Saturday the 7th of September 2019 - We make a frantic visit to
@Runner at Offroad Cycles to purchase a few spares and most importantly, front fender bags. Seriously you cannot do a Motonomad type of adventure without front fender bags, we'd look like amateurs!
While getting our goodies we bumped into
@Ri , things couldn't get more random haha!
Myself and Ri can't stop chatting away and we ended up inviting her to our place. The lunch we had in mind became dinner, and Ri also stays over for the night. The stay over then becomes a spur of the moment Sunday bike ride too haha
Oh what a wonderful weekend. Ri has done such a lovely ride report, please see link below and do have a read:
http://www.wilddog.za.net/forum/index.php?topic=240811.0Sunday the 8th of September 2019 - We go for a leisurely bike ride to the Hartebeespoort dam with Ri (see RR above). Really we should be packing, we know
Come evening time we go through our bike bags and kit just to make sure everything fits on the bikes. The 500 doesn't work so well with the Giant Loop Great Basin bag, so we'll both have to fit everything into the smaller sized bag, the Coyote.
This is HSK's 2018 KTM 500, fitted with Giant Loop Coyote bag, airhawk pillow, Giant Loop Diablo tank bag, a handlebar baggie and last but definately not least, the Wolfman front fender bag
Setup looks good. Our bikes were recently serviced as well, so we'd just clean the airfilters and take some pre-oiled ones as spares. Our bikes already have Michelin desert mousses and some half fresh tyres fitted, so we figured that would do fine for the trip.
Monday the 9th of September 2019Work, work, work with some more packing in between. I go through some routes, I copy old ones from my planning last time, as well as some of
@Xpat 's routes from their last trip.
I also needed a new pair of gloves, my Leatt gloves did two racing seasons already as well as a number of social rides and were starting to litrally fall apart. A visit to Bike Kings fixes that with some beautiful Alpine Stars on special for R350, score!!!
Tuesday the 10th of September 2019Getting last of the paperwork sorted out, certified copies of bike and car papers, Insurance letters for the border, etc etc. Going to the bank to change some ZAR for Pula, it is really just easier to have when you do the border crossing. We'll be driving from Pretoria to Uis, which will take us 2 days via trans kalahari route Botswana. Anyway, we get more things ready and packed. Try to see if everything fits on the bikes. I blow up my air mattress. It deflates again... Shit. Dip it in the bath to see where puncture is. Find many punctures. Off I go to Cape Union Mart to get another air mattress. Dischem for some supplements, Checkers for some food and other goodies. I found last time that Opuwo didn't have the type of supplies I wanted, so would be packing a few "luxury items" beforehand.
Wednesday the 11th of September 2019Just when you think everything is fine and dandy... A small disaster strikes!
And as quickly as we planned it, as quickly it could have ended... Johan had a small mishap with the drill while putting number plates on our bikes. Luckily the cut is not deep, and some Betadine, wipes and plaster fix everything.
We are now almost, almost good to go.
Topic: Hearts in the Desert (Read 8538 times)
