droffarc
Race Dog
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2006
- Messages
- 1,384
- Reaction score
- 138
- Location
- Cape Toon - TransAlp XL650V 2004
- Bike
- Honda NC750X
Ok, so who remembers Elvis? Remember the song: Did you ever get one of those days, when nothing goes right from morning till night?
This was not going to be much of a ride, merely a visit to my dog, who is currently on holiday, visiting an aunty (not family of course) by the seaside in Onrus.
I was on the first dirt when I realized that, although I had brought spare batteries â?? Iâ??d forgotten the camera! â?? This was at Blaauklippen, so I was not about to go back for it.
Going up Sir Lousyâ??s pass was quite a job seeing as not only were they resurfacing the upward lane but also a large truck had broken down so I bypassed all the long string of cars by riding neatly between the catâ??s eyes and two solid white lines, much to the annoyance of one or two mainly GP registration cars.
I took the highland road, which is as corrugated as ever, my teeth klapping and chattering on every bend. Maybe it is me but that road seems to get shorter every time I ride it â?? in no time I was past Iona and on the bumpy, jumpy jittery corrugations at the last downward stretch.
Soon I was patting my dog who, was taking minimal notice of me â?? takes after my wife in that respect, and whispering sweet nothings in her ear â?? the dogâ??s ear man!
Then it was time to go â?? I had not been invited to lunch you see, besides, who wants to share a soggy dog biscuit anyway?
I decided to return via the Shawâ??s pass road, and that was my undoing! You see, as you proceed from the intersection your eye is drawn to this enticing, beckoning road â?? you know, the one that Macduff and I wanted to explore laaast time.
W-hell, this t-hime I was gonna explore it! I took the turn to Campwell and the skelm left which is quite an upramp and TaDaaa! I was on the road. And an interesting road it was â?? not even shown on the GPS. Once I got past the trash dump part â?? why is it we insist on dumping our trash â?? rubbish â?? gemors in the most attractive places?
Now things became more interesting and I had to pay more attention because the â??roadâ? surface became more loose and rocky and tricky and a hellava lot less like a road, but nothing too difficult.
I stopped at the top of the incline and using my trusty cellphone, took a pic of the scenery with the sea in the background. (Especially for Ama).
See, if you will, that the road/trail now begins a steep decline with much loose rocky stuff. It did cross my mind that I was alone, you know, the old cautionary angel/conscience that sits there and advises you when you should stop. But I looked at the surface and thought, â??Ag, I have done worse surfaces than that, albeit on level groundâ?. The pictures do not really depict the severity of the gradient but if you look at the GPS map you will notice that the gradient lines are kinda close together there. It was in fact a drop of about 17 meters or more (about 45 degrees maybe).
On my other shoulder sat this red chappie â?? you know, the one with the trident and the forked tongue â?? who said to me â??Njaaag, you can do it!â?
I went down about ten meters by which time I was skidding and sliding and I thought to myself â??BIG MISTAKE!â? â??But how the hell are you gonna turn round Sucker?â? There was no way I had any traction to be able to turn round and here came the bend and the gradient gets steeper and the surface is looser with big rocks andâ?¦..
Well, all I can say is that the back wheel was trying its best to overtake the front by sliding to the left. The competition was strong, they were side by side! This is good I thought, if the back wheel gets ahead then I just need to gas it and I will go back up again, easy way of turning around!
Alas, the front wheel did not give up that easily and the only thing I could do was lay the bike down and switch off the motor, my hands trembling like you wont believe!
I walked â?? with difficulty, up the track to the level spot again and put my jacket and stuff down and then slid, skidded and slithered my way down to the bike again. Hell, I thought, I can hardly do this walking; no wonder the bike had difficulty.
I placed my helmet up a few meters as a marker for my first stop. How I thought I was going to get there is another matter, but it gave me something to aim for.
Picking the bike up was something else again, there was very little in the way of firm footing, lots of slipping and sliding sort of thing, but the human is an amazing thing â?? now that I think back to that moment, it was actually easy. I got the bike into an upright position without much effort and held it in balance, just like LITO taught me all that time ago (I still muttered to myself: â??If it moers down it moers downâ?, Thanks Lito, and edged gingerly round so that I was on the lower side, put the bike on the side stand, got on, started the engine, put it in gear and rode the damn thing all the way to the level area â?? gee that was easy! There were moments of course where I almost lost it again, scrambling for traction â?? where were those TKCs now? And made it. With trembling hands I now slithered down to fetch my helmet, a fat lot of good that did huh?
I took a few moments to cool down, had a few mouthfuls of BioZest from the Camelpack, put on my jacket, helmet and goeters and made off to the road.
I wended my way along the Hemel en Aarde road toward Caledon and boy was there a lot of traffic. Not used to so much traffic on a dirt road. Just before Shawâ??s I took the right turn to Tesselaarsdal and then on to Caledon, arriving there is good spirits.
I had promised myself that if ever I am in Caledon again I would enquire if there was â??A vuil uil wat skuilâ? and this is exactly what I said into the phone when Uiltjie answered. As it would happen, it was him I greeted on the dirt road, with the quad on the back, coming from the opposite direction. Oh well, another time maybe.
