- Joined
- Jul 19, 2014
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- Location
- Table View, Cape Town
- Bike
- Honda CRF-250 Rally
Day 3 (17 April 2022): Naude’s Nek Pass, Tenahead Tiffendel Traverse and Carlislehoekspruit Pass
Key statistics:
Distance: 86 km
Time: 7h00
Speed: 12 km/h (total) or 23 km/h (moving)
Video of day 3:
During our stay at Walkerbouts Inn, we got into the habit of an 8am breakfast and a late start (in today’s case 9:30). This was mainly to avoid the bitter cold of the early mornings. Although on later reflection we would have benefitted from an extra hour on most days, in order to avoid what became almost habitual night riding.
Yet today was different. Today was designated a “rest day”. Since our start / end point while riding the Ben 10 passes was always Walkerbouts Inn, Lance decided on each day which passes we would tackle, based on weather and group morale. After yesterday’s long day plus night riding, he opted for a short loop of 86km that included Naude’s Nek Pass, the Tenahead Tiffendel Traverse (TTT) and Carlislehoekspruit Pass.
Lance’s dad had joined a tour group earlier in the year and that exact 86km loop had taken a batch of 15-odd big bikes (1100-1200 cc) with riders of all varieties of skill level approximately 5 hours to complete. Therefore, we figured, it should be easier for us, due to the smaller bikes and not being new to stuff other than gravel highway. How wrong we were…
You see, there is one important factor to be considered: road conditions change like the weather. More to the point: road conditions change with the weather. What was meant to be a rest day, turned into one of the hardest days of riding.
But our past selves set off, blissfully unaware of the trials ahead. The only ominous sign was a grey sky.
Remo started the day off without his rain suit:
Yet a mere 20 minutes later, the “fisherman” look was installed (Kim in foreground; Remo in glorious green in background):
The start of a rainy day:
We rode a section of Naude’s Nek Pass. The other section was saved for a later day on the trip. Actually a later night. But that’s a story for another day.
Peter on his Yammie:
Lance knows to pose side-on when you have a bazillion warmth layers plus rain suit, to reduce the full spherical look.
We found our first mud of the day. Here is where the little bikes shine. The lack of power and weight was a plus point. Lesson for the day: don’t do anything funny with the throttle and don’t make any sudden changes of direction. Is there a huge puddle in front of you? Yes? Does it require squiggly manoeuvres? Yes? Rather go through the puddle. Squiggly could become “splat”.
Me and Kim on a (very) slow trundle:
Lance, on the other hand, was having a bit of a mind-f***. He is a more aggressive (and better!) rider than me, and usually uses a throttle blip to get out of sticky situations. Here a throttle blip can send you off the road.
At least there’s something to look at while recalibrating:
Next up: Tenahead-Tiffendell Traverse (TTT); apparently (according to marketing) the highest contour road in the country.
Wet from above and below:
We only saw one vehicle today. It stopped at Tenahead Lodge. Good call. It was probably a lot warmer there. And drier.
River 1:
River 2:
River 3:
What lurks beneath?
River 4 had a steep bank, adding a bit extra speed for the full wash cycle experience.
Kim plopping in:
Remo the green submarine:
And so we all had wet boots for the remainder of a 7-degree day. Yippee…
No Lance-organised route would be complete without a side quest. Most of our trips have a liberal helping of these, but we were to learn that they don’t work so well here when you have wet conditions and limited daylight.
Regardless, we were going to check out Lahana’s Pass as a potential return route for another day’s route. It was “interesting” right off the bat.
Spooky middle-of-nowhere feels:
Things soon got “very interesting”.
Kim and I made it past obstacle number 1, but Kim had to help me when I did the stupid stall-with-the-back-wheel-in-front-of-the-step story.
Rather scenic pit-stop:
I still had my comms on, so I could vaguely hear Lance up ahead through some snaps and crackles. I think I made my message understood: “Do we continue and catch up?” The last clear message I heard was something along the lines of waiting until the guys figure whether we go further. The rest of the broken telephone messages and noises didn’t sound like things were going according to plan.
The guys were doing the full mud pit wrestle. Without the girls. Go figure. Stick a mountain in a story and things start going broke.
Remo was the front-runner guinea pig, so got shafted the worst. When trying to lift his bike out the quagmire, he and bike just ended up flung in the opposite direction. Result: full mud facial.
You know the mud is next level when it manages to hold the front wheel of a cantilevered bike in the sky.
