Amageza 2015 and Team 525

[JustBendIt]

The navigation tower and all associated bracketry that donovanwho and darthvader designed are awesome.

Fuggen Strong, super simple and light. They are so strong that in the event of a huge crash the bike will break off from the nav tower.

In the pics below I have mounted my big brick GPS on the tray for the Richtersveld training rides - this will not be there for the rally and the roadbook holder will lie snug in the tray as per the previous pics of the nav equipment in this thread.

 

[JustBendIt]

donovanwho is a wiz on CAD and has designed and built an amazing aluminium bashplate with built in 2 litre water container for his Husky FE501 - Scott's new KTM 500 has the same frame and engine as the Husky so the bashplate fits perfectly.

Only 2 pieces of ally plate to make this - the  bashplate is made from a single piece of material and the water container is also a single piece - as light and strong as possible.

Darthvader and donovanwho have modified this design slightly to fit on our older 525s - the material will be laser cut tomorrow and welded up during the week and be ready for fitting next weekend.

The exhaust header pipes and silencers have been ceramic coated by Powerkote in Montague Gardens Cape Town. I really believe in this coating - it is the only coating I have ever found to not burn off an exhaust and not chip or scratch. It radically reduces the heat soak back into the motor and prevents rust and corrosion - also super easy to clean because the dirt does not stick to it like it does to bare metal.

 

[JustBendIt]

Eric at Nithrone has done an amazing job on our seats.

These bikes usually have seats that are marginally wider than a razor blade and as uncomfortable to sit on.

Our seats have been widened, re-shaped, extra foam padding added and re-covered in 3 different materials on the top, back and sides for maximum grip and extra comfort - especially for those long liason sections on the rally.

 

[JustBendIt]

Our unofficial team name is Team 525 - there are 4 X 525s (Kamanya, Aidan, Darthvader and myself) 1 X 2014 model fuel injected 450 (MaxThePanda) and 1 X 2016 model fuel injected 500 (scottcurnowbaker).

3 of the 525s (all except for mine) have had engine rebuilds as well as the 450.

Below are some pics of Aidan's bike fresh out of Dirtrider Motorcycles where shop owner Mario Kriek has just finished a complete rebuild.

 

[JustBendIt]

KTM plastic bikes like ours unfortunately have the weakest sidestands ever - every single one of the 6 bikes in the team has broken its original sidestand.

All the bikes now proudly wear PRO MOTO BILLET stands supplied by Topbox at Adventure Rider (advrider.co.za)

They're not cheap but they are indestructible and we are thrilled to have them on our bikes - thanks Topbox

 

[JustBendIt]

And unfortunately now for a bit of bad news

My brother Aidan bought a brand new pair of POD knee braces not more than 2 months ago at a cost of R8000.

The one brace broke last week while he was putting it on.

The sole importing and distributing agents in South Africa, ACE SPORTS, have refused to replace the broken brace and have said that it must have been broken as a result of abuse.

How do you abuse a knee brace ?

 

[JustBendIt]

We are almost ready - the only thing we are waiting for is the navigation equipment from Rockfox and Weedkiller-Adie

We leave for Amageza in just over 6 weeks time.

Watch this space ...

 

[darthvader]

What a Pod k@k. If I was the agent I would have replaced that part without cost, even if he had to foot the bill.

Well, at least all the members of this particular racing forum know what not to buy...  I will be getting a Leatt then.

Who distributes the Leatt brace at the most competitive price?

 

[MaxThePanda]

Ya - not very impressive performance from distributors. Talk about taking the perfect opportunity to turn good publicity for into bad!

 

[JustBendIt]

This morning 3 of us (MaxThePanda, Darthvader and myself) got a bit sweaty on a lekker training ride in Atlantis and surrounds.

I am pleased to report that we are all at "rally god" status and were flying over the whoops, up and down the dunes and carving up the enduro loop like a hot knife through butter 

 

[JustBendIt]

All our navigation equipment is mounted.

ICO trip meter (top left) , ICO cap repeater (top right), F2R electronic roadbook holder, standard KTM instrumenmt cluster (bottom left) and el cheapo digital clock (bottom right)

 

[Xpat]

Looking strong, good luck with the race.

On another note - could you please fix the pictures in your ROAD to HELL RR? There are few of us who would like to have a good look. Ta

 

[JustBendIt]

Looking strong, good luck with the race.

On another note - could you please fix the pictures in your ROAD to HELL RR? There are few of us who would like to have a good look. Ta

Yes dear - I am trying but have had no luck

The pics on that RR are hosted by smugmug
The monthly fee of a few USD was debited off my credit card
My card expired and a new card was issued with a new card number
Smugmug couldn't get their bucks out of me so stopped "sharing" my pics via the embed links
The e mail address I am registered on smugmug with is no longer active
I therefore can't get into my smugmug account to update my details

Is there anybody out there who can help ?

I really want all the pics in my 3 RTH ride reports to be displayed for all to see

 

[alanB]

Very jealous!

You guys are going to kick some butt on those bikes this year I'm pretty sure!  :thumleft:

 

[bungycool]

Looking strong! Can't wait to trail along behind you and make sure you get to the finish line in class!

 

[Scrat]

Awesome Guys!!

Can't wait!! this year will be EPIC!! :ricky: :ricky:

 

[J-dog]

:sip: :biggrin:

 

[Xpat]

Yes dear - I am trying but have had no luck

The pics on that RR are hosted by smugmug
The monthly fee of a few USD was debited off my credit card
My card expired and a new card was issued with a new card number
Smugmug couldn't get their bucks out of me so stopped "sharing" my pics via the embed links
The e mail address I am registered on smugmug with is no longer active
I therefore can't get into my smugmug account to update my details

Is there anybody out there who can help ?

I really want all the pics in my 3 RTH ride reports to be displayed for all to see

I don't know smugmug, I use Picasaweb and Flickr to share my pictures. Flickr gives you a free data storage for up to 1 TB (which you probably are never going to use up - especially if you load the pictures downsized for the web use). Picasaweb  is part of the Google world, linked to gmail, google drive and such, sharing the free space (I have 15 GB free space now) between them. However if you keep the pictures small (which means less than 2000 pixels per side - which is still more than enough for web, most pics posted here are smaller - I post pictures as big as possible here and that size is good enough - check my RRs) the pictures do not use any of that limit - so in that case your storage is unlimited.

Of course problem with moving to other storage space is that you will have to update all the links in the RR. Given that you are doing new RRs, I would recommend to set-up an account on Flickr and just start from there. If you are not keen to have another service provider, I'm happy to post your RTH pictures on my account and share from there - if you are OK with that.

I would really appreciate being able to see the pics - I'm heading into the area in August and am considering doing the RTH, so the pics will give me better idea if I'm just being stupid.

 

[Scooterbike]

:thumleft:
:sip:

 

[MaxThePanda]

Out training again...

[flash=640,360]https://www.youtube.com/v/9DLEXVs6ocY[/flash]