Jacko
Grey Hound
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2006
- Messages
- 6,134
- Reaction score
- 40
- Location
- Denver, Colorado
- Bike
- Hildebrand & Wolfmuller (all models)
Okay guys, here follows the RR. I will only load the photos later. It is long-ish. Maybe it isn't that good. But I have work to do!
Holy shit. That Jap is going to kill himself, I'm thinking. He is pulling a lead and no matter how hard Dallie, our day’s marshall, is waiving his arm, the crazy Nip is stretching the cable. Sitting. In the sand. Deep farking sand. Sand so deep the sandmonster speaks of it in hushed tones.
Underneath him his bike is dancing the dance of death, gyrating in ever increasing swings of the pendulum. Then it happens. The bike’s rear overtakes the front.
He takes off with a rather flat trajectory, making impact with the ground next to the deep, sandy track. From inside my helmet it seems like a stuck record. I had seen this for the umpteenth time today.
My bike’s clock said it was after 16:00. Earlier in Salamanga Dallie had said he wanted us to be in Ponta do Ouro by 15:00. Fat fucking chance. There was still 30km to go and we’d been fighting the sand, the Japs and sometimes a combined force of them for the last three hours. And I think we’d only covered 25km.
When our Japanese friend finally comes to a standstill, he doesn’t take long to start moving. Are these guys insane or stupid?
When I was first asked to do the GS Trophy 2010 I was gobsmacked. Why me? It soon made sense. I’ve been doing adventure riding for some time, have completed Country Trax’s advanced course and, more importantly, I could give coverage over a wide range of media platforms, courtesy of the fact that I work for a big media group.
But still, I was slightly taken aback. In the meantime, unbeknown to me, there had been the usual politicking, resulting in BMW AG (the Mothership in Germany) intervening and bypassing the existing local channels and using BMW SA’s automotive side to communicate with me and dealing straight with Country Trax for help in reconnoitring the route and providing logistical support.
It was with lots of excitement that we gathered at Aldo of Touratech SA’s smallholding on the outskirts of Gauteng. We pitched our tents and settled in for the night, having seen “our” bikes – each rider taking delivery of a spanking brand new F800 GS 30th Anniversary edition, complete with GS Trophy livery and his own name and blood type. Holy shit, this was getting serious.
What follows here isn’t a proper ride report. There are a few very good reasons for that. Firstly, I didn’t plan the route. I was a journalist accompanying Team SA and sometimes helping them as part of the team for certain challenges. We roughly knew where we were going each day, but for obvious reasons the organisers were cagey about precise routes. I also didn’t take my GPS along. With hindsight it was a mistake. I will never do something of this nature again without taking my own 276C along. Sometimes I had no clue where we are – and I do not like that feeling.
Secondly, there were many non-riding related things that happened. Some were interesting, some not. So I will give you a part of my subjective experience. I write for a living so doing this here is a major pain in the arse, almost like an accountant having to do the books of his local tennis club for free. But this isn’t tennis and there are some lekker okes amongst you, so here goes.
Day 1 – Gauteng to Country Trax
We were raring to go, but the rent needed to be paid, so we spent an agonising hour or two in our twat suits, posing for the tv crew, cameramen and assorted hangers on.
Then we hit the road. But not before the legendary Tomm Wolf briefed us in his humorous style. Tomm is a veteran of a few Dakars and a supreme rider.
A very long time ago I had the experience of doing a trip with an guy who is a bit of a riding legend, judging from stories he told of earlier exploits. He also happens to scoffs at ‘guys who stand while they ride’. He was fast - on hard-packed dirt. But, erm, not quite in sand. :biggrin: Whenever I saw the effortless way in which Tomm chucked his 1200GS (the marshalls rode 1200s) through very thick sand, standing, moving his weight around, I thought of this guy.
If said rider had witnessed this, he would've been confronted by the limitations of his own approach. Here Tomm was, displaying total mastery of a machine. In thick sand that means one thing: standing. Sometimes it's hard to accept new and improved ways of doing old things, I know. But what he had repeatedly said about "people who stand all the time" was being shown up to be patently wrong whenever one saw the 50-something Tomm gracefully handling a beastly 1200GS in extremely thick sand. He made it look like fun, not even breaking a sweat.
You see it with everyone who do training: Some believe they're too good to need training. And yet, I've never seen or heard of one single person afterwards saying that he/she didn't make, at the very least, significant gains in skill. The one's who tell you differently lie. IMHO there are only two things preventing people from undergoing professional training: Ego and fear.
We soon arrived at Country Trax where we pitched tents and then the fun and games started. Each team had to punch in five GSP waypoints, race there, collect a token and race back. Oh, and the shortest way between points was through marshes, dongas and other nice surprises.
Imagine then the surprise when Team SA came in first in 38 minutes – after Tomm said he didn’t expect anyone to come in before 1 hour!
