oo7
Race Dog
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2007
- Messages
- 1,482
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- 0
- Location
- Los Angeles, USA
- Bike
- BMW R1200GS Adventure
HPFreak and I agreed that I will, in exchange for a fee, look after his red motorhome for him, which arrangement was concluded in respect of a permanent time period. This arrangement will therefore allow Mister Freak to properly capitalise on his former investment, as he, now through this clever move of his, established some capacity with regard to two-wheels here in DS heaven. (HPF – when are we tackling the Cederberg? - a promise is a promise, dude)
So the previous Saturday I took the flymachine to the place of the leopard with the mission to transport the new addition to the familiy back to DS HQ. The Freakmaaister collected me from Bloemies airstrip and took me into his home. He could consider himself lucky that I was unaware that the bike was so grossly defaced:
I certainly would not have concluded the transaction had I know that the bike was ruined in this fashion. Fortunately, when I considered things on the bright side, I realised it could have been much worse (like blou balle hanging off the back) and the rest of the bike was in mint, showroom condition, just with loads of added blieng. What a pleasure to buy a bike and complete the transaction in full without ever having seen the bike – purely on the strength of the integrity of the seller – and then finding the bike exactly as described and then some more.
I previsouly owned a gisaa (https://wilddog.net.za/forum/index.php?topic=19720.0) and after putting on 20,000 odd km’s sold it again after only riding it for 15 months – reason being apparantly that its application was not right. I was really stupid to have done that, and always knew it even though I did not want to admit it to myself at the time. I replaced it with the BMX and although I am still ecstatic about that purchase, I always knew in my heart that it was the wrong decision to have sold the pig, as there remained enough space in it to accommodate another.
The GSA is a controversial bike. It is hellishly expensive, very heavy and and personally the biggest drawback is its complicated mechanics/electronics. Unfortunately, it does not just have a Lister engine held together by unbreakable bloudraad underneath the seat which means anything apart from a very little, ‘pluggable’ hole in one of its tubeless tyres, will result in a frantic call from 007 to 0860 600 777. So the GSA, in my opinion, is not a bike that you should take into the most remote of remote areas where BMW-on-Call is unable to provide assistance within a reasonable amount of time. I can imagine that if I have to tackle deepest darkest Africa or depart on a RTW trip, I will probably consider something more mechanical with less electronics such as an Africa Twin or perhaps something from 2 Stroke Dan’s harem, which at least will stand a better chance of being fixed by a bush mechanic than one of Bavaria’s finest propeller driven space ships.
However, given my intended application, namely majority of riding on tar and good, high speed gravel roads in Southern Africa, sometimes with my better half on the back and the bike fully loaded, I am willing to take my chances with the pig, as this is what I believe the thing was designed for and hence that is what I am planning to use it for. The X will still come in handy on the more adventurous/technical sorties.
On the way to Blomfontein, I had was contemplating whether I should slab it home down the N1 and be back in time for dinner or rather do the gravel thing. I decided on the gravel option and when I mentioned this decision to HPF, he recommended a gravel route and then gallantly escorted me to the first bit of gravel just outside Bloem, where he said goodbye to his red motorhome. Here he is with that other mental machine.
I had to be back in Slaapstad the following day around noon, so had some time on my side. Being a Freestate boykie by inbors it was really great to be back after some absence. My first fright of the day came when I first opened up the almost 1200 cubic centres and 76 kw under me – the thing just went “burped burped”, shudderred and all sorts of warning triangles came on. My heart went racing but I then realised that I forgot to turn off the stability control and with the worn back tyre it prevented the back wheel from spinning. Phew!
Heading off again with the ABS and ASC firmly in the off position I enjoyed the wet, green and desolate environment with scattered broken windpompe, most seemingly unable to pump a Climax and wannabe Table Mountains in the distances.
I realised again that I love riding solo. Just you, the road and your shiny red new boney.
It really was a nice piece of road – almost too good.
