Day 3 continued:
The liaison took us from Kang to Hukuntsi where we got some fuel. Shortly after that we arrived at the start of the special stage. When we got off the tar and entered the special, it was literally like going into a giant sand box. In front of me was a big wide road with the thickest sand stretching over it
I still thought. "Haaaahh that's cute! You really, really need to like sand if you wanna do this Amageza thing!" :imaposer:
It's my turn to start. I am slightly nervous, I mean it would be crazy not to be nervous right?
It's challenging to get away in really thick sand, so I tell myself to just not screw that part up or the guys will probably laugh at me
I surprise myself when I do everything right and style it through the thick sand. I really ease myself into it and ride comfortably at about 120km/ph. One thing I've learnt with adventure biking is: When it comes to sand, the throttle is your friend, don't close it, ever... No matter how scary what the bike does may feel like...
At the start of my last special.
Riding like a boss!
Focus.
For many, many km's I have an incredibly awesome ride. The wide sandy road eventually narrows into a thick sandy tweespoor. I don't think I did anything below 110km/ph on this section and suddenly I saw a rider up ahead. OMG I managed to catch up to someone!!! This is SO COOL!!! :ricky: I catch up to the rider, judge the middleman and where the rider is heading, hop over the middleman where it's safe to do so and overtake.
For the first time, it feels like I am a real competitor, and it feels truly amazing. As someone from a non racing background I suddenly understand why people want to race. Words can't describe it, I can't say it's testosterone, I don't really have that
I can't say it's ego either, but definitely a certain feeling of accomplishment.
I am riding so positively, having one of my strongest riding days ever! I catch more and more people, I didn't really count, but I think I managed to overtake 5 or 6. Every time judging where the rider would go, I'd hop over the sandy middleman where necessary and overtake as safely as possible. The sandy tweespoor eventually landed us near a small village and there was some confusion with the roadbook again.
Now, poor Alex has already taken a lot of stick regarding this year's roadbook. So I just want to state, I am not complaining, just expressing my experience
The pretty roadbook pictures say: from where you get off the tweespoor, go straight. Ok cool, easy peasy. I can totally do that. Get off tweespoor, go straight. It's a big dirt highway and a nice chance to relax after riding hard on the sandy roads, or hah, so I thought!
I see a lot of people coming back in my direction. I wave their asses down and ask them whatsup? Seeing lights coming from the front usually means something is not right and I wanted to know what. The guys say they went quite a long way up this dirt highway and there's nothing else in the roadbook that matches up. By now there's a lot of people who are going up and down the road like headless chickens, not cool... I access the gps waypoints, it looks like this road could kinda go towards them if it curved more to the left, but people say it doesn't.
Ok, it can't be this way I'm turning around. I get back to where the tweespoor was near the village. It seems that coming out of the tweespoor, you have to kinda go left first, carry on a bit, then right onto a road which is almost parallel to where the big dirt highway is.
Anyway, a few people said in the official Amageza thread, that when navigation is tough basically just man the fuck up and magically fart out some directions or some shit. But when the roadbook, doesn't tell you things like there's a village and seriously, without a doubt says "nah just go straight, definitely don't go left then right. No no no, just go straight!!!" Urgh?
Really!? Really, really? Am I just getting this wrong because I am a woman and we are proverbially supposed to be bad at directions or something? Or am I just a complete idiot? I can't help bit to laugh, thank the pope for gps waypoints...
At this stage I see my team mate GeeS again, who started a bit later than me. He managed to catch up again with all the confusion. Quite a lot of people went off already following the more narrow, thorny, sandy track and we were near the back of the field again. The going gets a bit tougher here as you can't really maintain your speed, dodging thorn bushes all the time. The road is proper twisty as well.
I rode ahead and it went alright for quite a while until I did something really stupid on a turn, ran out of talent and fell on my face. I could hear/feel the peak of my helmet break off. "Great". My wrist feels a bit sensitive too. I get up, give a thumbs up to Adie I think it was who stopped for a sec, got myself a Myprodal (best painkillers / anti inflammatory ever) and take out my duct tape.
When I set off to do Amageza I was contempt with the fact that my mechanical skills are near zero. The only things I packed was a multitool, duct tape and cable ties. If I couldn't fix whatever happened to me with these items, I couldn't fix it anyway. I proceeded to tape the peak back to my helmet when Scrat them stopped by us. Scrat was having some battery issue with the bike and struggled to get it to start again. They eventually went ahead and I managed to get all my things fixed in no time.
I rode ahead again. I couldn't help, but notice after a while there was more and more oil on my shoes, eventually oil on my pants and oil going down the side of the bike. My first thought was it's oil from the overflow, it was a lot more than normal though... I shrugged and kept going anyway. The next section was just breathtaking. A beautiful Botswana pan. Normally I wouldn't have stopped, but the oil thing was starting to really bug me now. I looked in the lil oil window. Hmmm, no oil that I can see, but I couldn't be sure errr, I'm really bad with these things. I thought I'd wait for GeeS and ask him for his opinion.
There's a guy coming along on a black 690, I wave him down. "Dude please help me check my oil." :
He leans the bike over, looks. Eventually starts the bike. There's like 1 oil bubble. He says I must just keep checking it. We keep going and the beautiful pan quickly ends in more of the twisty, sandy track with the lots of thorn bushes.
Botswana pans.
Selfie
I swear it starts getting harder to pull the clutch and the bike is really hot. I eventually stop and hear something. First I think it's my stomach growling, but it's the bike. It's so hot it's boiling. Also, I swear there's even more oil
GeeS eventually stops next to me and the guy with the black 690 heads off. Thanks for your help dude. GeeS had some issues after he dropped his bike and had to fix it quickly. At this stage we are right at the back of the race. I tell him about my problem and he checks it out. There's really no oil left now. We decide it's better to stop the bike right there and than before it breaks completely.
I spend 10 minutes convincing my team mate Alfred to go on without me. "I'll be fine. You need to go on with your own race! You can't let me jeopardize this for you. Tell the marshals at the end of the special to come pick me up or something." He says ok and hesitantly gets going again. I hit the assistance button on my tracker and begin the long wait.
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