MODS: Please move this to the Ride Report section. Dumb-dumb made a ****oo 
(Please bear with me while I do this, my time is limited and I will upload as soon as I can)
As I’m typing this, we’ve already bounced ideas around for the next trip…
We thoroughly enjoyed our previous adventure, https://wilddog.net.za/threads/the-karoo-is-not-flat-hot-or-dry.265358/ ,but the hunger for more kept us daydreaming all year long. We’ve just completed yet another memorable journey and I can happily report that we are now hooked. We left on Monday the 19th of December and returned on 29th of December.
Yet again, I feel we were very lucky. Besides the howling wind at times, the weather played along nicely. We had two instances where thunder and lightning threatened us with the promise of rain showers, but being the savvy adventurers we turned out to be, both occasions left us proud and smiling from ear to ear in our helmets. You see, fortunately, our forbears did not walk or ride horses in a straight line. This meant that the approaching doom did a continuous 360, allowing us to admire the deluge in the comfort of our riding gear and not the dreaded body bag rain suits. Victoria West welcomed us with open arms into her 41 degree heat, in the shade! That’s it. The rest of the trip had a mixture of cold (riding towards Seweweekspoort and away from Sutherland) to warm days.
As we get more experienced (read less stressed) and accustomed to our way of thinking, doing and interpreting “adventure” riding, the easier it seems to get. I intentionally put adventure in quotation marks, as the jury is still out on if what we do can be deemed adventure.
This time though, we packed even lighter…the kitchen sink was not needed after all. We left more than enough space for snacks and drinking water. This worked out brilliantly for our impromptu roadside picnics along the way. I did however need to get used to the additional weight on the crash bars (we packed the tools into two smaller bags so that they did not have to go into the top box), but this was soon forgotten after about 5km. Each of our rucksacks was less than 5kg each. The top box was a shade less than 10kg. The two tool and sundry bags were less than 5kg in total. Add to that my weight of 85kg and my wife’s …hmmm, one match short of a match box and it’s not that excessive. But, we feel that we can still do better. Taking the additional weight from the top box and adding it to the crash bars meant that the rear shock only bottomed out twice. Both times on very bad roads with ruts/ditches that appeared out of nowhere and a little too fast for the conditions.
Thomas the Sym ran faultlessly. Sipping fuel like a gnat with a full belly. The average consumption for the trip was a shade under 36 km/l. The best was 47 km/l, and the worst 32 km/l. That alone makes up for some of the perceived shortcomings. Why perceived? The lack of power going uphill is noticeable. Is it Thomas’s fault? No! The lack of suspension travel when faced with single/enduro track obstacles. Is it Thomas’s fault? No! Due to the recent rains we had no choice but to traverse terrain that I would normally never approach with Thomas. But, at the end of the day, he soldiered on without any complaints. Fortunately none of that blood in the urine malarkey. No coolant or oil used during the entire trip.
What about mishaps? Again, not much to report back on. Soil samples, however, were required without our consent. We had two slow speed offs. Both times in very thick sand. It was more than ankle deep. Only the gear level bent slightly. On both occasions we were halfway through, but then my talent ran out. When the front and rear wheel happen to get into an argument and decide to go separate ways, you passenger along and wait for the thud. Thankfully no injuries, and my ego (slightly bruised) still intact. And yes, Thomas is still fitted with the factory CST tires. Can I blame them? Not at all. They are street tires with the additional bonus of being able to handle the odd dirt section towards a farm stall. Apart from the above mentioned sand drowning, we have not had any issues in the past 5k. Would 50/50 or even knobblies have had a different outcome? From my personal experience, no. I say this in the knowledge that even Sir. Chris Birch has had a couple of oopsies…
Short rundown of where...