I trues as Bob did not pass one car between Bloem (since I said goodbye to Howie where I turned off on the gravel road) and Fauresmith, save for the one or two at the Riet River crossing, where a couple of locals were fishing. I crossed the river using this beautiful old steel bridge:
The river was overflowing its banks. Full like a heavily pregant but beautiful mature woman
I decided to head for the Vanderkloof Dam via Fauresmith and Luckhoff, and in Fauresmith I pulled up in its only bar, where a there was no one in the place save for the barman who was engaged on his playstation, swearing away at the game with a ciggie drooping from the corner of his mouth, and his dad. Both were unaware of me entering the place, since his poor dad was sweating away with some repairs to the bar counter with a large grinder, kicking up a huge racket. After a while I bemusingly alerted them to my presence and both had a moerse skrik. Ended up being a funny, friendly, chatty chap who sorted me with some drinks. Also had a long chat with a friendly local farmer who pulled in on his Transalp. Apparantly he had an Africa Twin (until a bad off) and was one of the founder members of some sort of internet AT club – which I gathered must have been an AT forum until WD’s came along? Anyhow – I forgot his name (Corrie?) but mentioned to him to register and introduce himself here on WD’s – Drop me a PM if you happen to read this, dude. These people were a testament of friendliness and small town hospitality.
Just outside Fauresmith, I had my second skrik for the day. I have just left the tar road and was playing around to switch off the ASC when I looked up – and saw a crocodile crossing the road. Immediately realised it couldn’t have been a croc – crocs are smaller and will leave more than one footprint on the road when crossing it – this thing just left one print, as the next footstep was already past the road and put down on the other side . . . I was mesmerized by the size of this likkewaan as I have never seen such a big one - and seriously grabbed hold of the front brake - nearly lost control when it locked. Fortunately (I afterwards realised that) I did let go immediately. I guess it should either be a thank you to Country Trax for all that front break emergency training which resulted in this apparantly becoming a reflex, or it could be ascribed to my fear of being chowed by the worlds biggest likkewaan. I kid you not – that thing must have been around a metre and a half to two metres from mouth to tail.
Next little town was Luckhoff – with its beautiful main street.
Good thing the town’s name did not start with an “f” – which was what I promptly did. Took a couple of turns and arrived at the Vanderkloof Dam for the first time in my life. I didn’t realised this was such a man sized dam – probably not as big as the Gariep, but it is still a serious structure.
I was mesmerized by the power of the water. You could feel the the tremours in the dam wall as the water rushed underneath and over the wall – made me feel veeeeeeery insignificant.
I always wonder just how you will die if you have to fall in here – from drowning or by blunt force trauma? I guess with full ATGATT and MX boots your chances of staying afloat is slightly less.
After enjoying the canvas painted by the watermass and the escaping river,
https://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm13/pghuman/Algemeen/GSA%20collection%20from
%20Bloem/Vdkf7.jpg
the GPS was set for De Aar where I managed to pull in with a huge fuel buffer:
I must admit that I am not too impressed, as with my previous GSA, with the fuel economy of these big bikes. I roughly worked out to have gotten about 16km/liter – given that I was riding around 140km/h-150km/h (where possible) with fairly loaded panniers/topbox + tyre on the back - would this be considered par for the course? I found on the previous bike that its consumption dramatically improves once you stay below 120km/h and let the sweet boxer just purr to the sides.
Riding around in De Aar, looking for Koos Kombuis’ “die bar in De Aar” I only managed to spot the De-Aar Hotel’s bar and pulled in at the same time as one PJ Erasmus, who offered to buy me a beer. Also had to return the favour. Turns out he is a local farmer and PH and mesmerized me with his stories of big game hunting in Zambia. He was full of tattoos, had long black hair and lisped when he spoke plat Afrikaans. A huge fucker with arms thicker than my femurs. Made the GSA look like a PW50 with broken suspension when he sat on it. (I was to afraid to take a picture . . .). Bliksem, but one meets interesting characters in these places. We chatted about my route and he also was just to happy to ride out in front, all the way to where the gravel road to Victoria-West leaves town to show me on my way. I like these people living in the small towns. Decent folk.
