LiveInTheOutdoors
Race Dog
I trade currency futures for a living. Sometimes good, and sometimes, not so good. Needless to say, the American market being opened and closed, rules my life more than just a bit. So when its 230pm here, the workday is jess beginning... and its shut shop at around 10pm. And my mates wonder why its hard to keep the social life up
So when my riding bud says - Hey - lets go and do the 4x4 course on the bikes at Zevenfontein on the weekend, I think "... sure! When do we leave?" "Oh - Friday mid-dayish"
Shoot - another 4 day work week So while the time whiles away in the morning, I start in the OuterDarkness section of AdvRider, making invites
I get one response from KiLeRSA after asking whats it like -
Sweet! So I decide to ask for the route..
Did anyone notice this?
So off we go... and our intrepid Ride Leader... forgets his camera
We get there - late and in the dark - theres zero electricity and its between the mountains. Cold and tired, we manage to find the headlamps, and slowly the food starts to come out. Fire gets made - wait whats this? Theres quite a bit of wood to use it seems, not sure. Too dark to really see. Tea gets made (damn Colonialists), food gets brought out slowly, and we nurse some weary sentiments - who, apart from us three doofus's are going to do this thing? No one else has pitched up, and its late. Its just pure silence - apart from the crickets and normal bush life - but even the mozzies cant cope cos its so cold..
WTF. Is it going to only be us 3 chop heads? 1 x Dakar. 1 x GS Adv. 1 x 1200GS. Real 4x4 course motorsicles. We dont need no stupid light bikes! We dont need no stupid DRZ 400's! No 525's! No siree, we gots some real off road maschines....
So with these thoughts and more, tents go up in the middle of the night - although Klaus decides to bottle it, and sleep on his blow up under the stars next to the fire, and the three of us go to sleep wearily, wondering what tomorrow will bring.
First sign of day... this:
BLIKSEM
So first up, Roelof comes along - a good man with a good Dakar, running Conti Knobbies. First off, I see that his rear wheel is running skew (improper alignment at the rear) and quickly that is righted after a bit of disagreement on which direction to screw the bolts in at the end of each stay. Oh well. My bad.
Next thing, this man is doing wheelies with his dayam Dakar down the road in second and third gear and I am wishing wishing wishing that I had a dayam camera. Dis man can ride.
He takes us to the first hill with loose round rocks. He goes up, no worries. err. "Are you sure we supposed to go up that and not just look at it?"
"Yep. "
Ok, here my first go
Leons go:
Hermans go:
Klaus's go:
Nah - well that wasnt too bad. Lets see if I can go down the hill, apply brakes, come to a stop, and then resume the roll. All I get is a slide, and I am losing balance so I let go and roll down. Turn around, I think. "nah, thats not that steep. Really it isnt." Heres my reward
It took 4 men to pick up a 210 kg machine up this hill. And this is just the start of the day
So Leon, who organised the weekend, asks Roelof the local guide if he knows any dam walls to practice the stops on. This is apparently whats coming up on the GS Challenge in Africa soon (international entries welcome btw - go to www.bmw-motorrad.co.za and sign up if you want), and so thats what he wants to try. Ok...
It looks so gentle from this angle
and heres Herman
Note to self: there were a few that chickened out here.. no names mentioned
Right, with that under the belt, but starting to get a little tired, we went exploring a little. Leon - instigator he is - wanted to have some fun in the sand. We were told that there was this sand along the river, just past the canal, past Snotgat - which roughly translated means Snot Hole.
The local rider Roelof leads, I am behind him and he takes the left line. I see a nice wheelie opportunity, and take the right.
Holy Crud! The front wheel doesnt slide, doesnt go over, doesnt dip in a little, it just SINKS IN QUICK. With that, my momentum is with me, and my head goes staight over the handlebars, with my private nether regions denting in the plastic over the battery area............. oooooooosshhhhhhhhhh dayyyammmm that hurt....
but it was also my saviour as I didnt land up going over and somersaulting forwards. With my nads tender and painful, I manage to laugh and smile.
Backup arrives, and now its shits and giggles :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
But wait a minute, how we going to get this thing out? All sorts of theories start coming. Oright. You grab the front forks and pull. You push the back. You do the clutch and I'll do the throttle, lets use the engine.
