Paddler
Puppy
When I was fifty-nine, after being out of the saddle for over thirty years, I bought another motorbike!
Iâ??d had bikes before; when I was fourteen years old I bought a Puch moped for R20, spent another R5 and two months in the garden shed fixing it, then rode it around our garden for another two years until I could legally take it out onto the streets.
Plots in our suburb of Cambridge in East London, South Africa were all quite large, so my friends and I upgraded our bicycle trails, ramps and obstacle-courses to challenge the old Puch and drove the neighbours crazy with the continual sputter of the 50cc two-stroke engine as we tried to better our lap times and get it to ramp the dirt mounds we had built.
There were of course illegal forays out onto the neighbourhood streets, but these had to be carefully timed, as the neighbour directly across the road from us was none other than East Londonâ??s Chief Traffic Officer, the formidable Ginger Coetzee! (Yes, Chief Traffic Cops were all formidable in those days, men whom the entire force respected and obeyed, who ran their departments like the military). All the boys of the neighbourhood however were convinced that Chief Coetzee was blind and deaf, as he never said a word to us or our parents. Never that is, until, at the age of seventeen, when I had been illegally driving my Motherâ??s car for over a year, he said to her:
â??Betty, tell Evan Iâ??m not actually blind and deaf you know, but he had better not mess up anywhere near our homes, because then there will be groot kak!â?
I held that man in awe and respect after that.
The Puch served me well, but an autocycle with pedals was not a babe-magnet, so I sold it for a profit and bought a used Garelli 50cc for R35 from a friend. Man, that bike could go, I sometimes made 80 kays an hour with the tyres pumped really hard!
One day the con-rod broke and smashed through the cylinder wall and I was bike-less again, but Momâ??s DKW was a better vehicle for going courting in and as I had already met my wife-to-be, I stayed bike-less for a few years.
In my mid-twenties I owned a 125cc Honda and in fact used it for an entire year to commute from King Williams Town to East London and back each weekday. It served me well, but how I hated a headwind!
Once we relocated back to Slums, the Honda was sold and bikes never entered my head again for thirty years, until I began hearing stories of wonderful rides into the Baviaanskloof, to Hogsback, Nieu Bethesda, the Langkloof and Rhodes, from my colleagues, Freedom and Crab at work.
One day, the opportunity to buy a good, used, Kawasaki KLR 650 came along and I took it! And then I started noticing the differences between biking on small-capacity machines in a very low-volume traffic environment in the 1960â??s and using a much bigger machine in 2007.
I realised that I was actually a new biker. All I had known of biking before was of very little relevance. Advice from fellow bikers was well-intentioned, but fragmented and sometimes contradictory. Then I discovered www.flamesonmytank.com and a lot of my questions were answered! Really, read all the sections avidly, especially those dealing with safe riding techniques, visibility, braking and collision avoidance, it may save your life.
Now I will tell you about some of the other things that may or may not happen to you as you enjoy your new and exciting lifestyle.
Always remember that most bikes are quite top-heavy, especially with a full fuel tank. If you try and move your bike by grasping both handlebars and the mass falls away from you, you will drop the bike over onto itâ??s far side and, if you stubbornly hold on, most probably find yourself somersaulting over the top of it as well!
You will then experience a mixture of extreme emotions; embarrassment, (especially if there are more experienced bikers around), fear, (that the fuel will all run out and the machine will catch fire and explode, especially if the exhausts are very hot), concern, (that your pride and joy, polished lovingly before you set out may be damaged), and anger at yourself for being such a poepall.
Whenever possible, only move your bike while you are astride it. Keep your legs apart and try and make use of gravity wherever possible. Watch for depressions and any other unevenness in the surface you are on. I have on several occasions had my bike fall over just because I put my foot into a hollow or pothole and was not paying attention. If there is a slope and you are unable to push the bike up it, start the engine.
The day after I bought my bike I visited our friends Tim and Carol. I was alone and although I did not fall, I found their steep brick-paved driveway quite daunting. Iâ??d foolishly stopped â??right foot down,â? using the front brake only and the bike slid back down the driveway as the bricks were a bit damp. (www.flamesonmytank.com still undiscovered at the time). Luckily I managed to regain control and then found I had to get off anyway to push the intercom button over to the right of the driveway.