Home
Durbanville
Fisantekraal
R44
Windmeul
Wellington
Bainskloof Pass
Romansrivier
Ceres
R46 pass Aquila Private Game Reserve
N1
Touws River
Witteberge (Gravel)
R323 towards Ladismith (Gravel, small section tarr)
Seweweekspoort (Gravel)
R62 towards Calitzdorp
Oudsthoorn
Cango Caves
R328 Swatbergpass (Gravel, small section tarr)
R407 into Prince Albert
Out of Prince Albert on the Seekoegat/Moreson road (Gravel)
Over the N12 (Still gravel)
Past Genasfontein (Gravel)
Onto the R407
Willomore
R329 (Narrow concrete road)
R338 Mount Stewart (Gravel)
Klipplaat (Gravel)
Jansenville
R75
Uitkoms
R63
Graaff-Reinet
Mountain Drive (Parkrun route, gravel)
Oubergpass
Dassiesfontein Road (Owl Route, Gravel)
N9
Sundays River
Nieu Bethesda (Gravel)
Martin Street (Gravel)
Ongeluksloot (Stonefolk, gravel)
Dassiesfontein Road (Owl Route, Gravel) – Reverse order
Graaff-Reinet
R63
Murraysburg
Over the N1
Victoria West
R63
Loxton
Fraserburg (Gravel)
Sutherland
Ceres
Romansrivier
Bainskloof Pass
Wellington
Windmeul
R44
Fisantekraal
Durbanville
Home
The trip, however, was truly memorable. We experienced the great outdoors and enjoyed viewing a variety of wildlife along the way. The places, faces, sounds and smells will stay with us for a long time.
All I can say is, even if you just do a small trip, go out and DO IT!
How it started...
Meet our companion and mascot for the trip; Juventus.
My wife's spirit animal and one of my favourite floorball clubs.
He is in fact licensed Juventus merchandise. Batteries sold separately...
First stop Bainskloof Pass.
Looked, but did not see any...
The newly tarred road is Rolls-Royce smooth.
Just passed Ceres on the way to the N1.
We stayed over in Touwsriver.
Second fill-up for the trip.
The N1 to get to to the Witteberge turnoff was boring, but not busy.
If you've not travelled on this road yet, do yourself a solid and go an explore.
Sometimes you have to ride next to the "official" road...
With the recent rains and storms, the erosion is bad, but the views spectacular
There you are minding your business and enjoying the scenery when the road throws rocks at you...
We encountered this throughout our journey. Some crossings easy, others not so much.
On This particular stretch of road we joked about hypothermia, it was REALLY cold!
We stopped at the start of the Seweweekspoort road to don our rain suite jackets as wind breakers...
As usual, the road did not dissapoint.
(Please bear with me while I do this, my time is limited and I will upload as soon as I can
)As I’m typing this, we’ve already bounced ideas around for the next trip…
We thoroughly enjoyed our previous adventure, https://wilddog.net.za/threads/the-karoo-is-not-flat-hot-or-dry.265358/ ,but the hunger for more kept us daydreaming all year long. We’ve just completed yet another memorable journey and I can happily report that we are now hooked. We left on Monday the 19th of December and returned on 29th of December.
Yet again, I feel we were very lucky. Besides the howling wind at times, the weather played along nicely. We had two instances where thunder and lightning threatened us with the promise of rain showers, but being the savvy adventurers we turned out to be, both occasions left us proud and smiling from ear to ear in our helmets. You see, fortunately, our forbears did not walk or ride horses in a straight line. This meant that the approaching doom did a continuous 360, allowing us to admire the deluge in the comfort of our riding gear and not the dreaded body bag rain suits. Victoria West welcomed us with open arms into her 41 degree heat, in the shade! That’s it. The rest of the trip had a mixture of cold (riding towards Seweweekspoort and away from Sutherland) to warm days.
As we get more experienced (read less stressed) and accustomed to our way of thinking, doing and interpreting “adventure” riding, the easier it seems to get. I intentionally put adventure in quotation marks, as the jury is still out on if what we do can be deemed adventure.
This time though, we packed even lighter…the kitchen sink was not needed after all. We left more than enough space for snacks and drinking water. This worked out brilliantly for our impromptu roadside picnics along the way. I did however need to get used to the additional weight on the crash bars (we packed the tools into two smaller bags so that they did not have to go into the top box), but this was soon forgotten after about 5km. Each of our rucksacks was less than 5kg each. The top box was a shade less than 10kg. The two tool and sundry bags were less than 5kg in total. Add to that my weight of 85kg and my wife’s …hmmm, one match short of a match box and it’s not that excessive. But, we feel that we can still do better. Taking the additional weight from the top box and adding it to the crash bars meant that the rear shock only bottomed out twice. Both times on very bad roads with ruts/ditches that appeared out of nowhere and a little too fast for the conditions.
Thomas the Sym ran faultlessly. Sipping fuel like a gnat with a full belly. The average consumption for the trip was a shade under 36 km/l. The best was 47 km/l, and the worst 32 km/l. That alone makes up for some of the perceived shortcomings. Why perceived? The lack of power going uphill is noticeable. Is it Thomas’s fault? No! The lack of suspension travel when faced with single/enduro track obstacles. Is it Thomas’s fault? No! Due to the recent rains we had no choice but to traverse terrain that I would normally never approach with Thomas. But, at the end of the day, he soldiered on without any complaints. Fortunately none of that blood in the urine malarkey. No coolant or oil used during the entire trip.
What about mishaps? Again, not much to report back on. Soil samples, however, were required without our consent. We had two slow speed offs. Both times in very thick sand. It was more than ankle deep. Only the gear level bent slightly. On both occasions we were halfway through, but then my talent ran out. When the front and rear wheel happen to get into an argument and decide to go separate ways, you passenger along and wait for the thud. Thankfully no injuries, and my ego (slightly bruised) still intact. And yes, Thomas is still fitted with the factory CST tires. Can I blame them? Not at all. They are street tires with the additional bonus of being able to handle the odd dirt section towards a farm stall. Apart from the above mentioned sand drowning, we have not had any issues in the past 5k. Would 50/50 or even knobblies have had a different outcome? From my personal experience, no. I say this in the knowledge that even Sir. Chris Birch has had a couple of oopsies…
Short rundown of where...
Home
Durbanville
Fisantekraal
R44
Windmeul
Wellington
Bainskloof Pass
Romansrivier
Ceres
R46 pass Aquila Private Game Reserve
N1
Touws River
Witteberge (Gravel)
R323 towards Ladismith (Gravel, small section tarr)
Seweweekspoort (Gravel)
R62 towards Calitzdorp
Oudsthoorn
Cango Caves
R328 Swatbergpass (Gravel, small section tarr)
R407 into Prince Albert
Out of Prince Albert on the Seekoegat/Moreson road (Gravel)
Over the N12 (Still gravel)
Past Genasfontein (Gravel)
Onto the R407
Willomore
R329 (Narrow concrete road)
R338 Mount Stewart (Gravel)
Klipplaat (Gravel)
Jansenville
R75
Uitkoms
R63
Graaff-Reinet
Mountain Drive (Parkrun route, gravel)
Oubergpass
Dassiesfontein Road (Owl Route, Gravel)
N9
Sundays River
Nieu Bethesda (Gravel)
Martin Street (Gravel)
Ongeluksloot (Stonefolk, gravel)
Dassiesfontein Road (Owl Route, Gravel) – Reverse order
Graaff-Reinet
R63
Murraysburg
Over the N1
Victoria West
R63
Loxton
Fraserburg (Gravel)
Sutherland
Ceres
Romansrivier
Bainskloof Pass
Wellington
Windmeul
R44
Fisantekraal
Durbanville
Home
The trip, however, was truly memorable. We experienced the great outdoors and enjoyed viewing a variety of wildlife along the way. The places, faces, sounds and smells will stay with us for a long time.
All I can say is, even if you just do a small trip, go out and DO IT!
How it started...
Meet our companion and mascot for the trip; Juventus.
My wife's spirit animal and one of my favourite floorball clubs.
He is in fact licensed Juventus merchandise. Batteries sold separately...
First stop Bainskloof Pass.
Looked, but did not see any...
The newly tarred road is Rolls-Royce smooth.
Just passed Ceres on the way to the N1.
We stayed over in Touwsriver.
Second fill-up for the trip.
The N1 to get to to the Witteberge turnoff was boring, but not busy.
If you've not travelled on this road yet, do yourself a solid and go an explore.
Sometimes you have to ride next to the "official" road...
With the recent rains and storms, the erosion is bad, but the views spectacular
There you are minding your business and enjoying the scenery when the road throws rocks at you...
We encountered this throughout our journey. Some crossings easy, others not so much.
On This particular stretch of road we joked about hypothermia, it was REALLY cold!
We stopped at the start of the Seweweekspoort road to don our rain suite jackets as wind breakers...
As usual, the road did not dissapoint.
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