airHEAD
Pack Dog
Even though I had more than 10000km on my rear TKC after my last trip and it was now really done...
... I couldnt help myself between Christmas and New Year when I got a call from Michiel who was back in Cape Town on his new HPN. I had never ridden in Atlantis with Michiel before and this was a chance to watch someone with some real sand riding skills handled a bike similar to mine.
Michiel had been there the day before with some of the real hard core dogs but I opted for the more mellow option where I was assured we would just stick to the main dunes. We had the two HPN's and were joined by oo7 on the X-challenge so we were a nice small group.
I couldn't resist posing the retro Dakar bike in the dunes.
Stopping to taking pictures was a lot easier than riding the thing
but it was a pleasure watching Michiel demonstrate how it should be done.
Michiel mentioned that compared to his KLR the HPN was very heavy on the front and not as easy to "play" with and get the tail out in the sand. After that I became very aware of the same feeling on my bike. I did have more than 20l of fuel in the thing but it felt almost impossible to put into a tight turn. I even figured out that taking you inside foot off the peg and digging it in like an ore helped persuade the thing around corners. It was a lot of fun but completely exhausting and we (me) had to stop for recovery breaks often
We eventually ended up at the "big" dune that I had a bit of a history with...My first trip to Atlantis on my standard R80 had ended when after 3 attempts I managed to rip the valve out of the rear tube! My struggle was documented on YouTube by DustDevil (Background information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2okPl4EsZdM)
This time I was motivated to set the record straight. Michiel went first to check out the lie of the land over the crest and bogged down just at the top after backing all the way off. oo7 went next and also took it too slow. I was even slower and further off the harder line and ran out of steam about two thirds of the way up. So there we were one, two, three...
I turned the beast around and had another go with not much of an improvement on the result. By now I was getting a little concerned about my ability to conquer this thing.
oo7 had his second go which turned out to be scary he came over the top so hot that he launched the thing into the air and plugged it well and truly over the other side. Unfortunately he landed heavily on the front and the bike stopped more of less where it landed. The special agent was carrying some momentum and didnt stop as quickly :ricky: He used the screen on the X-challenge to brake his fall and the whole lot ended up in a heap in the sand :mwink: Fortunately it looked way worse than it was and apart from being a bit winded our agent was ok. The same cannot be said for the screen on the X-challenge :mwink:
By now I was even more nervous about my next attempt but in the end to turned out just great. On the correct line with the correct amount of gas it seemed so easy 8) Forgive me for a bit of "poetic licence" used in the video, technically its Me 1 : Dune 5 but whose counting!
[flash=640,480]https://www.youtube.com/v/CiUMU3bWfMo&context=C32aa2fcADOEgsToPDskKJMeQBkvE7rwhutdr-bX_H[/flash]
... I couldnt help myself between Christmas and New Year when I got a call from Michiel who was back in Cape Town on his new HPN. I had never ridden in Atlantis with Michiel before and this was a chance to watch someone with some real sand riding skills handled a bike similar to mine.
Michiel had been there the day before with some of the real hard core dogs but I opted for the more mellow option where I was assured we would just stick to the main dunes. We had the two HPN's and were joined by oo7 on the X-challenge so we were a nice small group.
I couldn't resist posing the retro Dakar bike in the dunes.
Stopping to taking pictures was a lot easier than riding the thing
but it was a pleasure watching Michiel demonstrate how it should be done.
Michiel mentioned that compared to his KLR the HPN was very heavy on the front and not as easy to "play" with and get the tail out in the sand. After that I became very aware of the same feeling on my bike. I did have more than 20l of fuel in the thing but it felt almost impossible to put into a tight turn. I even figured out that taking you inside foot off the peg and digging it in like an ore helped persuade the thing around corners. It was a lot of fun but completely exhausting and we (me) had to stop for recovery breaks often
We eventually ended up at the "big" dune that I had a bit of a history with...My first trip to Atlantis on my standard R80 had ended when after 3 attempts I managed to rip the valve out of the rear tube! My struggle was documented on YouTube by DustDevil (Background information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2okPl4EsZdM)
This time I was motivated to set the record straight. Michiel went first to check out the lie of the land over the crest and bogged down just at the top after backing all the way off. oo7 went next and also took it too slow. I was even slower and further off the harder line and ran out of steam about two thirds of the way up. So there we were one, two, three...
I turned the beast around and had another go with not much of an improvement on the result. By now I was getting a little concerned about my ability to conquer this thing.
oo7 had his second go which turned out to be scary
he came over the top so hot that he launched the thing into the air and plugged it well and truly over the other side. Unfortunately he landed heavily on the front and the bike stopped more of less where it landed. The special agent was carrying some momentum and didnt stop as quickly :ricky: He used the screen on the X-challenge to brake his fall and the whole lot ended up in a heap in the sand :mwink: Fortunately it looked way worse than it was and apart from being a bit winded our agent was ok. The same cannot be said for the screen on the X-challenge :mwink:
By now I was even more nervous about my next attempt but in the end to turned out just great. On the correct line with the correct amount of gas it seemed so easy 8) Forgive me for a bit of "poetic licence" used in the video, technically its Me 1 : Dune 5 but whose counting!
[flash=640,480]https://www.youtube.com/v/CiUMU3bWfMo&context=C32aa2fcADOEgsToPDskKJMeQBkvE7rwhutdr-bX_H[/flash]
