A newbie goes a long, long way.

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hando

Race Dog
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
3,510
Reaction score
5
Location
Somerset West
Bike
Yamaha Super Tenere
I sat here staring at my PC screen for the last 30 minutes trying to think of a way to begin this ride report. Do I start with my excitement over getting my first bike ? Or should I start with all the planning and worries that went into fetching it ? Or maybe I should start with the wonderful people who played a part in my life these last few days. Some of these people whom I have never physically met.

Maybe I should start this report the way one would start any good story; At the beginning.

For me, the beginning of the story starts with a thread here on Wild Dog shortly after I got my Learner's license. I was feeling very sorry for myself as I now had license , but I could not see a remote chance that I would ever get to own and ride my own motorbike. A lot of people commented on that thread and gave me some very good advice and encouragement.

Then , out of the blue, a fellow Wild Dog contacted me and made me an offer to purchase his bike. He went out of his way to make it possible for me to buy the bike from him. With that I now had a bike. Only slight problem was that me and my bike was separated by about 1100 kms.

With much planning and praying I put in for leave for Wednesday and Thursday. Great was my surprise when my leave was approved. And so on Tuesday afternoon at 18H15 I boarded and Inter Cape bus that delivered me in Midrand at 10:15 the next morning. In midrand I was picked up by Tweets who had already collected the bike from it's previous owners place the night before. At his point , many incredible and wonderful people played a role in this story. Through their generosity I received a nice biking Jacket, a nice pair of gloves, a Helmet, a can of chain wax, 2 x cans of tyre fix, one front and one rear tube and most importantly a 2006 BMW F650 GS.

I left Tweet's place after he gave me hearty breakfast and went to the trouble of washing my new bike down with his power washer.

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From Tweets I went to meet up with Trailblazer in Kempton park and from there I hit the road to Sasolburg via Alberton. Like a proper old time biker I filtered through stand still traffic at Gilooleys and as I went past Alberton I settled in for the first 100km stage of my trip.
In Sasol I quickly popped in at my (ex)in laws before hitting the road again via Koppies and Kroonstad.

I stopped under a bridge on the N1 for a quick breather and to just send a status update to a friend.

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I filled up in Kroonstad and hit the road again to try and get to Bloem before sunset. This was not to be as I was diverted off the N1 due to an accident. This meant that I had to ride towards Virginia and then turn back towards Windburg . By this time I was starting to feel the cold, and the sun was going down too fast for my liking. Back on the N1 at Winburg , I made a beeline for Bloem, but in the end I was forced to slow down and take it easy as the light failed. I must say that I was very impressed with the headlight on my new scoot.

I got to Bloem to sleep over at my friend Graham's place shortly after 6:15, stiff, sore , and very very cold.

Day 2
This morning Graham took me for a hearty breakfast and I went to buy a rain suit for in case of , well ... rain.

On my way to go and load up my luggage I stopped at another friend's place to quickly show him the bike. On seeing the bike he told me to follow him home to where he has a top box from the days when still owned a 650 dakkie. The box he gave me did not fit on my mounting plate so we used the pooratech attachment fixtures to make sure the box came home with me.

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I have heard about an Airhawk seat cushion , but decided that I could do just as well with a blow up backpacking cushion and some mutton cloth.

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It worked. My arse survived the second day much better.

I stopped at Dwarsvlei railway siding to specially take a photo of my new scoot as I have posted a pic of dwarsvlei in the 'our stations' thread a while back. This time my pic had a motorbike in it !!! ;D ;D

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I also got to do my two first ever mountain passes on a motorbike  :ricky: :ricky:

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As I turned into the home stretch from Wolwefontein towards Uitenhage the sun was just setting behind me and lit up the grass with the most glorious light. So I stopped for a few quick snaps before I made the final dash for home.

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There are a couple of people who I would like to thank for making all of this possible and they are :

Geotraveller, Tweets, Moondog,  Trailblazer and each and every one of the Wild Dogs that wished me well cared and prayed for me.

Thank you guys and girls , I had an awesome two days on the road. I hope to meet all of you in person one day !

I thank my Heavenly Father for His hand in all of this , for two wonderfull days I had to experience and for keeping me safe on the roads.

 
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