'Twas a good morning's ride, with fairly easy dirt roads holding a few mud surprises...
Thirteen riders pitched up, not put off by last night's heavy rains over the West Rand, nor the cloudy, misty conditions threatening more. (I dread the combination of 13 and Jules!)
We had coffee at the filling station, and discussed the options. Took off towards Tarlton, for a bit of railroading (Gunda-Gunda's backyard). Took about 50m for the mudmonster to rear its filthy head. Then backroads towards Ventersdorp (Goedgedacht to be precise), where we looked at some karst topography in the Malmani dolomites (old diamond diggings). I tried to explain a bit about the area and the alluvial/coluvial diamonds that occur in the area. Looked at a small sinkhole. Some other explorations were also made into the bushes!
De-mudded a Varadero - mud caked up and locked the front wheel, leading to a fairly spectacular loss of control in a slippery patch...
Headed back to the Wimpy at Magalies for much-needed sustenance.
It was a nice ride to start the year with, with generally easy cruising twixt green fields, and the odd slipping and sliding to get the juices going. Thanks to all who came: please put down your names. The general level of skill in the mud was PDG (pretty damn good)!
Alas I didn't take any pix, but others did - please post them.
Deepbass9: we were sorely tempted to come and harass your visitors! ;D
Thirteen riders pitched up, not put off by last night's heavy rains over the West Rand, nor the cloudy, misty conditions threatening more. (I dread the combination of 13 and Jules!)
We had coffee at the filling station, and discussed the options. Took off towards Tarlton, for a bit of railroading (Gunda-Gunda's backyard). Took about 50m for the mudmonster to rear its filthy head. Then backroads towards Ventersdorp (Goedgedacht to be precise), where we looked at some karst topography in the Malmani dolomites (old diamond diggings). I tried to explain a bit about the area and the alluvial/coluvial diamonds that occur in the area. Looked at a small sinkhole. Some other explorations were also made into the bushes!
De-mudded a Varadero - mud caked up and locked the front wheel, leading to a fairly spectacular loss of control in a slippery patch...Headed back to the Wimpy at Magalies for much-needed sustenance.
It was a nice ride to start the year with, with generally easy cruising twixt green fields, and the odd slipping and sliding to get the juices going. Thanks to all who came: please put down your names. The general level of skill in the mud was PDG (pretty damn good)!
Alas I didn't take any pix, but others did - please post them.
Deepbass9: we were sorely tempted to come and harass your visitors! ;D