I still wanted to ride some more gravel – and as I only had T4A on my GPS with no Garmap (streetmap), I was surprised to find the proposed dirt road in my mapbook, but not on T4A. Had to use PJ’s instructions and the highly scaled mapbook, but the riding through this desolate place turned out to be nothing but brilliant!
Once again it was just me, the road, the green karoo and the red fuel bowser. And one or two donkiekarre. Geez I love the GSA. It must be the world’s most complete bike . . .
I can’t tell you just how I enjoyed that bit between De-Aar and Victoria-West. I think it was about 150km, and with the ergonomics of my new pride and joy being such that I found that I am sooooooooo comfortable when standing. It literally is 100% perfectly setup for me - HPF had Wildatheart risers fitted, which makes standing on the GSA veeeery comfortable.
I have yet to see the Karoo this green
So I was just cruising this road doing approx 100km/h while standing. I switched off my ipod and just took it all in. Hoops, sand, mud. The Karoo was really as green as I have ever seen it.
There were dams where there aren’t normally any water
The roads were deserted from anything civilized.
Coming over a rise happily standing away as us GS riders do, a little bokkie (steenbokkie? Duiker? – I never know) decided to cross the road. And do it right on front of the red freight train steaming past – probably doing a hundred or so. I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best. Fortunately reflexes dictated that I didn’t try to swerve to avoid it – and hit it head on. Thankfully I / the bike was ok, but I had to see what happened to the little thing which I could see in my mirror was lying in the road. Turned out, he literally shat himself:
Apart from the hair on my front rim and a piece of skin that was ripped from his one ear, there was nothing wrong with it. A pet shop owner could probably pass this off to John Cleese as a sleeping goat.
I still feel bad about it and my tree hugging wife still cannot believe that I would do something as bad as that, and then still have the audacity to take pictures of it afterwards - but let me tell you – much easier to hunt this way. I really contemplated strapping the sleeping goat on to the back when that biltong haze came over me, especially in light of the big game hunting stories that I was entertained with in die bar op De Aar an hour or so earlier.
A few k’s down the road I saw a dead likkewaan. This one was an embrio compared to the monster that attacked me outside Fauresmith
On numerous occassions I also had to swerve, or get my timing just right, to avoid hitting beautiful tortoises. Here’s one next to the road.
I, unlike my friend Kapoef, is not a tortoise killer.
Time was serisouly moving on and I still had some distance to make, just to get to Vic-West. The rain clouds also looked promising. One had to be there to appreciate that atmosphere. Alone, out in the karoo, with mighty thunderclouds turning dark grey and then big rain drops splashing down in the dust around you. Smelling like things should smell.
The Bavarian spacehip’s onboard processor (I hope its Intel inside) alerted me to the rear tyre pressure that was falling. As I have yet to pass my honours degree in the manual of the GSA, I briefly wondered “weather” it was the barometric pressure or the inflated atmospheric pressure, but upon closer inspection I confirmed that I had sprung a fast slow puncture.
So I decided to slab it home. Took the tarred road from Vic-West, turned on to the N1 and when I reached Beaufort-West it was getting too dark for my liking, so I pulled into the Wagon Wheels Motel, where my late dad always booked us in as a laaitie on our way to Buffelsbaai during the first night of our annual holiday. The place was not as I remembered it (or my dad probably just did not give a flying feather), but I probably won’t stay there again. Not at R495/room with nothing, not even a shower, included.
The next morning it turned out that the motorhome’s onboard tyre pressure monitor system wasn’t lying.
Fortunately it was only a 5 min jobbie, Jacko.
I left BW at 05h30 and was home in slaapstad before lunch, but with a bemoerde mind as a result of the unbelievable poor roadmanship employed by our nation’s drivers. Hell people, we must have the world’s worst & most aggressive, chance taking and just plain stupid drivers.
