Always wanted to do the canal routes, and did the one briefly once when I went with a few dogs over Breedts nek some months ago. Yesterday we loaded Christo's bike onto the bakkie and swambo points it towards Harties, me following on the GS. We've been so busy lately and this would be the first offroad trip for Christo and I after the DP1 training and his offroad skills course, so we were both looking forward to it.
After offloading his Orion pitbike from the bakkie he realizes the keys are still at home. Argh, driving back 60Km's did not appeal to me, so this turned out to be his first lessons in how to hotwire a bike. After cutting the ignition wires and connecting them together the bike refuses to start. Now this bike has never had a problem to start, so I knew I did something wrong, until I had the idea of simply disconnecting the ignition. It turns out this pitbike's ignition is like a kill switch. Disconnecting the ignition allows the bike to start. Sjoe, now there's an easy way to steal a pitbike. Makes sense though, as the bike has no battery or anything, and the ignition, it appears, simply grounds the one wire - sort of like a lawn mower does.
Anyway, got the bike running, and we set off. The roads are glorious, and the speed humps lets you buy airtime for free. But 5 kms later we hit a tar road amongst some shacks, and the gravel road does not continue on the other side. OK so we'll have to follow the tar road a bit it seems, I thought, realizing at the same time that I never loaded the routes I found on the forum onto my GPS. Oh, well, it can't be hard, right? so off we went on the tar road. I mistakenly assumed we would find the gravel road going off to the left, and the first gravel road we saw was taken. A little bit in we realised it was wrong, so I pulled out my phone and, luckily having some conneciton, browsed google's satellite view of the maps and found the canals again. OK, further on and then turn off to the right. Who knew.
Away we went again, sucking up the glorious km's of the road more gravelled. Christo got to max out his bike for the first time in 4th gear, turns out the top speed is a little over 60 km/h. No worries, though, we did not maintain that speed for long anyway as my deathly fear of ruts kept my heartrate and throttle control opposite each other. The heartrate was the high one.
After crossing a few roads, and a bridge over the N4 (I think) we sort-of lost the canals again, as the route seemed to fade out and turn into a bit of a tweespoor that looks in danger of becoming overgrown. At this point I believed I took a wrong turn somewhere, but we continued anyway. That's what adventure is about, isn't it? That was followed by a section that can only be described as a muddy, sticky, swampy mess - when its wet, which luckily it was not. But, deep vehicle tracks in the mud left to dry out and harden, cris-crossing each other made some very nice (not!) ruts. We approached this a bit fast, so I quickly had to choose a spoor and stick to it. This is where I appreciated the DP1 training that had us ride through 2 parallel logs, I simply looked at the rut briefly then looked up ahead and went. If I was going to have to fall then so be it. But it all worked out well! Got to the other side after scraping my footpegs on the sides of the ruts (deep!) and all was well. I guess it helps having your arse pinched so tight it looks like you're giving yourself a wedgy. Luckily Christo was riding in front, so he could not see his dad's eyeballs the size of saucers!
At one point, after about 30 km's we got to a road crossing with 2 yellow booms closing off the canal route. Seeing that no-one was in attendance we lifted the booms and continued through, but this had Christo seriously worried as his thoughts were about us being arrested for trespassing. A few km's later we seem to have lost the route again after a couple of gravel roads met and we clearly took the wrong one. And having ridden our MTB bikes the morning (it was afternoon already) we decided to turn around.
Next time, off course, I'll be sure to load the correct route onto the GPS. I want to see how far up we can go.
All in all it was an enjoyable ride for the two of us, Christo enjoyed maxing out his bike and took the route in his stride. He clearly did not inherit his old man's fear of ruts :-D. It seem's already I might have to look for something with more gears, though.
The baby zebra is just some random encounter in Groenkloof this morning, unrelated to this ride but a nice pic so I chucked it in.
After offloading his Orion pitbike from the bakkie he realizes the keys are still at home. Argh, driving back 60Km's did not appeal to me, so this turned out to be his first lessons in how to hotwire a bike. After cutting the ignition wires and connecting them together the bike refuses to start. Now this bike has never had a problem to start, so I knew I did something wrong, until I had the idea of simply disconnecting the ignition. It turns out this pitbike's ignition is like a kill switch. Disconnecting the ignition allows the bike to start. Sjoe, now there's an easy way to steal a pitbike. Makes sense though, as the bike has no battery or anything, and the ignition, it appears, simply grounds the one wire - sort of like a lawn mower does.
Anyway, got the bike running, and we set off. The roads are glorious, and the speed humps lets you buy airtime for free. But 5 kms later we hit a tar road amongst some shacks, and the gravel road does not continue on the other side. OK so we'll have to follow the tar road a bit it seems, I thought, realizing at the same time that I never loaded the routes I found on the forum onto my GPS. Oh, well, it can't be hard, right? so off we went on the tar road. I mistakenly assumed we would find the gravel road going off to the left, and the first gravel road we saw was taken. A little bit in we realised it was wrong, so I pulled out my phone and, luckily having some conneciton, browsed google's satellite view of the maps and found the canals again. OK, further on and then turn off to the right. Who knew.
Away we went again, sucking up the glorious km's of the road more gravelled. Christo got to max out his bike for the first time in 4th gear, turns out the top speed is a little over 60 km/h. No worries, though, we did not maintain that speed for long anyway as my deathly fear of ruts kept my heartrate and throttle control opposite each other. The heartrate was the high one.
After crossing a few roads, and a bridge over the N4 (I think) we sort-of lost the canals again, as the route seemed to fade out and turn into a bit of a tweespoor that looks in danger of becoming overgrown. At this point I believed I took a wrong turn somewhere, but we continued anyway. That's what adventure is about, isn't it? That was followed by a section that can only be described as a muddy, sticky, swampy mess - when its wet, which luckily it was not. But, deep vehicle tracks in the mud left to dry out and harden, cris-crossing each other made some very nice (not!) ruts. We approached this a bit fast, so I quickly had to choose a spoor and stick to it. This is where I appreciated the DP1 training that had us ride through 2 parallel logs, I simply looked at the rut briefly then looked up ahead and went. If I was going to have to fall then so be it. But it all worked out well! Got to the other side after scraping my footpegs on the sides of the ruts (deep!) and all was well. I guess it helps having your arse pinched so tight it looks like you're giving yourself a wedgy. Luckily Christo was riding in front, so he could not see his dad's eyeballs the size of saucers!
At one point, after about 30 km's we got to a road crossing with 2 yellow booms closing off the canal route. Seeing that no-one was in attendance we lifted the booms and continued through, but this had Christo seriously worried as his thoughts were about us being arrested for trespassing. A few km's later we seem to have lost the route again after a couple of gravel roads met and we clearly took the wrong one. And having ridden our MTB bikes the morning (it was afternoon already) we decided to turn around.
Next time, off course, I'll be sure to load the correct route onto the GPS. I want to see how far up we can go.
All in all it was an enjoyable ride for the two of us, Christo enjoyed maxing out his bike and took the route in his stride. He clearly did not inherit his old man's fear of ruts :-D. It seem's already I might have to look for something with more gears, though.
The baby zebra is just some random encounter in Groenkloof this morning, unrelated to this ride but a nice pic so I chucked it in.