Conclusion: A whole lot of “nope”. Scratch the idea of this as a return route for another day. We don’t know what the rest will look like, but the current pace was a strong indicator. Maybe one day in some distance mystical future, when it’s dry.
Choose your traction option: mud or wet grass.
A rest is in order:
Peter showing us it wasn’t the rocks that were the problem! A can’t pull a stunt like that on a flat surface…
Heading back:
Full rain suit extravaganza back on the TTT:
In an area devoid of substantive foliage, it helps if you have a small group of close friends who you can simply order: “Don’t look this way!” It doesn’t help if you have a partner who will still take photos regardless.
Lance’s GoPro was having an off day. Literally. It decided to be dysfunctional for 2 hours; not recording the slowly worsening state of the road due to light, but steady rain. Indirectly, the GoPro caused one of the two big incidents of the day.
Lance stopped to coax the GoPro back into technologically pliant behaviour. As a result, he rode a bit faster to try to catch the rest of us. The inevitable next step was a horizontal one.
I heard the fall through the comms. Worry mode kicked into full gear when his answer to “Are you ok” wasn’t a straight “yes”. Next question: “Can you pick up your bike?” “Maybe”. Hmm. Not good. I turned around and made my way back to Lance as gracefully as the mud allowed, which isn’t much.
Turns out Lance hit his upper arm against a rock. It must have hit a nerve, because his arm was pins and needles for the next hour and he was unable to use it properly over the next few days due to muscle pain and weakness.
So how can a spaghetti-arm girl possibly help a one-armed dude pick up a 790? Google “monkey lift”. It can help in tricky situations like this. All I need to do is hang off one side of the bike. I end up with my butt on the ground and hoping Lance ensures the bike doesn’t go over all the way and land up on top of me! It basically just makes the bike feel lighter to pick up from the pick-upper perspective.
Lance got up and got going, but you could see that the “kopwurm” (translated “head-worm”) was firmly installed. The mojo was gone. His one arm was not very useful anymore. It also didn’t help that the KTM had far too much power on that back wheel; causing plentiful circle-spins and other similar involuntary direction changes. Lance switched the bike into rain mode, which did help.
Meanwhile I was having a weird role-reversal experience. Today I was the one trundling along like a happy camper, yet I was constantly worried about Lance. Poor guy. So this is what his nerves usually feel like when worried about me!
Key statistics:
Distance: 86 km
Time: 7h00
Speed: 12 km/h (total) or 23 km/h (moving)
Video of day 3:
During our stay at Walkerbouts Inn, we got into the habit of an 8am breakfast and a late start (in today’s case 9:30). This was mainly to avoid the bitter cold of the early mornings. Although on later reflection we would have benefitted from an extra hour on most days, in order to avoid what became almost habitual night riding.
Yet today was different. Today was designated a “rest day”. Since our start / end point while riding the Ben 10 passes was always Walkerbouts Inn, Lance decided on each day which passes we would tackle, based on weather and group morale. After yesterday’s long day plus night riding, he opted for a short loop of 86km that included Naude’s Nek Pass, the Tenahead Tiffendel Traverse (TTT) and Carlislehoekspruit Pass.
Lance’s dad had joined a tour group earlier in the year and that exact 86km loop had taken a batch of 15-odd big bikes (1100-1200 cc) with riders of all varieties of skill level approximately 5 hours to complete. Therefore, we figured, it should be easier for us, due to the smaller bikes and not being new to stuff other than gravel highway. How wrong we were…
You see, there is one important factor to be considered: road conditions change like the weather. More to the point: road conditions change with the weather. What was meant to be a rest day, turned into one of the hardest days of riding.
But our past selves set off, blissfully unaware of the trials ahead. The only ominous sign was a grey sky.
Remo started the day off without his rain suit:
Yet a mere 20 minutes later, the “fisherman” look was installed (Kim in foreground; Remo in glorious green in background):
The start of a rainy day:
We rode a section of Naude’s Nek Pass. The other section was saved for a later day on the trip. Actually a later night. But that’s a story for another day.
Peter on his Yammie:
Lance knows to pose side-on when you have a bazillion warmth layers plus rain suit, to reduce the full spherical look.
We found our first mud of the day. Here is where the little bikes shine. The lack of power and weight was a plus point. Lesson for the day: don’t do anything funny with the throttle and don’t make any sudden changes of direction. Is there a huge puddle in front of you? Yes? Does it require squiggly manoeuvres? Yes? Rather go through the puddle. Squiggly could become “splat”.
