Ben 10 Challenge with The Adventure Academy

Numsch · Sep 11, 2023

The Ben 10 Challenge has been on my bucket list since I started Adventure riding in 2019. I finally booked a trip with Andy Biram from The Adventure Academy from 6-10 September 2023.

Having done 28000km of Adventure riding over various parts of the country, I can honestly say that this trip in the Eastern Cape, rates high up on the best riding that I have done so far.

A big thank you to Andy and his assistant Gerhard aka Big G for an amazing weekend! I have tons of pics and videos but here is a short recap of the trip.

I arrived in Lady Grey on Wednesday afternoon, a pleasant 7 hour drive from Joburg.

Shortly afterwards, three gents from Natal arrived and then finally Andy with with another three from Joburg. Andy is still recovering from a serious bike accident earlier in the year so he would be driving the support vehicle and trailer, something I would unfortunately need early on day one of our trip.

Day 1 - Lady Grey to Mountain Shadows - 200km.

You literally have less than 1km of tar

before you hit the dirt from the hotel. We took a short ride to a look out point while Andy got a head start on the first of the 10 main passes.

On to the first pass, Joubert's, a nice easy one to start with!

We then had a fairly long section to our planned lunch stop. This is where things went pear shaped for me, I was cruising, or thought I was cruising comfortably down a loose gravel section, the front started washing, I gave too much throttle and the next thing I was off tumbling down. I got up straight away, a good few meters from the bike, and noticed the bike was pissing fuel. I picked it up quickly, the fuel continued gushing out from under the bash plate so I lay it down again. By now two of the other riders had reached me and were quick to help lift the back wheel and place rocks to keep the bike elevated.

I started removing the bash plate to find where the fuel was coming from when Andy arrived with the support vehicle. He made a call that we load the bike and let the others continue until the lunch stop.

I had visions of my Ben 10 Challenge ending after only completing one of the passes. Little did I know, what Andy knew was at our lunch stop. A full on workshop loaded with plenty KTM's and a very helpful owner. I won't post pics of these without permission.

We removed the bash plate and noticed that the leak was a cracked tank. Removed the tank, drained the fuel and then prepped the tank for good old Pratley steel. I had doubts that Pratley would bond to plastic and hold for the three days.

We started assembling the bike, giving the Pratley time to set. After 20mins, we added some fuel, fired her up and guess what, no leaking! I was over the moon but still worried if this would last.

We hit the second pass, Du Plessis's, with no fuel leaking but the front of the bike was not lekker. I think the forks had twisted in my crash so Gerhard aka Big G, loosened the triple clamps and did some magic, and all was good as new again.