Good morning,
In short, how I ended up as member of this forum:
We traveled quite a bit before and after we got married. We did our neighboring countries, slept in river beds, got lost and loved all of it (some of it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msoet8k8AhA). All of that with a bunch of friends in some old 4x4s with 300k + kms on them. Then a lot of life happened. Not bad, just life. We bought a house, sold it, bought another one, moved around, got kids, one with colic (which basically comes down to feeding, changing nappies and soothing a 3kg human who swallowed vuvuzela) and sold the 4x4s.
The past 2 years especially has been trying. I am grateful that we got through it married and without having to follow through on the plan of putting shock collars on the kids. Being in our mid thirties with early onset mid-life crisis we have travel bug biting again and with the kids 2 & 5 respectively we are now more ready than ever to travel (said no one).
About two months ago my wife told me she wanted to tell me something, but that I shouldn't laugh. She told me she wanted a motorcycle. I asked her some questions (what bike (Triumph Bonneville), where do you want to ride (don't know), household ban on bikes lifted? (yes), what is for dinner? (chicken)) and didn't make much of it. That was till one day I realized she asked the Checkers Sixty60 gents about their bikes, she had been gathering many a verbal long term review on Chinese bikes. I needed to intervene!
The end of the year was close, so this December holiday I started reading up and watching down on adventure riding and I stumbled across this forum. As I did with https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/ and https://www.landcruiserclub.co.za/ I have found a wealth of knowledge on this forum. What is remarkable is the kindness and willingness to help others that I have observed - heart warming stuff Mzanzi!
We are now dipping our toes in the adventure biking scene. I have been scouring Marketplace, Gumtree and this forum for gear and bikes. Firstly (for her) I am thinking of the smaller Honda XRs, Yamahas or the like. Even, dare I say, Hero X-Pulse (although zero of them available secondhand). We need to do our licenses and get comfortable on bikes, and, like Zuma dropped cabinet ministers, we will drop the bikes - often. So light and affordable is NB. We then need to find some places in and around Jakaranda stad to explore and do some riding courses. What I will use, this I don't know. All the bikes that seem appropriate has some serious legend tax to be paid and we are working on a budget of one for two.
So, in short..this my story. Or rather, this is the start of our story.
Thanks to all the guys and gals who has published on this forum over the years. I am leaning heavily on your shared knowledge to make decisions.
In short, how I ended up as member of this forum:
We traveled quite a bit before and after we got married. We did our neighboring countries, slept in river beds, got lost and loved all of it (some of it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msoet8k8AhA). All of that with a bunch of friends in some old 4x4s with 300k + kms on them. Then a lot of life happened. Not bad, just life. We bought a house, sold it, bought another one, moved around, got kids, one with colic (which basically comes down to feeding, changing nappies and soothing a 3kg human who swallowed vuvuzela) and sold the 4x4s.
The past 2 years especially has been trying. I am grateful that we got through it married and without having to follow through on the plan of putting shock collars on the kids. Being in our mid thirties with early onset mid-life crisis we have travel bug biting again and with the kids 2 & 5 respectively we are now more ready than ever to travel (said no one).
About two months ago my wife told me she wanted to tell me something, but that I shouldn't laugh. She told me she wanted a motorcycle. I asked her some questions (what bike (Triumph Bonneville), where do you want to ride (don't know), household ban on bikes lifted? (yes), what is for dinner? (chicken)) and didn't make much of it. That was till one day I realized she asked the Checkers Sixty60 gents about their bikes, she had been gathering many a verbal long term review on Chinese bikes. I needed to intervene!
The end of the year was close, so this December holiday I started reading up and watching down on adventure riding and I stumbled across this forum. As I did with https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/ and https://www.landcruiserclub.co.za/ I have found a wealth of knowledge on this forum. What is remarkable is the kindness and willingness to help others that I have observed - heart warming stuff Mzanzi!
We are now dipping our toes in the adventure biking scene. I have been scouring Marketplace, Gumtree and this forum for gear and bikes. Firstly (for her) I am thinking of the smaller Honda XRs, Yamahas or the like. Even, dare I say, Hero X-Pulse (although zero of them available secondhand). We need to do our licenses and get comfortable on bikes, and, like Zuma dropped cabinet ministers, we will drop the bikes - often. So light and affordable is NB. We then need to find some places in and around Jakaranda stad to explore and do some riding courses. What I will use, this I don't know. All the bikes that seem appropriate has some serious legend tax to be paid and we are working on a budget of one for two.
So, in short..this my story. Or rather, this is the start of our story.
Thanks to all the guys and gals who has published on this forum over the years. I am leaning heavily on your shared knowledge to make decisions.