The next day my wife Beverley and I returned for a braai and I carefully pulled up closer to the intercom on the right of the driveway, â??left foot downâ? ready to use both front and rear brakes. I had not noticed however that the driveway had two track depressions and a middlemannetjie, so I actually lowered my left foot into the hollow right driveway track. In an instant the bike fell over to the left with both of us still firmly in the saddle!
Muffled peals of laughter from inside the crash helmet behind me reassured me that there were no seriously crippling injuries and once I was able to drag myself out from under the bike I was most relieved to find that the bike was saved from damage by Beverleyâ??s left thigh and hip. What a star!
Our bruises, especially Beverleyâ??s were a sight to behold over the next six weeks or so. The development and gradual dissipation, through various hues of blue, green, brown and yellow became the first topic of discussion at her art-classes and she was almost persuaded to model nude as a tribute to â??The dedicated bikerâ??s wife.â?
If you have to move your bike and circumstances prevent you from straddling it, keep the sidestand down then, from the left side, grasp the left handlebar grip with your left hand and the left pillion handgrip with your right and push the bike in the required direction while keeping the mass biased toward you. To the extent that your strength allows, keep your body away from the bike. In this way you can resist any tendency for the bike to fall away from you and if it does fall toward you, the sidestand will stop it from falling over.
The sidestand is relatively easy to use and is the stand of choice for most stops. It is a good idea to make a habit of putting it down immediately though and not first start a conversation with your buddies while you remove your crash helmet, then swing your leg off your bike only to have it drop to the road because the stand is still up! Another rush of emotions will always follow.
Iâ??d owned my bike for three months and was feeling really confident. One day I fuelled up at one of those new designer garages, with the cobble-stoned forecourt. I remained straddling the bike as the pump-jockey filled it, and I gave the customary shake or two to make sure the tank was full, (this caused the sidestand to ride up closer to the bike on the cobbles). When I stepped off the bike to get my logbook out of the top-box the darn bike fell to the paving on itâ??s right side,, fuel gently oozing from the tank cap and breather pipes. It was so close to the fuel pumps that I could not get a good lifting grip on it and had to call for the pumpjockey to help, which he enthusiastically did, cracking the top-box mountings as he did so. ( He still got a big tip).
One can then ponder ever more deeply on society; the garage was busy, but not a soul came over to help. Now, I had left my crash-helmet on, so I suppose I was an unknown quantity to them. (Bloody Biker?) Had it been off, would I have been offered assistance? Maybe only if I had long blonde hair and a 36, 22, 36 figure in tight sexy red racing leathers. Who knows?
Many bikes do not come with a centre-stand as original equipment. A centre-stand is only needed for the following reasons:
You need to squeeze your bike into a narrow space in your garage or parking area, or if you need to remove a tyre to fix a puncture, especially in the bush.
You can also use it when lubricating your chain and other maintenance activities, although a purpose made service-stand may be better for this purpose.
Some bikes are really difficult to get onto the centre-stand. If you can find a hand-hold somewhere under the fueltank, toward the back, and then pull the bike both backward and upward at the same time, this helps.
My favourite biking activity is hiking by motorbike. I call it â??bhiking.â? (sic)
Our family has hiked many of the wonderful trails available to the outdoor enthusiast in South Africa. My sons and I have honed down the food and equipment we carry to the extent that we are able to start a five-day trail carrying only seventeen kilograms each, including the backpack.
So, imagine the advantage of being able to apply the principles of hiking when preparing and packing for a bhiking trip. One can even add a few luxuries like a novel, some cans of beer and softdrinks, canned fruit, a thicker mattress and a decent pillow so as to get a good nightâ??s sleep, but still keep it a really minimalist activity
One of the joys of bhiking is that it brings you back to basics, not a bad thing in the materialistic, consumerist society we all live in today. When bhiking, you cannot afford to carry more extras than a compact camera and binoculars, so oneâ??s power of observation and appreciation of all of the wonders of nature and our environment can kick in. The pleasure of enjoying the company and interaction with oneâ??s bhiking companions is also a major factor.
