After begging the owners of Mt.Dare to use their personal cellphone to text friends in Australia to let my family in South Africa know that I am safe, I refueled my bike, the 11.4 liter Giant loop bladder ( actually got 13 liters in, and the new red can I purchased in Alice springs. 38 liters of fuel all up.
Those that don't know the Simpson desert crossing is like the holy grail of riding in Australia. I was going to do it solo. Normally it takes 3-5 days to do the crossing.
You need top carry food and water for these 5 days. I have spoken to some people that have done it and all of them said I could get water from 4x4 travelers in the worst case scenario's. Also that I must be careful as the route is very busy.......when it is not covid I would realise very soon.
The manager at Mt.Dare told me a Birsdville local did the crossing the previous day in 10 hours on a WR450 with rallye tanks (30Liters) and no luggage, my head started making strange clanking noises. I have the ability to remember routes and work times, fuel and distances out in my head. I had a crazy plan....how about a single day crossing. No don't be stupid this is an adventure trip with a stock bike loaded like a tank.
I then met 4 gents from Adelaide doing the crossing over 5 days,We had supper together in the roadhouse and then they invited me for beers... I had 7 VB's the night before a serious ride.
I started out at 06:30 after oversleeping
As you can see I was carrying more fuel than the Valdiz.
After about 100km I stopped at a borehole in the desert that was erected to help travellers. I refilled my bladder (3l) and bottels. I now had 11liters of water onboard. 23 liters of extra fuel, food for 5 days and all my camping gear, perfect for dune riding setup...
I was told the section to purney bore is the easiest after this the real sand started. I didn't deflate my tyres and ran them the 180km to the stop as the temprature was nice and cool and the wind kept me cool. I dropped my tyres to 1.5 bar front and rear.
The real dune riding started now. I was running the French line across the Simpson. The hardest but shortest route. The dunes are very close together and the french bloke that build or marked it had no capacity to ride in a straight line. The loaded bike handled like a block of flats, however I was keeping the rhythm going and the kilometers was ticking by.....maybe I can do this in 1 day or 12 hours. NO BRAIN STOP.
