Jules's Hard Core Ride Tuesday the 16th

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Jules

Race Dog
Joined
Nov 21, 2007
Messages
2,475
Reaction score
1
Location
Port Elizabeth
Bike
KTM 1190 Adventure
Someone made a joke an the previous trip that I was systematically taking out bikes in alphabetical order.

My luck seems to be holding  ;)

When I woke up at 5:30am it was drizzling outside, Hmmmm I though this could be interesting. I had visions of doing this ride solo! :ricky:

I should not have worried as when I arrived at the Total a few dogs were already straining their leashes!

We left the meeting point at around 6:20am

We were

Jules
Cracker
Pistol
Jay
Adventure Boy
Smithey
Robin (Friend of Crackers and not yet a wilddog)

We took a short stretch of tar past Kayasands and hit some fair sand roads towards Chartwel.
My planed route took us past Ganjora's  O0 pad and I made sure the boys revved their bikes as we went past. Sure enough Dave came hobbling towards the gate. You could see from the look on his face he desperately wanted to hop on his bike and join but under doctors orders he was not allowed, Next time Buddy! :thumleft:

Just before Daves Pad
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From Dave's pad it was over the river crossing where Puddles made her BIG splash, The river was lower than previously. We took some single spoor along the river and had a nice blast down a long section with a few speed bumps jumps. When I stopped for the tar road I turned around a was met by a pair of Huge eye's and a cry of "Fooooooook" as Jay jumped the last bump and ran out of road. Somehow he managed to skid just past me and stop short of the busy tar road. "Good Morning Jay"

We rode the tar section towards Hills and Dales and did a nice twee spoor section under the power lines from there we took the dirt highway past Gerhardsville and on to Erasmia and then the BIG Z.  The hill up Schurveberg is a SERIAAAAAS bit of work on a DS bike. Steep gradients and LOADS of rocks make it a real work out. One of these rocks jumped in front of me and I decided to lay my KLR down for a rest  :biggrin: it was so slow that the bike didn't even stall and the back wheel was merely spinning away in the air. With the bike at a very bad angle and a big rock wedged under the wheel I needed some hands to help me get it upright and get going again. Thanks guys and sorry for breaking your momentum on the hill. Smithey really needed to keep his head to get the big 950 up there WELL DONE DUDE!
We all made it up and had a rest stop and a cold one. Then it was time to do it again only downhill this time. Down was just as hard as you now had to keep the bike from running away from you. We all made it down in one piece.

The Big Z
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After the Z we went past Harties and through the tunnel and on to the Canal roads. So far the weather was perfect very over cast but no rain. about 30% of the canal roads were very slimy, it was the type of mud where you get taller with each step you take. There were a few deep mud sections and load of puddles to splash.

Adventure boy did the shimmy shake at one of these mud bits and went down in a blaze of mud. A quick roadside fairing repair and we were back on the road.
I think we all had some "Moments" with the mud but there were no more falls to be had thank goodness.

The Canal Roads
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The canals didn't disappoint and soon we were at Beestekraal Stasie for lunch, We had some grub and a cold one or two and then set of for The Rock.
Everyone made it up with no problems and some even thought about doing the hard way up,  :eek:

BeesteKraal
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The Rock
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From the rock we headed through Jerico and on through Brits to meet up with Eskape and the Girls at Kwackers. They did a easy training ride up Breedsnek and had there own adventure, look for the report!

At Kwackers Jay discovered that his new rear tire had started throwing of knobbly's like two horny teenagers throwing off clothes. He decided to take a slow ride home at that point. After Kwackers Eskape decided to join the boys for the last bit of dirt and the long river crossing at Lanseria, If only he knew about Jules's Diabolical Alphabetical Plans  >:D  We got the the river crossing with no mishaps and I was a little worried about the crossing as it was flowing stronger than usual. Bravado overpowered brains and I gunned the KLR through, The last section felt pretty wild as the back end of the bike got pushed out towards the end of the bridge :eek:
All the bikes with the K in the name made it through with out a problem. But then it was the BMW's turn, All went well until about half way when the big GS just died and needed to be pushed and pulled from the river We assumed the electrics got wet and checked everything as well as taking the plugs out. We put it all together again and with a little power from a trusty  >:D KLR the big BM started up we left it to idle for a few minutes and started to make our way back. We didn't get very far as the GS was very ill, it was blowing out huge puffs of blue smoke from the exhaust and not running very well at all. Eskape made a call to BMW on Call who immediately asked him to check his fan belt ;D, His reply was "bikes don't have fan belts dude!" After a long discussion and lots of KLever comments from the KLR brigade it was established that it would cost him more than R1200 to get BMW on call out there. But a Dog maak a plan and Adventure Boy offered to go and get his car and trailer and Take the GS home. We decided to at least get the bike to the Tar road and Smithies 950 was roped up to do the towing duty. The Towing went better than expected and we managed to get the bike all the way back to our original meeting point where the ladies were waiting for us. We sat around and had a lekka chat and then helped Eskape load the GS on the trailer, I could see the poor GS hang its light in shame, First to be jump started by a KLR and then towed by a KTM only to then be loaded onto a trailer being puled by a Honda, Ag shame I hope the psychiatry bills are lower than the repair bills. ;)

We ended of the day at 5pm at my place for a cold beer.

Lanseria River Crossing

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Repairs and Towing

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Thanks to all who joined it was a truly Epic days riding.

and to the BMW crowd you can relax now I seem to have worked my way through the entire range and can now start with the Honda's :biggrin: :biggrin:


Till the next one


Jules
 
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