-D-U-K-E-
Pack Dog
It seems that this is the spot to introduce yourself....
.... Mind you .... ok ........ uhm...... : now this feels just like walking into a new school for the first time. Oh crap - everyone's looking at me.... Anyway here goes:
I am in my early thirties, live in White River and never rode a bike before*.
whew! Glad that's over....
(*OK : Once before. For two days. Unidentified 200cc. Was a couple of years ago while taking part in an Environmental Impact Assessment in Swaziland. Left an impact crater in a riverbed somewhere close to nowhere.. Scared three cows and myself...)
Getting back to the point: after doing a bit of homework and talking to a few people I decided that a KLR650 would be a nice way of getting into this whole bike riding thing.
It took me three days to go from nothing to having my new bike delivered, paperwork sorted out and getting my learners license. This was in the first week of January to be precise. I have now done almost 5000km on the tractor - using it for my daily commute, and I will be taking it in for its 5000km service on Thursday.
Did I say tractor? When I think about the KLR I seem unable to make up my mind as to what it reminds me of: A red tractor; a Jeep; or maybe one of those old Hilux Bakkies. A friend of mine calls it a lawnmower but I can't really make the connection there...
About the Hilux reference : when we were doing fieldwork in Swaziland we had an old Hilux 4x4 we used to call Def Leppard - simply because that is what we usually had in the tape player. This usually led to very bad driving, especially offroad. But damn! did we have fun! And the Hilux really seemed capable of handling whatever a bunch of hooligans like us could, would and did throw at it.
Hopefully I will be able to the same about my KLR a couple of years from now.....
.... Mind you .... ok ........ uhm...... : now this feels just like walking into a new school for the first time. Oh crap - everyone's looking at me.... Anyway here goes:
I am in my early thirties, live in White River and never rode a bike before*.
whew! Glad that's over....
(*OK : Once before. For two days. Unidentified 200cc. Was a couple of years ago while taking part in an Environmental Impact Assessment in Swaziland. Left an impact crater in a riverbed somewhere close to nowhere.. Scared three cows and myself...)
Getting back to the point: after doing a bit of homework and talking to a few people I decided that a KLR650 would be a nice way of getting into this whole bike riding thing.
It took me three days to go from nothing to having my new bike delivered, paperwork sorted out and getting my learners license. This was in the first week of January to be precise. I have now done almost 5000km on the tractor - using it for my daily commute, and I will be taking it in for its 5000km service on Thursday.
Did I say tractor? When I think about the KLR I seem unable to make up my mind as to what it reminds me of: A red tractor; a Jeep; or maybe one of those old Hilux Bakkies. A friend of mine calls it a lawnmower but I can't really make the connection there...
About the Hilux reference : when we were doing fieldwork in Swaziland we had an old Hilux 4x4 we used to call Def Leppard - simply because that is what we usually had in the tape player. This usually led to very bad driving, especially offroad. But damn! did we have fun! And the Hilux really seemed capable of handling whatever a bunch of hooligans like us could, would and did throw at it.
Hopefully I will be able to the same about my KLR a couple of years from now.....
