most of the way and by now it was about 16:00. Had a quick Wimpy coffe and tackled the home stretch. Things started getting a little unpleasant around Mooirivier - my "internal" wetsuit started showing signs of failure and I was a bit cold - still raining. It was getting dark when I got to Town Hill, and it was heavily fogged up there. Some slow and careful riding was now the right thing to survive. I just kept a good following distance and stayed away from any traffic as far as possible. Arrived home at about 18:30 - properly wet and cold. I have had a hot shower since and life is great again. Where to next??

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Thanks to Jan and Stephen and all the others for a great time, and to Piet for riding a BMW so that I can have access to the courses. Hope to see you all again some time soon!
 
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