Me and Kim on a (very) slow trundle:
Lance, on the other hand, was having a bit of a mind-f***. He is a more aggressive (and better!) rider than me, and usually uses a throttle blip to get out of sticky situations. Here a throttle blip can send you off the road.
At least there’s something to look at while recalibrating:
Next up: Tenahead-Tiffendell Traverse (TTT); apparently (according to marketing) the highest contour road in the country.
Wet from above and below:
We only saw one vehicle today. It stopped at Tenahead Lodge. Good call. It was probably a lot warmer there. And drier.
River 1:
River 2:
River 3:
What lurks beneath?
River 4 had a steep bank, adding a bit extra speed for the full wash cycle experience.
Kim plopping in:
Remo the green submarine:
And so we all had wet boots for the remainder of a 7-degree day. Yippee…
No Lance-organised route would be complete without a side quest. Most of our trips have a liberal helping of these, but we were to learn that they don’t work so well here when you have wet conditions and limited daylight.
Regardless, we were going to check out Lahana’s Pass as a potential return route for another day’s route. It was “interesting” right off the bat.
Spooky middle-of-nowhere feels:
Things soon got “very interesting”.
Kim and I made it past obstacle number 1, but Kim had to help me when I did the stupid stall-with-the-back-wheel-in-front-of-the-step story.
Rather scenic pit-stop:
I still had my comms on, so I could vaguely hear Lance up ahead through some snaps and crackles. I think I made my message understood: “Do we continue and catch up?” The last clear message I heard was something along the lines of waiting until the guys figure whether we go further. The rest of the broken telephone messages and noises didn’t sound like things were going according to plan.
The guys were doing the full mud pit wrestle. Without the girls. Go figure. Stick a mountain in a story and things start going broke.
Remo was the front-runner guinea pig, so got shafted the worst. When trying to lift his bike out the quagmire, he and bike just ended up flung in the opposite direction. Result: full mud facial.
You know the mud is next level when it manages to hold the front wheel of a cantilevered bike in the sky.
Conclusion: A whole lot of “nope”. Scratch the idea of this as a return route for another day. We don’t know what the rest will look like, but the current pace was a strong indicator. Maybe one day in some distance mystical future, when it’s dry.
Choose your traction option: mud or wet grass.
A rest is in order:
Peter showing us it wasn’t the rocks that were the problem! A can’t pull a stunt like that on a flat surface…
Heading back:
Full rain suit extravaganza back on the TTT:
In an area devoid of substantive foliage, it helps if you have a small group of close friends who you can simply order: “Don’t look this way!” It doesn’t help if you have a partner who will still take photos regardless.
Lance’s GoPro was having an off day. Literally. It decided to be dysfunctional for 2 hours; not recording the slowly worsening state of the road due to light, but steady rain. Indirectly, the GoPro caused one of the two big incidents of the day.
Lance stopped to coax the GoPro back into technologically pliant behaviour. As a result, he rode a bit faster to try to catch the rest of us. The inevitable next step was a horizontal one.
I heard the fall through the comms. Worry mode kicked into full gear when his answer to “Are you ok” wasn’t a straight “yes”. Next question: “Can you pick up your bike?” “Maybe”. Hmm. Not good. I turned around and made my way back to Lance as gracefully as the mud allowed, which isn’t much.
Turns out Lance hit his upper arm against a rock. It must have hit a nerve, because his arm was pins and needles for the next hour and he was unable to use it properly over the next few days due to muscle pain and weakness.
So how can a spaghetti-arm girl possibly help a one-armed dude pick up a 790? Google “monkey lift”. It can help in tricky situations like this. All I need to do is hang off one side of the bike. I end up with my butt on the ground and hoping Lance ensures the bike doesn’t go over all the way and land up on top of me! It basically just makes the bike feel lighter to pick up from the pick-upper perspective.
Lance got up and got going, but you could see that the “kopwurm” (translated “head-worm”) was firmly installed. The mojo was gone. His one arm was not very useful anymore. It also didn’t help that the KTM had far too much power on that back wheel; causing plentiful circle-spins and other similar involuntary direction changes. Lance switched the bike into rain mode, which did help.
Meanwhile I was having a weird role-reversal experience. Today I was the one trundling along like a happy camper, yet I was constantly worried about Lance. Poor guy. So this is what his nerves usually feel like when worried about me!