We settled in our sleeping bags. Tired and excited, hoping tommorrow would bring better weather. It was foggy with a light rain, resulting in a special night stage being abandoned.
Holy shit. That Jap is going to kill himself, I'm thinking. He is pulling a lead and no matter how hard Dallie, our day’s marshall, is waiving his arm, the crazy Nip is stretching the cable. Sitting. In the sand. Deep farking sand. Sand so deep the sandmonster speaks of it in hushed tones.
Underneath him his bike is dancing the dance of death, gyrating in ever increasing swings of the pendulum. Then it happens. The bike’s rear overtakes the front.
He takes off with a rather flat trajectory, making impact with the ground next to the deep, sandy track. From inside my helmet it seems like a stuck record. I had seen this for the umpteenth time today.
My bike’s clock said it was after 16:00. Earlier in Salamanga Dallie had said he wanted us to be in Ponta do Ouro by 15:00. Fat fucking chance. There was still 30km to go and we’d been fighting the sand, the Japs and sometimes a combined force of them for the last three hours. And I think we’d only covered 25km.
When our Japanese friend finally comes to a standstill, he doesn’t take long to start moving. Are these guys insane or stupid?
When I was first asked to do the GS Trophy 2010 I was gobsmacked. Why me? It soon made sense. I’ve been doing adventure riding for some time, have completed Country Trax’s advanced course and, more importantly, I could give coverage over a wide range of media platforms, courtesy of the fact that I work for a big media group.
But still, I was slightly taken aback. In the meantime, unbeknown to me, there had been the usual politicking, resulting in BMW AG (the Mothership in Germany) intervening and bypassing the existing local channels and using BMW SA’s automotive side to communicate with me and dealing straight with Country Trax for help in reconnoitring the route and providing logistical support.
It was with lots of excitement that we gathered at Aldo of Touratech SA’s smallholding on the outskirts of Gauteng. We pitched our tents and settled in for the night, having seen “our” bikes – each rider taking delivery of a spanking brand new F800 GS 30th Anniversary edition, complete with GS Trophy livery and his own name and blood type. Holy shit, this was getting serious.
What follows here isn’t a proper ride report. There are a few very good reasons for that. Firstly, I didn’t plan the route. I was a journalist accompanying Team SA and sometimes helping them as part of the team for certain challenges. We roughly knew where we were going each day, but for obvious reasons the organisers were cagey about precise routes. I also didn’t take my GPS along. With hindsight it was a mistake. I will never do something of this nature again without taking my own 276C along. Sometimes I had no clue where we are – and I do not like that feeling.
Secondly, there were many non-riding related things that happened. Some were interesting, some not. So I will give you a part of my subjective experience. I write for a living so doing this here is a major pain in the arse, almost like an accountant having to do the books of his local tennis club for free. But this isn’t tennis and there are some lekker okes amongst you, so here goes.
Day 1 – Gauteng to Country Trax
We were raring to go, but the rent needed to be paid, so we spent an agonising hour or two in our twat suits, posing for the tv crew, cameramen and assorted hangers on.
Then we hit the road. But not before the legendary Tomm Wolf briefed us in his humorous style. Tomm is a veteran of a few Dakars and a supreme rider.
A very long time ago I had the experience of doing a trip with an guy who is a bit of a riding legend, judging from stories he told of earlier exploits. He also happens to scoffs at ‘guys who stand while they ride’. He was fast - on hard-packed dirt. But, erm, not quite in sand. :biggrin: Whenever I saw the effortless way in which Tomm chucked his 1200GS (the marshalls rode 1200s) through very thick sand, standing, moving his weight around, I thought of this guy.
If said rider had witnessed this, he would've been confronted by the limitations of his own approach. Here Tomm was, displaying total mastery of a machine. In thick sand that means one thing: standing. Sometimes it's hard to accept new and improved ways of doing old things, I know. But what he had repeatedly said about "people who stand all the time" was being shown up to be patently wrong whenever one saw the 50-something Tomm gracefully handling a beastly 1200GS in extremely thick sand. He made it look like fun, not even breaking a sweat.
You see it with everyone who do training: Some believe they're too good to need training. And yet, I've never seen or heard of one single person afterwards saying that he/she didn't make, at the very least, significant gains in skill. The one's who tell you differently lie. IMHO there are only two things preventing people from undergoing professional training: Ego and fear.
We soon arrived at Country Trax where we pitched tents and then the fun and games started. Each team had to punch in five GSP waypoints, race there, collect a token and race back. Oh, and the shortest way between points was through marshes, dongas and other nice surprises.
Imagine then the surprise when Team SA came in first in 38 minutes – after Tomm said he didn’t expect anyone to come in before 1 hour!
We settled in our sleeping bags. Tired and excited, hoping tommorrow would bring better weather. It was foggy with a light rain, resulting in a special night stage being abandoned.