Anyway.
This is dabbel oh signing off on the eve of his new re-kindled adulterous relationship as a man with a woman and (now two) mistresses.
What a lekka ride. What a lekka motorhome!
See you hopefully out there on a ride soon.
Howie – thanks tjomma.
So the previous Saturday I took the flymachine to the place of the leopard with the mission to transport the new addition to the familiy back to DS HQ. The Freakmaaister collected me from Bloemies airstrip and took me into his home. He could consider himself lucky that I was unaware that the bike was so grossly defaced:
I certainly would not have concluded the transaction had I know that the bike was ruined in this fashion. Fortunately, when I considered things on the bright side, I realised it could have been much worse (like blou balle hanging off the back) and the rest of the bike was in mint, showroom condition, just with loads of added blieng. What a pleasure to buy a bike and complete the transaction in full without ever having seen the bike – purely on the strength of the integrity of the seller – and then finding the bike exactly as described and then some more.
I previsouly owned a gisaa (https://wilddog.net.za/forum/index.php?topic=19720.0) and after putting on 20,000 odd km’s sold it again after only riding it for 15 months – reason being apparantly that its application was not right. I was really stupid to have done that, and always knew it even though I did not want to admit it to myself at the time. I replaced it with the BMX and although I am still ecstatic about that purchase, I always knew in my heart that it was the wrong decision to have sold the pig, as there remained enough space in it to accommodate another.
The GSA is a controversial bike. It is hellishly expensive, very heavy and and personally the biggest drawback is its complicated mechanics/electronics. Unfortunately, it does not just have a Lister engine held together by unbreakable bloudraad underneath the seat which means anything apart from a very little, ‘pluggable’ hole in one of its tubeless tyres, will result in a frantic call from 007 to 0860 600 777. So the GSA, in my opinion, is not a bike that you should take into the most remote of remote areas where BMW-on-Call is unable to provide assistance within a reasonable amount of time. I can imagine that if I have to tackle deepest darkest Africa or depart on a RTW trip, I will probably consider something more mechanical with less electronics such as an Africa Twin or perhaps something from 2 Stroke Dan’s harem, which at least will stand a better chance of being fixed by a bush mechanic than one of Bavaria’s finest propeller driven space ships.
However, given my intended application, namely majority of riding on tar and good, high speed gravel roads in Southern Africa, sometimes with my better half on the back and the bike fully loaded, I am willing to take my chances with the pig, as this is what I believe the thing was designed for and hence that is what I am planning to use it for. The X will still come in handy on the more adventurous/technical sorties.
On the way to Blomfontein, I had was contemplating whether I should slab it home down the N1 and be back in time for dinner or rather do the gravel thing. I decided on the gravel option and when I mentioned this decision to HPF, he recommended a gravel route and then gallantly escorted me to the first bit of gravel just outside Bloem, where he said goodbye to his red motorhome. Here he is with that other mental machine.
I had to be back in Slaapstad the following day around noon, so had some time on my side. Being a Freestate boykie by inbors it was really great to be back after some absence. My first fright of the day came when I first opened up the almost 1200 cubic centres and 76 kw under me – the thing just went “burped burped”, shudderred and all sorts of warning triangles came on. My heart went racing but I then realised that I forgot to turn off the stability control and with the worn back tyre it prevented the back wheel from spinning. Phew!
Heading off again with the ABS and ASC firmly in the off position I enjoyed the wet, green and desolate environment with scattered broken windpompe, most seemingly unable to pump a Climax and wannabe Table Mountains in the distances.
I realised again that I love riding solo. Just you, the road and your shiny red new boney.
It really was a nice piece of road – almost too good.
