Sedate
Pack Dog
I had intended to ride to Wellington, Gouda, Porterville, Citrusdal, Clanwilliam, Wuppertal. From there to take a small, narrow mountain pass and more dirt to Ceres. A round trip of about 650kms with about 200kms of dirt road.
Weather was predicted to be lousy, which it was. Left home just before 08h00. Stopped at the N1 Engen to put my rainsuit on as it was beginning to get very wet.
Now my rainsuit has this habit of coming apart tat the zip so the ride through to Porterville was quite a cold and wet one...... for my BMW jacket at least. Now I know why they cost so much... cause they work so much!
Got to Clanwilliam making good time but I had to do something about the ridiculous rainsuit held 'closed' by five press studs. At the Sonop garage I asked the garage owner for some pliers and we bent the little zip thing and now it works like a charm. Sorted! As I was having a packet of biltong another bike arrived. (The only other bike I saw the entire day of riding) A husband and wife on a BMW 1200 GS Adventure who were on their way to Springbok. He had a Wilddog sticker on so I asked him about the roads I was intending to ride telling him I was a novice on dirt. He stringly suggested I leave the Wuppertal to Ceres dirt section out and return the way I came via Clanwilliam. He said the pass out of Wuppertal is treacherous and not wide enough for a car and there's no cell phone reception so if you get stuck you're on your own.
So I decided to follow his advice.Went through Clanwilliam and on to Wuppertal. They have started tarring some of the sections of road so there are a few stop and go traffic controls. It was just spitting so the dirt road was still firm and damp. Slowly made my way to Wuppertal. I nearly lost it on one corner a s my confidence was up and suddenly I had run out of road at the crest of this one corner with a sheer drop down. Don't know how I saved it but I used the loose stones on the side of the road as a berm and somehow stayed upright. Whew!!
Was a little more circumspect the rest of the way as the road surface had started to deteriorate due to the rain. Made it to Wuppertal in good spirits and had a deleicious chicken pie. Jumped straight back on the bike and headed back the way I came.
By now the drizzle had turned into rain and the road was liquid. Had many slides but nothing heart stopping but I did slow down a lot so the road back took me twice as long as in. Got back to Clanwilliam in one peice although my bike had lost it's headlight cover somewhere along the way.
Ride back to Citrusdal was great, roads were quite and wind was minimal. As I went down Piekernierskloof the wind started pumping. The rest of my journey back to Cape Town was either fighting the wind or being pushed to an all time top speed for my GS.
All in all a great 9 hours in the saddle, 630kms of wet riding. My el-cheapo rainsuit worked great after getting the zip sorted out. My Airhawk seat was fantastic, not only did it stop any numb-bum but the water didn't pool in the crotch so I was dry all the way. The bike performed flawlessly throughout and I'm slowly beginning to feel that dirt isn't the terror I have thought throughout my road riding career.
Weather was predicted to be lousy, which it was. Left home just before 08h00. Stopped at the N1 Engen to put my rainsuit on as it was beginning to get very wet.
Now my rainsuit has this habit of coming apart tat the zip so the ride through to Porterville was quite a cold and wet one...... for my BMW jacket at least. Now I know why they cost so much... cause they work so much!
Got to Clanwilliam making good time but I had to do something about the ridiculous rainsuit held 'closed' by five press studs. At the Sonop garage I asked the garage owner for some pliers and we bent the little zip thing and now it works like a charm. Sorted! As I was having a packet of biltong another bike arrived. (The only other bike I saw the entire day of riding) A husband and wife on a BMW 1200 GS Adventure who were on their way to Springbok. He had a Wilddog sticker on so I asked him about the roads I was intending to ride telling him I was a novice on dirt. He stringly suggested I leave the Wuppertal to Ceres dirt section out and return the way I came via Clanwilliam. He said the pass out of Wuppertal is treacherous and not wide enough for a car and there's no cell phone reception so if you get stuck you're on your own.
So I decided to follow his advice.Went through Clanwilliam and on to Wuppertal. They have started tarring some of the sections of road so there are a few stop and go traffic controls. It was just spitting so the dirt road was still firm and damp. Slowly made my way to Wuppertal. I nearly lost it on one corner a s my confidence was up and suddenly I had run out of road at the crest of this one corner with a sheer drop down. Don't know how I saved it but I used the loose stones on the side of the road as a berm and somehow stayed upright. Whew!!
Was a little more circumspect the rest of the way as the road surface had started to deteriorate due to the rain. Made it to Wuppertal in good spirits and had a deleicious chicken pie. Jumped straight back on the bike and headed back the way I came.
By now the drizzle had turned into rain and the road was liquid. Had many slides but nothing heart stopping but I did slow down a lot so the road back took me twice as long as in. Got back to Clanwilliam in one peice although my bike had lost it's headlight cover somewhere along the way.
Ride back to Citrusdal was great, roads were quite and wind was minimal. As I went down Piekernierskloof the wind started pumping. The rest of my journey back to Cape Town was either fighting the wind or being pushed to an all time top speed for my GS.
All in all a great 9 hours in the saddle, 630kms of wet riding. My el-cheapo rainsuit worked great after getting the zip sorted out. My Airhawk seat was fantastic, not only did it stop any numb-bum but the water didn't pool in the crotch so I was dry all the way. The bike performed flawlessly throughout and I'm slowly beginning to feel that dirt isn't the terror I have thought throughout my road riding career.
