EATMYKTM.
Race Dog
Festive cheer and Gravel travel 2010.
The whole idea started when Penny told me that her father was going to celebrate his 70th birthday on the 21st of Dec 2010 and that she wanted to go down to Port Elizabeth for this special occasion. Seeing as I am carlos at the moment and I needed a good long ride I suggested that we give MacDonald’s a good run down to the coast. Penny being the wonderful woman that she is jumped at the idea immediately and started checking out overnight accommodation on the net.
My Sister then invited us down to their Inn in Napier for Christmas and their legendary New year’s opskop. Being the social butterflies that we are, refusing an invitation like this would have been silly and just plain rude to say the least. ‘Ah Babe, wont you check out some options towards the Overberg side please?’
As the momentum grew, as it tends to do when you have 3 weeks leave and a 990 Adventure, I said to Penny, well if we are going to Napier for Christmas and New year why not pop into CT for 2 days between the holidays? ‘I’m on it!’ she says. Good girl. ‘But what route are we taking home?’ Now Kevin and Frieda who live just outside Lady Gray have been tempting us with a place to stay for 8 months now so I thought the timing would be just right to take them up on their kind offer, via some choice gravel roads of course.
As the road from Wartrail (Google it!) is quite long and we were aiming at keeping long daily hauls to a minimum I suggested that we treat ourselves to a night or two in Clarens before heading home to the madness that is January in Jo’burg. Penny was getting very good at this and without me even asking she had secured us a beautiful cottage just outside Clarens overlooking the Golden gate National park. Nice!
With the basic route planned there were a couple of stay over’s that needed sorting and I confidently left those in Penny’s capable hands while I buggered of around southern Africa with Helge Pederson and 19 biking Americans for 40 days on GlobeRiders African Adventure.
Get slightly flustered she did, as often I had no connectivity in Bots, Zambia and especially Namibia, but this was to be expected as I had left her to arrange all accommodations with only the vaguest ideas of roads that we would be following . This to me was great as I would leave the destinations to her and then I’d be responsible for plotting the most interesting routes between them, Yee Hah!…She didn’t quite share my enthusiasm for this gung ho, ’Don’t stress Babe it’ll be lekker adventury!’ type mindset that I had so I let her in on one or two routes.
Putting the final details in place with a little understanding from both our sides, we had a rock solid adventure planned early in December, but no Bike. Now this was not too much of a concern as we were only leaving on the 17th but when my bent sub frame that I had left with a company early November had not even made it to the welders by the 9th, I started to loose my cool. A bit.
Friday the 10th I went to pick up the completed job with great excitement only to find out that they had welded the rear ‘luggage rack’ part on… Upside down! ‘For, Five Six! Are you people totally retarded?’ After cutting it off again and personally taking it to the welder, who was leaving for holiday in 20 minutes, I had a straight, strong and fixed sub frame. Thanks Andy, you rock!
Booking MacDonald’s into Pro action for his 72 500km service on Monday the 13th meant I had a couple of days to reassemble him and do a short test ride to see that I hadn’t put the exhaust pipes on where the swing arm should be. All good, last ride and then off to service. Well that last ride proved that someone or thing is looking after Pen and I.
I suffered a front flat at 140km/h on the Ben Schoeman and after almost killing myself trying to slow down with a front tyre that was trying to part company with the rim, I came to a stop on the shoulder and phoned my mate for help. We repaired the tube and when we put the callipers back onto the discs and pumped them for pressure the right brake hose on my high fender conversion popped. In the workshop! I guess 70 000km of chafing will do that to a braided hose?
Ah well, limp it down to P.A. on the rear brake (scary at times!) and leave it in their capable hands. ’Nell, I need a service, pre trip check over including bearings, replace my hexagonal front rim with a new Excel, replace the rear disc and get me a new brake hose please. Oh and I need it tomorrow (Tuesday) so I can start packing.’ “Andrew, you’re a nice guy but not too bright. Get out of here and I’ll see you on Thursday (Sweetest smile)!” Oh, okay then.
To cut a long story short the wrong hose was supplied (non ABS) and no one had the correct one in stock. Russell Connelly, the new general manager of P.A. really came to the party when I explained our situation to him. He stripped one of his stock bikes and requested Aubrey and new maccie Bruce to install it’s hose into my bike. These guys are bloody awesome as they had both bikes stripped, tanks, side panels and ABS plumbing and re-installed in just over one hour, an hour less than promised. Well done Pro Action! Too often you get the shitty end of peoples arguments but with service like this you deserve much credit. Thank you!
Let’s get home and start the pre trip preparations! Now on the second day pre departure I collected my new Bags Connection Speedpack luggage and wide pillion foot pegs from Adventurer at great expense. Excitedly checking how the luggage worked and yearning for my bike to get back so I could fit it, I left it on the bed in my cottage that night and went to stay at Penny.
That stormy Wednesday night, some Cock and his mates decided to jump the wall, break in and steal my Nikon P100 camera, Hi-Fi, prescription Oakley sunglasses?, tool box, my Draggin jeans and all of my t-shirts. Because they needed something to carry it all in, of course they just put it all into my new fookin’ Speedpack and pissed off.
So Guys if you get offered a brand new Bags Connection Speedpack Wide, please beat the prick within an inch of his life ( after getting his contact details), take the bag off him and contact me. Cheers.
