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The ride past Butt Brothers’ was quick and enjoyable as always, with less fesh-fesh and more grass than usual. I kicked out on the “main” dirt road between Mi46 and the Magadi Tar and was in for a surprise. I figured the real riding was over, and I was ready to coast over to Mi46 for some petrol...

Yesterday, I woke up and just couldn’t bear the thought of not riding. I’d tinkered on the XRR all week at Panic’s, tweaking the carb, rebuilding the brake callipers and installing new radiators and a fresh battery. I’d put on the small tank for a change as well cause I love how lean and mean it...

From the worker’s camp, we paused for a bit of lunch and were surrounded by young Masai men, as usual. One of the younger chaps (12-14 years old maybe) was dressed in all black and adorned with a belt of cowrie shells and a bizarre necklace constructed of cheap ball-point pen bodies. It’s very...

Nobody slept well. Panic’s air mattress had a hole in it, but despite him laying on the hard earth he still snored like hell. They said I did too, but that’s obviously a lie. I emerged at pre-dawn with a splitting headache and a bit of regret over that last sip of Johnnie Walker. In no time...

Former Kenya despot Daniel Toroitich arap Moi died on the 4th of this month. As a result, the current guy, in a rush of sentimentality and a nod to good ol’ cronyism, gave the citizens a public holiday to mourn (or drink, screw or ride) ignoring the fact that Moi was not exactly a model citizen...

Man, I keep finding threads of you on your light bike running around with your mates on their Nimitz class crushers. Sure, they seem to be able to do it, but why do they want to do it on those bikes? For your sake and theirs, I hope they come around to your thinking. It's so much more fun riding...

Slept fairly well, all things considered, and despite having a short discussion with an invading mouse in which I asked him politely to piss off and let me get some shut-eye. We slammed breakfast and jumped on the bikes. Skipped for 20km up the newly tarred road which Leonard worries will bring...

From Torosei, it was time to explore again. I had a quick track to get us over to the Namanga Road as expeditiously as possible, but today we wanted to try something more challenging. I’d put together a mess of tracks, riverbeds and goat paths that appeared to climb the low mountains near the TZ...

New day, new challenges. Our destination for the night, Selengei in Kajiado County, would take us up the valley on new tracks I hoped existed, but first we had to get off the valley floor, a prospect more challenging than usual. Last October, Panic and I found a shortcut from Magadi to Torosei...

Little Lake Magadi. It’s been on my list of places to explore for ages. I love Magadi and the deepest parts of the Rift Valley. They’re hot, inhospitable, surreally beautiful and full of excellent biking. Each time I go anywhere near it, I put in a track for Little Magadi, a smaller soda lake...

Friday morning. Bikes loaded, tanks full, we weaved through Nairobi’s nonsense and popped out at the Ngong View entry to the Great Rift Valley - former home of a huge euphorbia candelabra, now just another bare stone quarry left behind by the railway - but I digress. The morning was brilliant...

It’s nine whole days into 2020 and we still haven’t gone riding! That ends tomorrow, but first I spent a minute at Panic’s place preparing the bike. And let me tell you, I’m a hell of a mechanic. I deftly stripped the bike down to check the valves (they were perfect) then faffed around for an...

Okay folks, with exception to the addition of any return to Lengai, I'm wrapping up this thread. It was a hell of a year and will be hard to beat, but we'll try. So, until then, Merry Christmas and Braaaaapy New Year! :snorting:

Okay, here's some moving video for you illiterates (Xpat). I whacked it all in there, roughly in order. https://youtu.be/An6tjh6bO3o

Very well rested, we were up and on the road early. Wisely, we’d donned rain jackets. It wasn’t threatening, but the air was cold, and as we climbed toward Longido it got positively frigid. We tarslapped it up to Namanga, stamped back into Kenya, and shot up to Mily Tisa to have a look at the...

Having saved the day yet again (athankyou), Wry had to agree I was a pretty swell guy. I, in turn, had to agree that he brought better canned food along for lunch. We called it even. Back on the trail. That was easier said than done, however, and we hunted and pecked a bit before reuniting with...

With heavy heads, we dragged ourselves out of the tents at dawn. It’s (relatively) easy to wake up early here since the sun shoots its laser pointer through your tent walls immediately, and there’s a bloody Night Jar that sounds like a car alarm that goes off at around the same time. And, it’s...

You hijacking hooligan, you! I know very well how tough it would be to climb the bastard, that's why I spent a month in the gym and humping it around Mt. Longonot every week. I am in fighting form, and gutted we didn't summit. Christmas and New Years will probably come and make me fat and lazy...

True to his word, Wry the Rugged was ready with his kit for a post-lunch braap. I was keen to explore a few craters I’d seen on my Google Earth recce, and we’d found out that one was called Shimo la Mungu, or God’s Hole… well, juvenile me had to make some cracks about that (get it, cracks) so...