If you have a dual-purpose bike there are many, many wonderful and exciting destinations to visit. Many of the regular 4x4 campsites are also open to bhikers, who have the advantage of being able to set up camp in about a quarter of the time it takes for a fully equipped 4x4 outfit. So while your neighbour is still laying out groundsheets, unfolding awnings and pegging down all sorts of screens and flaps, you can be laying back and watching the clouds drift by, or having a swim in the river, or whatever.
Iâ??m not going to attempt to give you a detailed run-down on how to select equipment and prepare for a bhiking trip. There are many excellent books available on hiking and all the related topics, from cookware and trail food to sleeping gear and tents. So buy, beg or borrow one and read up!
When it comes to actually loading your gear onto your bike though, here are a few tips:
Never carry liquids, especially milk in the original cardboard packs!
We were negotiating an obscure and truly magnificent pass in the sticks somewhere near Nieu Bethesda when I noticed liquid dripping from my bag strapped to the rear seat and carrier at one of the gate-opening stops. It was milk! A dayâ??s worth of jolting on the track through the Groot River pass and many kays of gravel road had taken itâ??s toll. When I opened the bag to check what had happened I found that nearly a whole litre of long-life milk had soaked into my clothes. What a sour weekend that was! Fortunately my boxed wine had survived, although it was chafed, so I wrapped it up in a milk-soaked towel for the rest of the day. I was obliged to drink it all that evening as I did not want to smell like a sour winery by the next evening.
More advice; never borrow your wifeâ??s favourite designer togbag, bought from Harrodâ??s in London, then soak it with milk. Worse still, donâ??t forget all the inner dividers and base behind in the B&B courtyard when you depart for the home ride. You will have no-speaks, (or worse), for at least three days.
For the same reason, eat any bananas at the first refreshment-break of the day.
Use stretchable tie-downs rather than straps for your luggage. Being at the end of the bike, your luggage is subjected to severe jolting and twisting. No matter how tight you make your straps, they will work loose as they cut into your load and the load will then shift.
Leave no loose-ends to work free and get tangled in the wheels or chain. If anything gets tangled up even a small bike has enough power to drag all your luggage off the rack and into the wheel, drivechain and sprocket, if the tie-down doesnâ??t snap first. Then you will definitely crash.
Happy riding
Iâ??d had bikes before; when I was fourteen years old I bought a Puch moped for R20, spent another R5 and two months in the garden shed fixing it, then rode it around our garden for another two years until I could legally take it out onto the streets.
Plots in our suburb of Cambridge in East London, South Africa were all quite large, so my friends and I upgraded our bicycle trails, ramps and obstacle-courses to challenge the old Puch and drove the neighbours crazy with the continual sputter of the 50cc two-stroke engine as we tried to better our lap times and get it to ramp the dirt mounds we had built.
There were of course illegal forays out onto the neighbourhood streets, but these had to be carefully timed, as the neighbour directly across the road from us was none other than East Londonâ??s Chief Traffic Officer, the formidable Ginger Coetzee! (Yes, Chief Traffic Cops were all formidable in those days, men whom the entire force respected and obeyed, who ran their departments like the military). All the boys of the neighbourhood however were convinced that Chief Coetzee was blind and deaf, as he never said a word to us or our parents. Never that is, until, at the age of seventeen, when I had been illegally driving my Motherâ??s car for over a year, he said to her:
â??Betty, tell Evan Iâ??m not actually blind and deaf you know, but he had better not mess up anywhere near our homes, because then there will be groot kak!â?
I held that man in awe and respect after that.
The Puch served me well, but an autocycle with pedals was not a babe-magnet, so I sold it for a profit and bought a used Garelli 50cc for R35 from a friend. Man, that bike could go, I sometimes made 80 kays an hour with the tyres pumped really hard!
One day the con-rod broke and smashed through the cylinder wall and I was bike-less again, but Momâ??s DKW was a better vehicle for going courting in and as I had already met my wife-to-be, I stayed bike-less for a few years.
In my mid-twenties I owned a 125cc Honda and in fact used it for an entire year to commute from King Williams Town to East London and back each weekday. It served me well, but how I hated a headwind!
Once we relocated back to Slums, the Honda was sold and bikes never entered my head again for thirty years, until I began hearing stories of wonderful rides into the Baviaanskloof, to Hogsback, Nieu Bethesda, the Langkloof and Rhodes, from my colleagues, Freedom and Crab at work.
One day, the opportunity to buy a good, used, Kawasaki KLR 650 came along and I took it! And then I started noticing the differences between biking on small-capacity machines in a very low-volume traffic environment in the 1960â??s and using a much bigger machine in 2007.
I realised that I was actually a new biker. All I had known of biking before was of very little relevance. Advice from fellow bikers was well-intentioned, but fragmented and sometimes contradictory. Then I discovered www.flamesonmytank.com and a lot of my questions were answered! Really, read all the sections avidly, especially those dealing with safe riding techniques, visibility, braking and collision avoidance, it may save your life.
Now I will tell you about some of the other things that may or may not happen to you as you enjoy your new and exciting lifestyle.
Always remember that most bikes are quite top-heavy, especially with a full fuel tank. If you try and move your bike by grasping both handlebars and the mass falls away from you, you will drop the bike over onto itâ??s far side and, if you stubbornly hold on, most probably find yourself somersaulting over the top of it as well!
You will then experience a mixture of extreme emotions; embarrassment, (especially if there are more experienced bikers around), fear, (that the fuel will all run out and the machine will catch fire and explode, especially if the exhausts are very hot), concern, (that your pride and joy, polished lovingly before you set out may be damaged), and anger at yourself for being such a poepall.
Whenever possible, only move your bike while you are astride it. Keep your legs apart and try and make use of gravity wherever possible. Watch for depressions and any other unevenness in the surface you are on. I have on several occasions had my bike fall over just because I put my foot into a hollow or pothole and was not paying attention. If there is a slope and you are unable to push the bike up it, start the engine.
The day after I bought my bike I visited our friends Tim and Carol. I was alone and although I did not fall, I found their steep brick-paved driveway quite daunting. Iâ??d foolishly stopped â??right foot down,â? using the front brake only and the bike slid back down the driveway as the bricks were a bit damp. (www.flamesonmytank.com still undiscovered at the time). Luckily I managed to regain control and then found I had to get off anyway to push the intercom button over to the right of the driveway.
The next day my wife Beverley and I returned for a braai and I carefully pulled up closer to the intercom on the right of the driveway, â??left foot downâ? ready to use both front and rear brakes. I had not noticed however that the driveway had two track depressions and a middlemannetjie, so I actually lowered my left foot into the hollow right driveway track. In an instant the bike fell over to the left with both of us still firmly in the saddle!
Muffled peals of laughter from inside the crash helmet behind me reassured me that there were no seriously crippling injuries and once I was able to drag myself out from under the bike I was most relieved to find that the bike was saved from damage by Beverleyâ??s left thigh and hip. What a star!
Our bruises, especially Beverleyâ??s were a sight to behold over the next six weeks or so. The development and gradual dissipation, through various hues of blue, green, brown and yellow became the first topic of discussion at her art-classes and she was almost persuaded to model nude as a tribute to â??The dedicated bikerâ??s wife.â?
If you have to move your bike and circumstances prevent you from straddling it, keep the sidestand down then, from the left side, grasp the left handlebar grip with your left hand and the left pillion handgrip with your right and push the bike in the required direction while keeping the mass biased toward you. To the extent that your strength allows, keep your body away from the bike. In this way you can resist any tendency for the bike to fall away from you and if it does fall toward you, the sidestand will stop it from falling over.
The sidestand is relatively easy to use and is the stand of choice for most stops. It is a good idea to make a habit of putting it down immediately though and not first start a conversation with your buddies while you remove your crash helmet, then swing your leg off your bike only to have it drop to the road because the stand is still up! Another rush of emotions will always follow.
Iâ??d owned my bike for three months and was feeling really confident. One day I fuelled up at one of those new designer garages, with the cobble-stoned forecourt. I remained straddling the bike as the pump-jockey filled it, and I gave the customary shake or two to make sure the tank was full, (this caused the sidestand to ride up closer to the bike on the cobbles). When I stepped off the bike to get my logbook out of the top-box the darn bike fell to the paving on itâ??s right side,, fuel gently oozing from the tank cap and breather pipes. It was so close to the fuel pumps that I could not get a good lifting grip on it and had to call for the pumpjockey to help, which he enthusiastically did, cracking the top-box mountings as he did so. ( He still got a big tip).
