roburt
Pack Dog
OK, so I flew down to cape town last week Wednesday to go collect my bike from GS Traders and take it up to Pretoria for its pit stop.
The idea was to pick it on Wednesday but after almost crashing on the kulula flight decided I have pushed my luck enough for the day (https://www.iol.co.za/news/turbulence-causes-mid-air-panic-on-kulula-flight-to-cape-town-9608928 ) - well it wasn't that bad but it was the first time I felt uncomfortable on a plane
I arranged to go collect the bike on Thursday morning 7:00am and were there just after 7. Wow the bike looked amazing . Bough myself a spirit jacket and some gloves and put on my cheap industrial rain suit that tore the pants by just getting on the bike . It was raining as I left but immediately had to get use to the size of the bike and panniers as I had to lane split a bit out of capetown. Gearbox felt very clunky but I new that from all the other reviews and within 10 minutes got use to it.
As soon as I was on the highway I pushed the pig up to 120km/h and immediately new I was on the right bike for any long trip, i just felt super comfortable and smooth. The seat was by far the best seat I have ever sit on on a bike (I figured out I can do 1000km without a sore bum). The throttle also took a little getting use to as it had a bit of lag accelerating to decelerating and the accelerating again but I think this is just a setting I need to play with. It was super cold and luckily the heated grips worked like a charm so was not freezing to much. After going through some long tunnel (cant remember the name) the mountains had snow on them so I was feeling the cold again. I figured out on 130 km/h the bike was purring nicely so I just kept to that speed and the km's just seem to come and go. Quickly figured out my bike was doing around 18km/litre so was making sure to fill it up when it was bellow half and never worried about range.
One thing I did not take into account was that in bloem it would start getting dark at 5pm so had to do the last 1.5 hours in the dark but with the spots on on the bike it was no problem. I stopped at family in bloem (some cool wildlive estate - woodlands) at 6:45pm so it was quite a long day on the bike and a good introduction of what I can do on the pig. It took me 30 minutes to defrost but were fine after that. Only physical issues I had was two blisters on my throttle hand (think its from gripping the heated grips the whole time) and my neck was a bit sore (need to get bigger screen, or something to push wind up 5 cm). The next day I left bloem at around 9am and got to pta 5 hours later and had a lekka cold beer
So my thoughts :
Amazing bike, I will do 1000km tomorrow again without worrying, but will never do a trip like this again where I am chasing time, I would prefer to go slower and stopping wherever I can. Seat and seating position I think is as perfect as it can be, I never had a sore bum (tried to ride 1 hour shifts before stopping for a walk, one shift did 2 hours no problem).
I think I will need to work on my brakes at some stage as they "sing"" a bit when standing and pulling the brake, they do work perfectly. Also my reff counter seem to be going up and down and then settling on the reffs but would guess thats just the cable or something.
All in all I am very happy with my buy, I feel very comfortable riding it up to Tanzania
PS : I took my ktm690 for a ride on Sunday just to make sure everything is fine and it feels like a bmx compared to the pig. I think I have the perfect combination now, the 1150 for adventure touring and the 690 for technical type touring.
Thanks for the guys who gave advice on the wind and excuse my spelling and grammar mistakes.
The idea was to pick it on Wednesday but after almost crashing on the kulula flight decided I have pushed my luck enough for the day (https://www.iol.co.za/news/turbulence-causes-mid-air-panic-on-kulula-flight-to-cape-town-9608928 ) - well it wasn't that bad but it was the first time I felt uncomfortable on a plane
I arranged to go collect the bike on Thursday morning 7:00am and were there just after 7. Wow the bike looked amazing
. Bough myself a spirit jacket and some gloves and put on my cheap industrial rain suit that tore the pants by just getting on the bike . It was raining as I left but immediately had to get use to the size of the bike and panniers as I had to lane split a bit out of capetown. Gearbox felt very clunky but I new that from all the other reviews and within 10 minutes got use to it. As soon as I was on the highway I pushed the pig up to 120km/h and immediately new I was on the right bike for any long trip, i just felt super comfortable and smooth. The seat was by far the best seat I have ever sit on on a bike (I figured out I can do 1000km without a sore bum). The throttle also took a little getting use to as it had a bit of lag accelerating to decelerating and the accelerating again but I think this is just a setting I need to play with. It was super cold and luckily the heated grips worked like a charm so was not freezing to much. After going through some long tunnel (cant remember the name) the mountains had snow on them so I was feeling the cold again. I figured out on 130 km/h the bike was purring nicely so I just kept to that speed and the km's just seem to come and go. Quickly figured out my bike was doing around 18km/litre so was making sure to fill it up when it was bellow half and never worried about range.
One thing I did not take into account was that in bloem it would start getting dark at 5pm so had to do the last 1.5 hours in the dark but with the spots on on the bike it was no problem. I stopped at family in bloem (some cool wildlive estate - woodlands) at 6:45pm so it was quite a long day on the bike and a good introduction of what I can do on the pig. It took me 30 minutes to defrost but were fine after that. Only physical issues I had was two blisters on my throttle hand (think its from gripping the heated grips the whole time) and my neck was a bit sore (need to get bigger screen, or something to push wind up 5 cm). The next day I left bloem at around 9am and got to pta 5 hours later and had a lekka cold beer
So my thoughts :
Amazing bike, I will do 1000km tomorrow again without worrying, but will never do a trip like this again where I am chasing time, I would prefer to go slower and stopping wherever I can. Seat and seating position I think is as perfect as it can be, I never had a sore bum (tried to ride 1 hour shifts before stopping for a walk, one shift did 2 hours no problem).
I think I will need to work on my brakes at some stage as they "sing"" a bit when standing and pulling the brake, they do work perfectly. Also my reff counter seem to be going up and down and then settling on the reffs but would guess thats just the cable or something.
All in all I am very happy with my buy, I feel very comfortable riding it up to Tanzania
PS : I took my ktm690 for a ride on Sunday just to make sure everything is fine and it feels like a bmx compared to the pig. I think I have the perfect combination now, the 1150 for adventure touring and the 690 for technical type touring.
Thanks for the guys who gave advice on the wind and excuse my spelling and grammar mistakes.