How do you politely say FOKOL in American? Oh well. Nothing. Nada. Zip. So we pull it out sideways. I mean, how sticky can mud with one tiny skinny front wheel be? Four men.... no movement. Eventually we get it sideways.
and I get a "I think you need to check your drawers" note by the pants doctor:
Reverse gear tends to help, and with four men straining, and a coupla helpful onlookers, we reverse the sucker (literally) out of there.
This is doing wonders for my fork seals by the way. I go and sit in the freezing canal which feeds the grapes that they grow right next to this snot hole, and its this cold -> "."
Everyone else uses this fine lesson in suckology to go around the mud (WTF for?) and we find the sand pit literally 15 metres away.
Wasnt even a sand pit...
Cool picture of Leon here:
Oright - so heres the balance of my writing. If nobody knows, www.advrider.com is a cool place to hang out too, lots going on over there, really superb. Find the local yafels under Outer Darkness section of ADVRIDER.
I actually finished the report there, so here goes:
Anyhow, heres the last installment me thinks...
and I am going to start off with a CAGE! ha! Take that comment makers
Remember - its a 4x4 course...The story here is real simple really - theres this river right by the camp, and after all the mud and "sand" playing, we were hungry. We set off without provisions, and its hard thirsty work picking up machines on an empty tum tum. So we go back to camp and start rustling up some grub - HUGE THANKS TO LYNETTE!!!!! - and Herman and Leon (theyre cousins I believe), decide to ride the river route (oh about .3miles long) right by the camp. Its pretty muddy, and sloppy, and they were supposed to exit the downhill section, through the stream, up the next... this is what we came upon.
Its quite entertaining to see how they got themselves in this predicament. The rest of the motley crue walk up and decide to enjoy the ruckus
If you look, you can just see the roof of the 4By. Craig pitches up, prolly a bit miffed still by that corner incident, and is on the quad. Perches himself very nicely at the edge of the river..
Now, being the nice kind wonderful let me help you kind of people we are - we urge him to help the 4x4. Craigs not having any of it. No, no, that attitude stinks Craig. Lets give you a hand in getting your A into Gear.
Yep. Otter is about as wide as the agricultural quad and ol skinny malinkie me decides to join in. Funny thing is... you can see Herman in this picture - who is the DRIVER of the 4x4...
Craig is extrmely willing to venture the Quad off of that little decline, so we back off now. Did we mention he was locking all 4 wheels? Like thats going to make a difference with Otter... Oh yes, the 4x4 under Hermans tutelage, just gasses it sideways and makes it out.
Craig makes the bottom without falling head over heels (again) and decides to do a little turn around after nearly wacking a poor bluegum tree. Damn Craig, thinks hes a horticulturist or sumfin
In this next picture, you can see Craig still looking down to see if he has the balls to this little incline
Here he is getting cosy with the gas tank. I think it was warm and he was enjoying the feeling of his new found "ballas" err....
Oright enough about Craig, poor guy. So we eat, dont brush teeth and hit the next obstacle. Myself and the local guide scoot on ahead, and we wait on the turnoff for ages. Turns out that on that first hill, I lost my dip switch for bright lights so we got to back into that mess to pick up a little grey piece of plastic, smaller than a 50c coin I would say.
So we wait long enough and figure, someone got hurt or they decided to take another route. We come across this merry figure in the middle of the bundus.
BUGGER! WHO IS THAT? OH. we shoulda guessed... ITS CRAIG...
Nah, Craigs a good rider, I am sharing some mutual loving
To explain this: Leon has not had enough of those dayum dam walls, and finds this little incline. Turns out that theres going to be this challenge thing where you go almost to the top of some steep hill, and instead of going over the top, you change course and veer left or right and down again. It aint easy I can tell ya...
Dont know whose bike that is
Heres my mate Leon trying to encourage that young man down the hill again. Still have no bloody clue who it is or was
Going up the side of it all
Yeah, well, everybody fell there. Everybody except Nicky I think (Klaus son) - Nicky did you actually do this thing? I cant remember seeing you do it. Oh well. Lets just say a few bashplates were bashed, a few plastics were scratched, a few armoured pads used.
So! Onto the next thing. Lord this is tiring...
We go to the hill, and Roelof (GBhim..) finds my piece of plastic, which I have in front of me as I type.. still havent put in 3 weeks later.