I trues as Bob did not pass one car between Bloem (since I said goodbye to Howie where I turned off on the gravel road) and Fauresmith, save for the one or two at the Riet River crossing, where a couple of locals were fishing. I crossed the river using this beautiful old steel bridge:
The river was overflowing its banks. Full like a heavily pregant but beautiful mature woman
I decided to head for the Vanderkloof Dam via Fauresmith and Luckhoff, and in Fauresmith I pulled up in its only bar, where a there was no one in the place save for the barman who was engaged on his playstation, swearing away at the game with a ciggie drooping from the corner of his mouth, and his dad. Both were unaware of me entering the place, since his poor dad was sweating away with some repairs to the bar counter with a large grinder, kicking up a huge racket. After a while I bemusingly alerted them to my presence and both had a moerse skrik. Ended up being a funny, friendly, chatty chap who sorted me with some drinks. Also had a long chat with a friendly local farmer who pulled in on his Transalp. Apparantly he had an Africa Twin (until a bad off) and was one of the founder members of some sort of internet AT club – which I gathered must have been an AT forum until WD’s came along? Anyhow – I forgot his name (Corrie?) but mentioned to him to register and introduce himself here on WD’s – Drop me a PM if you happen to read this, dude. These people were a testament of friendliness and small town hospitality.
Just outside Fauresmith, I had my second skrik for the day. I have just left the tar road and was playing around to switch off the ASC when I looked up – and saw a crocodile crossing the road. Immediately realised it couldn’t have been a croc – crocs are smaller and will leave more than one footprint on the road when crossing it – this thing just left one print, as the next footstep was already past the road and put down on the other side . . . I was mesmerized by the size of this likkewaan as I have never seen such a big one - and seriously grabbed hold of the front brake - nearly lost control when it locked. Fortunately (I afterwards realised that) I did let go immediately. I guess it should either be a thank you to Country Trax for all that front break emergency training which resulted in this apparantly becoming a reflex, or it could be ascribed to my fear of being chowed by the worlds biggest likkewaan. I kid you not – that thing must have been around a metre and a half to two metres from mouth to tail.
Next little town was Luckhoff – with its beautiful main street.
Good thing the town’s name did not start with an “f” – which was what I promptly did. Took a couple of turns and arrived at the Vanderkloof Dam for the first time in my life. I didn’t realised this was such a man sized dam – probably not as big as the Gariep, but it is still a serious structure.
I was mesmerized by the power of the water. You could feel the the tremours in the dam wall as the water rushed underneath and over the wall – made me feel veeeeeeery insignificant.
I always wonder just how you will die if you have to fall in here – from drowning or by blunt force trauma? I guess with full ATGATT and MX boots your chances of staying afloat is slightly less.
After enjoying the canvas painted by the watermass and the escaping river,
https://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm13/pghuman/Algemeen/GSA%20collection%20from
%20Bloem/Vdkf7.jpg
the GPS was set for De Aar where I managed to pull in with a huge fuel buffer:
I must admit that I am not too impressed, as with my previous GSA, with the fuel economy of these big bikes. I roughly worked out to have gotten about 16km/liter – given that I was riding around 140km/h-150km/h (where possible) with fairly loaded panniers/topbox + tyre on the back - would this be considered par for the course? I found on the previous bike that its consumption dramatically improves once you stay below 120km/h and let the sweet boxer just purr to the sides.
Riding around in De Aar, looking for Koos Kombuis’ “die bar in De Aar” I only managed to spot the De-Aar Hotel’s bar and pulled in at the same time as one PJ Erasmus, who offered to buy me a beer. Also had to return the favour. Turns out he is a local farmer and PH and mesmerized me with his stories of big game hunting in Zambia. He was full of tattoos, had long black hair and lisped when he spoke plat Afrikaans. A huge fucker with arms thicker than my femurs. Made the GSA look like a PW50 with broken suspension when he sat on it. (I was to afraid to take a picture . . .). Bliksem, but one meets interesting characters in these places. We chatted about my route and he also was just to happy to ride out in front, all the way to where the gravel road to Victoria-West leaves town to show me on my way. I like these people living in the small towns. Decent folk.
