R
Red Adventure
Guest
Saturday morning my loving and understanding wife turns to me and says, â??Why donâ??t you go for you a ride, you look like you need a ride?â? :
Knowing that my daughter has another two performances of her ballet concert that day added to the fact that my wife and I were going with the bike to the Angus Buchan service that evening, I was naturally hesitant to accept her proposal as I saw a big â??You are always on that bike!â? coming. :dousing: But having read Lucky Strikerâ??s ride report on Friday and not having done a solo trip in a while must have been written all over my face, :ricky: so I grabbed the opportunity of excellent weather and good timing to do something that has been haunting me for sometime now. :3some:
July last year I set off to drive over the mountain behind Piketberg to Goedverwacht (which by the way was inspired by the Piet Skiet ride report). :ricky: To cut a long story short this is what happened when trying to circum navigate the washed away road. :xxbah:
I vowed that day that I would be back to complete that trip, and that time had come. :thumleft:
Taken on the start of what must be the worst tar road in Cape Town but to me it has a special lure as the traffic is very quiet and the views stretch out far in the wheatlands. :drif:
It must be a sign of maturity that causes a biker to stop to take a picture of flower next to the road. (Well thatâ??s my story and Iâ??m sticking to it). :book1:
Then after Malmesbury on the back roads I headed to Riebeeck Wes.
This was at the railway crossing leaving Riebeeck West in the background and on to Moorreesburg.
I passed these silos and realized that if I stuck to the railway line service road in the earlier pic. I would have come out here. The road does continue along the railway line past where I crossed it. (Anyway Iâ??ll save that for another trip). :ricky:
I opted for the boring option of the N7 from Moorreesburg to Piketberg as time wasnâ??t on my side.
This was approaching the Piketberg Mountain, the weather starting to beat down and it becomes strange to believe that rain had been forecast for Sunday. (Someone please help me with the name of this pass?) :scratch:
On the way up the pass I stopped to take off some layers of clothing I had under my jacket. :blob8:
The valley below the pass seemed to be so far away by now.
This is the first left turn once you reached the top of the mountain. In the background there is an Eskom sub station.atch:
Another five kilometers you will find a farm to your left called Klienbegin. If you turn left here the road runs next to the farmers house and past a farm dam. :ricky:
The lady from the nursery in the top of the mountain confirmed that this is not a private road although it wasnâ??t on my version of Trackâ??s for Africa. :
You then come to a small farm with a un locked gate across the road. (Sorry no picture) This is the farmer that helped me to free my Prado with his tractor last year.
:laughing4:
The fact that there were no tyre tracks, not even a foot print around the house made me a little anxious to tackle this road on my own especially after my last experience of being stuck for three hours and breaking a 8 ton snatch strap trying to free my vehicle. This is the seen a year later. :-[
Well at least I was able to recover my rubber mat that I left behind. (It was still lying there covered in the sticky black mud)
And anyway as the saying goes â??Nothing ventured, nothing gainedâ?. :book1: If all failed, I would have been able to at least walked down to Goedverwacht to ask for some help. :nono:
The lack of vehicle tracks and a deteriorating road was the makings of a good and challenging ride. :toothy10:
To my good fortune, this is as bad as the road got and I was in Goedverwacht in no time. :ricky:
Leaving the mountain behind just seemed to come to soon. :angry2:
This is the turn off to Goedverwacht from the Piketberg Velddrif road. :read2:
Here I saw on my GPS, a road that crosses the Berg River in the Velddrif direction that should take me to Hopefield. As I started on the â??gravelâ? road I noticed something in the middle of the road.
Well this is not exactly something you want to see on a road that you are going to be riding for the next 25km.
I must say that my XCountry handled the sand road very well since the front end is so light even with the tyre pressures at 1.5kpa. :thumleft:
I found the bridge crossing the Berg River and was relieved that it was dry, although the surface was still covered with sand from recent flooding. ;D
But then the final show stopper was waiting just over the bridge and around the corner. :xxbah: :BangHead: This was over a meter deep and I guess about 2km wide. If you look carefully you might see the to part of the gate just sticking out of the water.
So I turned around and headed for the Veddrif road again. As you can see in the picture the wind was starting to pickup very strong and the dust haze was tiring to ride through. :angry7:
I headed straight for the boring old N7 till Philadelphia home again. :bueller:
The thought of having to fight the traffic to Newlands later, was bitter in my mouth after such a great day out on roads :-\ so quiet that I never even saw another Wilddog all day.ot:
Thank you for reading my report and I hope the information has inspired you to get out there and explore this beautiful part of our country.