We do some easy trails, a little sand, nothing to really write home about, and its latish afternoon. We spy this little beauty and must go up it.
Roelof goes, doesnt make it. I go, dont make it. Leon goes, and that him in this picture. Doesnt make it. The quad doesnt make it first go in 4x4 mode, but makes it on the second try. I go up again, and I do a little fall.
Herman just looks like he's thinking - "damn Englishman, wont he learn? Dammit, do I have to help pick up this bike - again? " Truth be told, I tried 4 times if my knocked head can remember straight, and never made it much to my absolute disgust. Roelof, king of the day, with his lekker knobbies on, made it to the top. Quads dont count Craig...
Heres Leon again on his second (?) attempt.
Some perspective
Ah well, so everyone goes back to camp, and Leon and Herman take off in the 4x4 again. I give a bit of chase, and find them on the rocks which reminds me of the pass pictures in Colorado (whats those pictures Esteban?), which we do quite nicely. Actually, I love riding on rocks, if you gas it, its cool. I am sure it sucks for the bike though.
I enter another section, and after dropping the bike on this serious incline 4 times in less than 10 metres, I try and grab my bike for support as we are both slipping down the hill. I am alone, and VERY VERY tired. Instead of grabbing something useful... I grab the damn exhaust! Which wasnt cold at this stage I can tell ya.. ever felt leather being burned off quickly and your fingertips exposed and the flesh seared like a nice piece of tuna? Well, I did. And it didnt even take long. I mean - I was hungry - but not into self cannibalism, no matter how my body parts can be done on a heated surface.
So back to the camp for me, stoke the donkey - remember the donkey? - and its shower time. Heres someone showing his - ahem - arse for you:
No, its Herman! With compliments from his lady, Lynette
Yep, thats it. Next day was just gentle and relaxed with a few rides, and home time for us all. Many thanks to all who came from near and far (H+L) and added their particular flavour, and to Lynette especially for all the cooking and womanly touches (God Bless her, she was the only woman there). The heavens opened towards the afternoon, and I opted to ride home alone, and savour the solitary time. My faithful Dak carried me home in fine style, even though it was once again, this cold
-->.<-- when I got home.
Cheers all, thanks for reading. And I will send greetings to Bliksem and his Bitch when I see em again. G
So when my riding bud says - Hey - lets go and do the 4x4 course on the bikes at Zevenfontein on the weekend, I think "... sure! When do we leave?" "Oh - Friday mid-dayish"
Shoot - another 4 day work week So while the time whiles away in the morning, I start in the OuterDarkness section of AdvRider, making invites
I get one response from KiLeRSA after asking whats it like -
Sweet! So I decide to ask for the route..
Did anyone notice this?
So off we go... and our intrepid Ride Leader... forgets his camera
We get there - late and in the dark - theres zero electricity and its between the mountains. Cold and tired, we manage to find the headlamps, and slowly the food starts to come out. Fire gets made - wait whats this? Theres quite a bit of wood to use it seems, not sure. Too dark to really see. Tea gets made (damn Colonialists), food gets brought out slowly, and we nurse some weary sentiments - who, apart from us three doofus's are going to do this thing? No one else has pitched up, and its late. Its just pure silence - apart from the crickets and normal bush life - but even the mozzies cant cope cos its so cold..
WTF. Is it going to only be us 3 chop heads? 1 x Dakar. 1 x GS Adv. 1 x 1200GS. Real 4x4 course motorsicles. We dont need no stupid light bikes! We dont need no stupid DRZ 400's! No 525's! No siree, we gots some real off road maschines....
So with these thoughts and more, tents go up in the middle of the night - although Klaus decides to bottle it, and sleep on his blow up under the stars next to the fire, and the three of us go to sleep wearily, wondering what tomorrow will bring.
First sign of day... this:
BLIKSEM
So first up, Roelof comes along - a good man with a good Dakar, running Conti Knobbies. First off, I see that his rear wheel is running skew (improper alignment at the rear) and quickly that is righted after a bit of disagreement on which direction to screw the bolts in at the end of each stay. Oh well. My bad.
Next thing, this man is doing wheelies with his dayam Dakar down the road in second and third gear and I am wishing wishing wishing that I had a dayam camera. Dis man can ride.
He takes us to the first hill with loose round rocks. He goes up, no worries. err. "Are you sure we supposed to go up that and not just look at it?"
"Yep. "
Ok, here my first go
Leons go:
Hermans go:
Klaus's go:
Nah - well that wasnt too bad. Lets see if I can go down the hill, apply brakes, come to a stop, and then resume the roll. All I get is a slide, and I am losing balance so I let go and roll down. Turn around, I think. "nah, thats not that steep. Really it isnt." Heres my reward
It took 4 men to pick up a 210 kg machine up this hill. And this is just the start of the day
So Leon, who organised the weekend, asks Roelof the local guide if he knows any dam walls to practice the stops on. This is apparently whats coming up on the GS Challenge in Africa soon (international entries welcome btw - go to www.bmw-motorrad.co.za and sign up if you want), and so thats what he wants to try. Ok...
It looks so gentle from this angle
and heres Herman
Note to self: there were a few that chickened out here.. no names mentioned
Right, with that under the belt, but starting to get a little tired, we went exploring a little. Leon - instigator he is - wanted to have some fun in the sand. We were told that there was this sand along the river, just past the canal, past Snotgat - which roughly translated means Snot Hole.
The local rider Roelof leads, I am behind him and he takes the left line. I see a nice wheelie opportunity, and take the right.
Holy Crud! The front wheel doesnt slide, doesnt go over, doesnt dip in a little, it just SINKS IN QUICK. With that, my momentum is with me, and my head goes staight over the handlebars, with my private nether regions denting in the plastic over the battery area............. oooooooosshhhhhhhhhh dayyyammmm that hurt....
but it was also my saviour as I didnt land up going over and somersaulting forwards. With my nads tender and painful, I manage to laugh and smile.
Backup arrives, and now its shits and giggles :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
But wait a minute, how we going to get this thing out? All sorts of theories start coming. Oright. You grab the front forks and pull. You push the back. You do the clutch and I'll do the throttle, lets use the engine.
How do you politely say FOKOL in American? Oh well. Nothing. Nada. Zip. So we pull it out sideways. I mean, how sticky can mud with one tiny skinny front wheel be? Four men.... no movement. Eventually we get it sideways.
and I get a "I think you need to check your drawers" note by the pants doctor:
Reverse gear tends to help, and with four men straining, and a coupla helpful onlookers, we reverse the sucker (literally) out of there.
This is doing wonders for my fork seals by the way. I go and sit in the freezing canal which feeds the grapes that they grow right next to this snot hole, and its this cold -> "."
Everyone else uses this fine lesson in suckology to go around the mud (WTF for?) and we find the sand pit literally 15 metres away.
Wasnt even a sand pit...
Cool picture of Leon here:
Oright - so heres the balance of my writing. If nobody knows, www.advrider.com is a cool place to hang out too, lots going on over there, really superb. Find the local yafels under Outer Darkness section of ADVRIDER.
I actually finished the report there, so here goes:
Anyhow, heres the last installment me thinks...
and I am going to start off with a CAGE! ha! Take that comment makers
Remember - its a 4x4 course...The story here is real simple really - theres this river right by the camp, and after all the mud and "sand" playing, we were hungry. We set off without provisions, and its hard thirsty work picking up machines on an empty tum tum. So we go back to camp and start rustling up some grub - HUGE THANKS TO LYNETTE!!!!! - and Herman and Leon (theyre cousins I believe), decide to ride the river route (oh about .3miles long) right by the camp. Its pretty muddy, and sloppy, and they were supposed to exit the downhill section, through the stream, up the next... this is what we came upon.
Its quite entertaining to see how they got themselves in this predicament. The rest of the motley crue walk up and decide to enjoy the ruckus
If you look, you can just see the roof of the 4By. Craig pitches up, prolly a bit miffed still by that corner incident, and is on the quad. Perches himself very nicely at the edge of the river..
Now, being the nice kind wonderful let me help you kind of people we are - we urge him to help the 4x4. Craigs not having any of it. No, no, that attitude stinks Craig. Lets give you a hand in getting your A into Gear.
Yep. Otter is about as wide as the agricultural quad and ol skinny malinkie me decides to join in. Funny thing is... you can see Herman in this picture - who is the DRIVER of the 4x4...