I still wanted to ride some more gravel – and as I only had T4A on my GPS with no Garmap (streetmap), I was surprised to find the proposed dirt road in my mapbook, but not on T4A. Had to use PJ’s instructions and the highly scaled mapbook, but the riding through this desolate place turned out to be nothing but brilliant!
Once again it was just me, the road, the green karoo and the red fuel bowser. And one or two donkiekarre. Geez I love the GSA. It must be the world’s most complete bike . . .
I can’t tell you just how I enjoyed that bit between De-Aar and Victoria-West. I think it was about 150km, and with the ergonomics of my new pride and joy being such that I found that I am sooooooooo comfortable when standing. It literally is 100% perfectly setup for me - HPF had Wildatheart risers fitted, which makes standing on the GSA veeeery comfortable.
I have yet to see the Karoo this green
So I was just cruising this road doing approx 100km/h while standing. I switched off my ipod and just took it all in. Hoops, sand, mud. The Karoo was really as green as I have ever seen it.
There were dams where there aren’t normally any water
The roads were deserted from anything civilized.
Coming over a rise happily standing away as us GS riders do, a little bokkie (steenbokkie? Duiker? – I never know) decided to cross the road. And do it right on front of the red freight train steaming past – probably doing a hundred or so. I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best. Fortunately reflexes dictated that I didn’t try to swerve to avoid it – and hit it head on. Thankfully I / the bike was ok, but I had to see what happened to the little thing which I could see in my mirror was lying in the road. Turned out, he literally shat himself:
Apart from the hair on my front rim and a piece of skin that was ripped from his one ear, there was nothing wrong with it. A pet shop owner could probably pass this off to John Cleese as a sleeping goat.
I still feel bad about it and my tree hugging wife still cannot believe that I would do something as bad as that, and then still have the audacity to take pictures of it afterwards - but let me tell you – much easier to hunt this way. I really contemplated strapping the sleeping goat on to the back when that biltong haze came over me, especially in light of the big game hunting stories that I was entertained with in die bar op De Aar an hour or so earlier.
A few k’s down the road I saw a dead likkewaan. This one was an embrio compared to the monster that attacked me outside Fauresmith
On numerous occassions I also had to swerve, or get my timing just right, to avoid hitting beautiful tortoises. Here’s one next to the road.
I, unlike my friend Kapoef, is not a tortoise killer.
Time was serisouly moving on and I still had some distance to make, just to get to Vic-West. The rain clouds also looked promising. One had to be there to appreciate that atmosphere. Alone, out in the karoo, with mighty thunderclouds turning dark grey and then big rain drops splashing down in the dust around you. Smelling like things should smell.
The Bavarian spacehip’s onboard processor (I hope its Intel inside) alerted me to the rear tyre pressure that was falling. As I have yet to pass my honours degree in the manual of the GSA, I briefly wondered “weather” it was the barometric pressure or the inflated atmospheric pressure, but upon closer inspection I confirmed that I had sprung a fast slow puncture.
So I decided to slab it home. Took the tarred road from Vic-West, turned on to the N1 and when I reached Beaufort-West it was getting too dark for my liking, so I pulled into the Wagon Wheels Motel, where my late dad always booked us in as a laaitie on our way to Buffelsbaai during the first night of our annual holiday. The place was not as I remembered it (or my dad probably just did not give a flying feather), but I probably won’t stay there again. Not at R495/room with nothing, not even a shower, included.
The next morning it turned out that the motorhome’s onboard tyre pressure monitor system wasn’t lying.
Fortunately it was only a 5 min jobbie, Jacko.
I left BW at 05h30 and was home in slaapstad before lunch, but with a bemoerde mind as a result of the unbelievable poor roadmanship employed by our nation’s drivers. Hell people, we must have the world’s worst & most aggressive, chance taking and just plain stupid drivers.
Anyway.
This is dabbel oh signing off on the eve of his new re-kindled adulterous relationship as a man with a woman and (now two) mistresses.
What a lekka ride. What a lekka motorhome!
See you hopefully out there on a ride soon.
Howie – thanks tjomma.
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