:hello:
Knowing that my daughter has another two performances of her ballet concert that day added to the fact that my wife and I were going with the bike to the Angus Buchan service that evening, I was naturally hesitant to accept her proposal as I saw a big â??You are always on that bike!â? coming. :dousing: But having read Lucky Strikerâ??s ride report on Friday and not having done a solo trip in a while must have been written all over my face, :ricky: so I grabbed the opportunity of excellent weather and good timing to do something that has been haunting me for sometime now. :3some:
July last year I set off to drive over the mountain behind Piketberg to Goedverwacht (which by the way was inspired by the Piet Skiet ride report). :ricky: To cut a long story short this is what happened when trying to circum navigate the washed away road. :xxbah:
I vowed that day that I would be back to complete that trip, and that time had come. :thumleft:
Taken on the start of what must be the worst tar road in Cape Town but to me it has a special lure as the traffic is very quiet and the views stretch out far in the wheatlands. :drif:
It must be a sign of maturity that causes a biker to stop to take a picture of flower next to the road. (Well thatâ??s my story and Iâ??m sticking to it). :book1:
Then after Malmesbury on the back roads I headed to Riebeeck Wes.
This was at the railway crossing leaving Riebeeck West in the background and on to Moorreesburg.
I passed these silos and realized that if I stuck to the railway line service road in the earlier pic. I would have come out here. The road does continue along the railway line past where I crossed it. (Anyway Iâ??ll save that for another trip). :ricky:
I opted for the boring option of the N7 from Moorreesburg to Piketberg as time wasnâ??t on my side.
This was approaching the Piketberg Mountain, the weather starting to beat down and it becomes strange to believe that rain had been forecast for Sunday. (Someone please help me with the name of this pass?) :scratch:
On the way up the pass I stopped to take off some layers of clothing I had under my jacket. :blob8:
The valley below the pass seemed to be so far away by now.
This is the first left turn once you reached the top of the mountain. In the background there is an Eskom sub station.
atch:
Another five kilometers you will find a farm to your left called Klienbegin. If you turn left here the road runs next to the farmers house and past a farm dam. :ricky:
The lady from the nursery in the top of the mountain confirmed that this is not a private road although it wasnâ??t on my version of Trackâ??s for Africa. :
You then come to a small farm with a un locked gate across the road. (Sorry no picture) This is the farmer that helped me to free my Prado with his tractor last year.
:laughing4:
The fact that there were no tyre tracks, not even a foot print around the house made me a little anxious to tackle this road on my own especially after my last experience of being stuck for three hours and breaking a 8 ton snatch strap trying to free my vehicle. This is the seen a year later. :-[
Well at least I was able to recover my rubber mat that I left behind. (It was still lying there covered in the sticky black mud)
And anyway as the saying goes â??Nothing ventured, nothing gainedâ?. :book1: If all failed, I would have been able to at least walked down to Goedverwacht to ask for some help. :nono:
The lack of vehicle tracks and a deteriorating road was the makings of a good and challenging ride. :toothy10:
To my good fortune, this is as bad as the road got and I was in Goedverwacht in no time. :ricky:
Leaving the mountain behind just seemed to come to soon. :angry2:
This is the turn off to Goedverwacht from the Piketberg Velddrif road. :read2:
Here I saw on my GPS, a road that crosses the Berg River in the Velddrif direction that should take me to Hopefield. As I started on the â??gravelâ? road I noticed something in the middle of the road.
Well this is not exactly something you want to see on a road that you are going to be riding for the next 25km.
I must say that my XCountry handled the sand road very well since the front end is so light even with the tyre pressures at 1.5kpa. :thumleft:
I found the bridge crossing the Berg River and was relieved that it was dry, although the surface was still covered with sand from recent flooding. ;D
But then the final show stopper was waiting just over the bridge and around the corner. :xxbah: :BangHead: This was over a meter deep and I guess about 2km wide. If you look carefully you might see the to part of the gate just sticking out of the water.
So I turned around and headed for the Veddrif road again.
As you can see in the picture the wind was starting to pickup very strong and the dust haze was tiring to ride through. :angry7:
I headed straight for the boring old N7 till Philadelphia home again. :bueller:
The thought of having to fight the traffic to Newlands later, was bitter in my mouth after such a great day out on roads :-\ so quiet that I never even saw another Wilddog all day.
ot:Thank you for reading my report and I hope the information has inspired you to get out there and explore this beautiful part of our country.
:hello:
