M
MuricanNoob
Guest
Greetings from California!
This post is a bit tardy. About a year ago I made good on a dream of mine, to bike up to and around Lake Victoria from S Africa on Holly, the twin sister of Dolly, my '02 Dakar here in the states. Let me be terse. Things started poorly, beginning with a rear flat that I got on day ONE on the R104 between Middleburg and Belfast. Don't ask me what I was doing on that "road". I think my excuse involved petrol.
Anyway, I realized my situation somewhere on the R540 en route to Lydenburg. I understand this to be a beautiful area but sadly, to this day I wouldn't know it since I never got there. I made it a few km north on the R540 and pulled over with my soggy rear. The less said about why I didn't have a spare rear tube the better. Point is, I didn't, so I sat on my duff and contemplated whether I was way out of my league. Should I just bail it back to the US, tail between my legs, where at least the cars drive on the right side of the road? I'm not Ewan McGregor. What was I thinking!?
I recall having no more than 5 minutes to indulge in my abject depression before a truck pulls over and a man hops out and rightly points out that I seem a bit stuck. A "pick-up truck" we call them here, I forget how they're called there.
Anyway, "Flat tire" I say, drenched in defeat.
"Well we can't leave you here", the man replies (after we go through the logic of why I had no spare rear tube). "But let's get your bike up on the truck and we can drive you to Dullstroom".
I believe I gawked at the poor man as though he were speaking a language other than my own. "You can't get this bike up on that truck!" I thought. "Dry-no-panniers this thing weighs 200kg!" In the meantime the man's wife pops out from the other side and repeats the unassailable observation, "You do seem a bit stuck don't you?"
"You really think we can get this bike up on that truck?" I reply at last, looking around for a sturdy plank of wood that I might be able to ride the bike up onto the bed with. Well here is more or less what I recall happening. The wife hops up on the flat bed and the husband and I grab the rear rack. Two seconds later I'm flying through the air holding onto the rear rack and trying to look useful, while the two of them muscle the bike (and me) onto the truck as though it were a daily ablution.
"Hello" was all I could manage to their daughter (I believe) who was sitting bemused in the rear seat. I can only hope Hollywood paints a grander portrait of America than I did that day on the side of the road. Anyway, I promised to be terse. We unload at Dullstroom, a nice man named Paul at the petrol station helps me to put in a new tube, and two days later I was off to f--k up somewhere else.
To this day I believe I would not have continued my trip without the help of this man and his family, so I'm hopping on line today to thank him: thank you @roxenz! I will add that during my days in the RSA, I have never met a more generous and resourceful people. I sincerely hope that if anyone on this forum points his/her GPS at the USA, they will be met with similar courtesy.
In closing, here's one of my favorite pix from the trip. This is on the return trip, leaving the Fahad Private Game Reserve, Lephalale, towards Bela-Bela. I think that about sums it all up...
This post is a bit tardy. About a year ago I made good on a dream of mine, to bike up to and around Lake Victoria from S Africa on Holly, the twin sister of Dolly, my '02 Dakar here in the states. Let me be terse. Things started poorly, beginning with a rear flat that I got on day ONE on the R104 between Middleburg and Belfast. Don't ask me what I was doing on that "road". I think my excuse involved petrol.
Anyway, I realized my situation somewhere on the R540 en route to Lydenburg. I understand this to be a beautiful area but sadly, to this day I wouldn't know it since I never got there. I made it a few km north on the R540 and pulled over with my soggy rear. The less said about why I didn't have a spare rear tube the better. Point is, I didn't, so I sat on my duff and contemplated whether I was way out of my league. Should I just bail it back to the US, tail between my legs, where at least the cars drive on the right side of the road? I'm not Ewan McGregor. What was I thinking!?
I recall having no more than 5 minutes to indulge in my abject depression before a truck pulls over and a man hops out and rightly points out that I seem a bit stuck. A "pick-up truck" we call them here, I forget how they're called there.
Anyway, "Flat tire" I say, drenched in defeat.
"Well we can't leave you here", the man replies (after we go through the logic of why I had no spare rear tube). "But let's get your bike up on the truck and we can drive you to Dullstroom".
I believe I gawked at the poor man as though he were speaking a language other than my own. "You can't get this bike up on that truck!" I thought. "Dry-no-panniers this thing weighs 200kg!" In the meantime the man's wife pops out from the other side and repeats the unassailable observation, "You do seem a bit stuck don't you?"
"You really think we can get this bike up on that truck?" I reply at last, looking around for a sturdy plank of wood that I might be able to ride the bike up onto the bed with. Well here is more or less what I recall happening. The wife hops up on the flat bed and the husband and I grab the rear rack. Two seconds later I'm flying through the air holding onto the rear rack and trying to look useful, while the two of them muscle the bike (and me) onto the truck as though it were a daily ablution.
"Hello" was all I could manage to their daughter (I believe) who was sitting bemused in the rear seat. I can only hope Hollywood paints a grander portrait of America than I did that day on the side of the road. Anyway, I promised to be terse. We unload at Dullstroom, a nice man named Paul at the petrol station helps me to put in a new tube, and two days later I was off to f--k up somewhere else.
To this day I believe I would not have continued my trip without the help of this man and his family, so I'm hopping on line today to thank him: thank you @roxenz! I will add that during my days in the RSA, I have never met a more generous and resourceful people. I sincerely hope that if anyone on this forum points his/her GPS at the USA, they will be met with similar courtesy.
In closing, here's one of my favorite pix from the trip. This is on the return trip, leaving the Fahad Private Game Reserve, Lephalale, towards Bela-Bela. I think that about sums it all up...