Craig is extrmely willing to venture the Quad off of that little decline, so we back off now. Did we mention he was locking all 4 wheels? Like thats going to make a difference with Otter... Oh yes, the 4x4 under Hermans tutelage, just gasses it sideways and makes it out.
Craig makes the bottom without falling head over heels (again) and decides to do a little turn around after nearly wacking a poor bluegum tree. Damn Craig, thinks hes a horticulturist or sumfin
In this next picture, you can see Craig still looking down to see if he has the balls to this little incline
Here he is getting cosy with the gas tank. I think it was warm and he was enjoying the feeling of his new found "ballas" err....
Oright enough about Craig, poor guy. So we eat, dont brush teeth and hit the next obstacle. Myself and the local guide scoot on ahead, and we wait on the turnoff for ages. Turns out that on that first hill, I lost my dip switch for bright lights so we got to back into that mess to pick up a little grey piece of plastic, smaller than a 50c coin I would say.
So we wait long enough and figure, someone got hurt or they decided to take another route. We come across this merry figure in the middle of the bundus.
BUGGER! WHO IS THAT? OH. we shoulda guessed... ITS CRAIG...
Nah, Craigs a good rider, I am sharing some mutual loving
To explain this: Leon has not had enough of those dayum dam walls, and finds this little incline. Turns out that theres going to be this challenge thing where you go almost to the top of some steep hill, and instead of going over the top, you change course and veer left or right and down again. It aint easy I can tell ya...
Dont know whose bike that is
Heres my mate Leon trying to encourage that young man down the hill again. Still have no bloody clue who it is or was
Going up the side of it all
Yeah, well, everybody fell there. Everybody except Nicky I think (Klaus son) - Nicky did you actually do this thing? I cant remember seeing you do it. Oh well. Lets just say a few bashplates were bashed, a few plastics were scratched, a few armoured pads used.
So! Onto the next thing. Lord this is tiring...
We go to the hill, and Roelof (GBhim..) finds my piece of plastic, which I have in front of me as I type.. still havent put in 3 weeks later.
We do some easy trails, a little sand, nothing to really write home about, and its latish afternoon. We spy this little beauty and must go up it.
Roelof goes, doesnt make it. I go, dont make it. Leon goes, and that him in this picture. Doesnt make it. The quad doesnt make it first go in 4x4 mode, but makes it on the second try. I go up again, and I do a little fall.
Herman just looks like he's thinking - "damn Englishman, wont he learn? Dammit, do I have to help pick up this bike - again? " Truth be told, I tried 4 times if my knocked head can remember straight, and never made it much to my absolute disgust. Roelof, king of the day, with his lekker knobbies on, made it to the top. Quads dont count Craig...
Heres Leon again on his second (?) attempt.
Some perspective
Ah well, so everyone goes back to camp, and Leon and Herman take off in the 4x4 again. I give a bit of chase, and find them on the rocks which reminds me of the pass pictures in Colorado (whats those pictures Esteban?), which we do quite nicely. Actually, I love riding on rocks, if you gas it, its cool. I am sure it sucks for the bike though.
I enter another section, and after dropping the bike on this serious incline 4 times in less than 10 metres, I try and grab my bike for support as we are both slipping down the hill. I am alone, and VERY VERY tired. Instead of grabbing something useful... I grab the damn exhaust! Which wasnt cold at this stage I can tell ya.. ever felt leather being burned off quickly and your fingertips exposed and the flesh seared like a nice piece of tuna? Well, I did. And it didnt even take long. I mean - I was hungry - but not into self cannibalism, no matter how my body parts can be done on a heated surface.
So back to the camp for me, stoke the donkey - remember the donkey? - and its shower time. Heres someone showing his - ahem - arse for you:
No, its Herman! With compliments from his lady, Lynette
Yep, thats it. Next day was just gentle and relaxed with a few rides, and home time for us all. Many thanks to all who came from near and far (H+L) and added their particular flavour, and to Lynette especially for all the cooking and womanly touches (God Bless her, she was the only woman there). The heavens opened towards the afternoon, and I opted to ride home alone, and savour the solitary time. My faithful Dak carried me home in fine style, even though it was once again, this cold
-->.<-- when I got home.
Cheers all, thanks for reading. And I will send greetings to Bliksem and his Bitch when I see em again. G