The whole idea started when Penny told me that her father was going to celebrate his 70th birthday on the 21st of Dec 2010 and that she wanted to go down to Port Elizabeth for this special occasion. Seeing as I am carlos at the moment and I needed a good long ride I suggested that we give MacDonald’s a good run down to the coast. Penny being the wonderful woman that she is jumped at the idea immediately and started checking out overnight accommodation on the net.
My Sister then invited us down to their Inn in Napier for Christmas and their legendary New year’s opskop. Being the social butterflies that we are, refusing an invitation like this would have been silly and just plain rude to say the least. ‘Ah Babe, wont you check out some options towards the Overberg side please?’
As the momentum grew, as it tends to do when you have 3 weeks leave and a 990 Adventure, I said to Penny, well if we are going to Napier for Christmas and New year why not pop into CT for 2 days between the holidays? ‘I’m on it!’ she says. Good girl. ‘But what route are we taking home?’ Now Kevin and Frieda who live just outside Lady Gray have been tempting us with a place to stay for 8 months now so I thought the timing would be just right to take them up on their kind offer, via some choice gravel roads of course.
As the road from Wartrail (Google it!) is quite long and we were aiming at keeping long daily hauls to a minimum I suggested that we treat ourselves to a night or two in Clarens before heading home to the madness that is January in Jo’burg. Penny was getting very good at this and without me even asking she had secured us a beautiful cottage just outside Clarens overlooking the Golden gate National park. Nice!
With the basic route planned there were a couple of stay over’s that needed sorting and I confidently left those in Penny’s capable hands while I buggered of around southern Africa with Helge Pederson and 19 biking Americans for 40 days on GlobeRiders African Adventure.
Get slightly flustered she did, as often I had no connectivity in Bots, Zambia and especially Namibia, but this was to be expected as I had left her to arrange all accommodations with only the vaguest ideas of roads that we would be following . This to me was great as I would leave the destinations to her and then I’d be responsible for plotting the most interesting routes between them, Yee Hah!…She didn’t quite share my enthusiasm for this gung ho, ’Don’t stress Babe it’ll be lekker adventury!’ type mindset that I had so I let her in on one or two routes.
Putting the final details in place with a little understanding from both our sides, we had a rock solid adventure planned early in December, but no Bike. Now this was not too much of a concern as we were only leaving on the 17th but when my bent sub frame that I had left with a company early November had not even made it to the welders by the 9th, I started to loose my cool. A bit.
Friday the 10th I went to pick up the completed job with great excitement only to find out that they had welded the rear ‘luggage rack’ part on… Upside down! ‘For, Five Six! Are you people totally retarded?’ After cutting it off again and personally taking it to the welder, who was leaving for holiday in 20 minutes, I had a straight, strong and fixed sub frame. Thanks Andy, you rock!
Booking MacDonald’s into Pro action for his 72 500km service on Monday the 13th meant I had a couple of days to reassemble him and do a short test ride to see that I hadn’t put the exhaust pipes on where the swing arm should be. All good, last ride and then off to service. Well that last ride proved that someone or thing is looking after Pen and I.
I suffered a front flat at 140km/h on the Ben Schoeman and after almost killing myself trying to slow down with a front tyre that was trying to part company with the rim, I came to a stop on the shoulder and phoned my mate for help. We repaired the tube and when we put the callipers back onto the discs and pumped them for pressure the right brake hose on my high fender conversion popped. In the workshop! I guess 70 000km of chafing will do that to a braided hose?
Ah well, limp it down to P.A. on the rear brake (scary at times!) and leave it in their capable hands. ’Nell, I need a service, pre trip check over including bearings, replace my hexagonal front rim with a new Excel, replace the rear disc and get me a new brake hose please. Oh and I need it tomorrow (Tuesday) so I can start packing.’ “Andrew, you’re a nice guy but not too bright. Get out of here and I’ll see you on Thursday (Sweetest smile)!” Oh, okay then.
To cut a long story short the wrong hose was supplied (non ABS) and no one had the correct one in stock. Russell Connelly, the new general manager of P.A. really came to the party when I explained our situation to him. He stripped one of his stock bikes and requested Aubrey and new maccie Bruce to install it’s hose into my bike. These guys are bloody awesome as they had both bikes stripped, tanks, side panels and ABS plumbing and re-installed in just over one hour, an hour less than promised. Well done Pro Action! Too often you get the shitty end of peoples arguments but with service like this you deserve much credit. Thank you!
Let’s get home and start the pre trip preparations! Now on the second day pre departure I collected my new Bags Connection Speedpack luggage and wide pillion foot pegs from Adventurer at great expense. Excitedly checking how the luggage worked and yearning for my bike to get back so I could fit it, I left it on the bed in my cottage that night and went to stay at Penny.
That stormy Wednesday night, some Cock and his mates decided to jump the wall, break in and steal my Nikon P100 camera, Hi-Fi, prescription Oakley sunglasses?, tool box, my Draggin jeans and all of my t-shirts. Because they needed something to carry it all in, of course they just put it all into my new fookin’ Speedpack and pissed off.
So Guys if you get offered a brand new Bags Connection Speedpack Wide, please beat the prick within an inch of his life ( after getting his contact details), take the bag off him and contact me. Cheers.