One can then ponder ever more deeply on society; the garage was busy, but not a soul came over to help. Now, I had left my crash-helmet on, so I suppose I was an unknown quantity to them. (Bloody Biker?) Had it been off, would I have been offered assistance? Maybe only if I had long blonde hair and a 36, 22, 36 figure in tight sexy red racing leathers. Who knows?
Many bikes do not come with a centre-stand as original equipment. A centre-stand is only needed for the following reasons:
You need to squeeze your bike into a narrow space in your garage or parking area, or if you need to remove a tyre to fix a puncture, especially in the bush.
You can also use it when lubricating your chain and other maintenance activities, although a purpose made service-stand may be better for this purpose.
Some bikes are really difficult to get onto the centre-stand. If you can find a hand-hold somewhere under the fueltank, toward the back, and then pull the bike both backward and upward at the same time, this helps.
My favourite biking activity is hiking by motorbike. I call it â??bhiking.â? (sic)
Our family has hiked many of the wonderful trails available to the outdoor enthusiast in South Africa. My sons and I have honed down the food and equipment we carry to the extent that we are able to start a five-day trail carrying only seventeen kilograms each, including the backpack.
So, imagine the advantage of being able to apply the principles of hiking when preparing and packing for a bhiking trip. One can even add a few luxuries like a novel, some cans of beer and softdrinks, canned fruit, a thicker mattress and a decent pillow so as to get a good nightâ??s sleep, but still keep it a really minimalist activity
One of the joys of bhiking is that it brings you back to basics, not a bad thing in the materialistic, consumerist society we all live in today. When bhiking, you cannot afford to carry more extras than a compact camera and binoculars, so oneâ??s power of observation and appreciation of all of the wonders of nature and our environment can kick in. The pleasure of enjoying the company and interaction with oneâ??s bhiking companions is also a major factor.
If you have a dual-purpose bike there are many, many wonderful and exciting destinations to visit. Many of the regular 4x4 campsites are also open to bhikers, who have the advantage of being able to set up camp in about a quarter of the time it takes for a fully equipped 4x4 outfit. So while your neighbour is still laying out groundsheets, unfolding awnings and pegging down all sorts of screens and flaps, you can be laying back and watching the clouds drift by, or having a swim in the river, or whatever.
Iâ??m not going to attempt to give you a detailed run-down on how to select equipment and prepare for a bhiking trip. There are many excellent books available on hiking and all the related topics, from cookware and trail food to sleeping gear and tents. So buy, beg or borrow one and read up!
When it comes to actually loading your gear onto your bike though, here are a few tips:
Never carry liquids, especially milk in the original cardboard packs!
We were negotiating an obscure and truly magnificent pass in the sticks somewhere near Nieu Bethesda when I noticed liquid dripping from my bag strapped to the rear seat and carrier at one of the gate-opening stops. It was milk! A dayâ??s worth of jolting on the track through the Groot River pass and many kays of gravel road had taken itâ??s toll. When I opened the bag to check what had happened I found that nearly a whole litre of long-life milk had soaked into my clothes. What a sour weekend that was! Fortunately my boxed wine had survived, although it was chafed, so I wrapped it up in a milk-soaked towel for the rest of the day. I was obliged to drink it all that evening as I did not want to smell like a sour winery by the next evening.
More advice; never borrow your wifeâ??s favourite designer togbag, bought from Harrodâ??s in London, then soak it with milk. Worse still, donâ??t forget all the inner dividers and base behind in the B&B courtyard when you depart for the home ride. You will have no-speaks, (or worse), for at least three days.
For the same reason, eat any bananas at the first refreshment-break of the day.
Use stretchable tie-downs rather than straps for your luggage. Being at the end of the bike, your luggage is subjected to severe jolting and twisting. No matter how tight you make your straps, they will work loose as they cut into your load and the load will then shift.
Leave no loose-ends to work free and get tangled in the wheels or chain. If anything gets tangled up even a small bike has enough power to drag all your luggage off the rack and into the wheel, drivechain and sprocket, if the tie-down doesnâ??t snap first. Then you will definitely crash.
Happy riding