I then took the Dwarskloof road to Greyton. They are working on the road and I had to ride behind the truck that sprays water on the road to limit dust â?? was tempted to take a shower but thought better of it. Soon, though, the driver switched off the water and I sped away. In Greyton I stole a few drops of water to clean my visor and took the second road to Helderstroom, and the side dirt road past the Theewaterskloof dam.
This road was a nightmare! I was stuck behind two bakkies, kicking up dust naturally, and everytime I wanted to pass, there was a truck coming from the other end and they were big trucks and they kicked up big dust clouds. This kinda gave the expression â??brownoutâ? a whole new meaning â?? man you could not even see your screen in the stuff, and going at about 40 behind a bakkie that could probably see as much as I could and could like to stop at any moment because of no visibility! Scary moments.
By the time I went over the Theewaterskloof dam bridge the TA was a different colour and I was trailing a dust cloud.
Quickly over the Franschoek pass and on to home and a welcome shower! Now I must still wash the TA â?? does not look like it even sustained minor scratches from the lie-down. NOTE: This is only the third time the TA lies down in 76thousand KM, and always on the right side - I see a pattern forming here.
This was not going to be much of a ride, merely a visit to my dog, who is currently on holiday, visiting an aunty (not family of course) by the seaside in Onrus.
I was on the first dirt when I realized that, although I had brought spare batteries â?? Iâ??d forgotten the camera! â?? This was at Blaauklippen, so I was not about to go back for it.
Going up Sir Lousyâ??s pass was quite a job seeing as not only were they resurfacing the upward lane but also a large truck had broken down so I bypassed all the long string of cars by riding neatly between the catâ??s eyes and two solid white lines, much to the annoyance of one or two mainly GP registration cars.
I took the highland road, which is as corrugated as ever, my teeth klapping and chattering on every bend. Maybe it is me but that road seems to get shorter every time I ride it â?? in no time I was past Iona and on the bumpy, jumpy jittery corrugations at the last downward stretch.
Soon I was patting my dog who, was taking minimal notice of me â?? takes after my wife in that respect, and whispering sweet nothings in her ear â?? the dogâ??s ear man!
Then it was time to go â?? I had not been invited to lunch you see, besides, who wants to share a soggy dog biscuit anyway?
I decided to return via the Shawâ??s pass road, and that was my undoing! You see, as you proceed from the intersection your eye is drawn to this enticing, beckoning road â?? you know, the one that Macduff and I wanted to explore laaast time.
W-hell, this t-hime I was gonna explore it! I took the turn to Campwell and the skelm left which is quite an upramp and TaDaaa! I was on the road. And an interesting road it was â?? not even shown on the GPS. Once I got past the trash dump part â?? why is it we insist on dumping our trash â?? rubbish â?? gemors in the most attractive places?
Now things became more interesting and I had to pay more attention because the â??roadâ? surface became more loose and rocky and tricky and a hellava lot less like a road, but nothing too difficult.
I stopped at the top of the incline and using my trusty cellphone, took a pic of the scenery with the sea in the background. (Especially for Ama).
See, if you will, that the road/trail now begins a steep decline with much loose rocky stuff. It did cross my mind that I was alone, you know, the old cautionary angel/conscience that sits there and advises you when you should stop. But I looked at the surface and thought, â??Ag, I have done worse surfaces than that, albeit on level groundâ?. The pictures do not really depict the severity of the gradient but if you look at the GPS map you will notice that the gradient lines are kinda close together there. It was in fact a drop of about 17 meters or more (about 45 degrees maybe).
On my other shoulder sat this red chappie â?? you know, the one with the trident and the forked tongue â?? who said to me â??Njaaag, you can do it!â?
I went down about ten meters by which time I was skidding and sliding and I thought to myself â??BIG MISTAKE!â? â??But how the hell are you gonna turn round Sucker?â? There was no way I had any traction to be able to turn round and here came the bend and the gradient gets steeper and the surface is looser with big rocks andâ?¦..
Well, all I can say is that the back wheel was trying its best to overtake the front by sliding to the left. The competition was strong, they were side by side! This is good I thought, if the back wheel gets ahead then I just need to gas it and I will go back up again, easy way of turning around!
Alas, the front wheel did not give up that easily and the only thing I could do was lay the bike down and switch off the motor, my hands trembling like you wont believe!
I walked â?? with difficulty, up the track to the level spot again and put my jacket and stuff down and then slid, skidded and slithered my way down to the bike again. Hell, I thought, I can hardly do this walking; no wonder the bike had difficulty.
I placed my helmet up a few meters as a marker for my first stop. How I thought I was going to get there is another matter, but it gave me something to aim for.
Picking the bike up was something else again, there was very little in the way of firm footing, lots of slipping and sliding sort of thing, but the human is an amazing thing â?? now that I think back to that moment, it was actually easy. I got the bike into an upright position without much effort and held it in balance, just like LITO taught me all that time ago (I still muttered to myself: â??If it moers down it moers downâ?, Thanks Lito, and edged gingerly round so that I was on the lower side, put the bike on the side stand, got on, started the engine, put it in gear and rode the damn thing all the way to the level area â?? gee that was easy! There were moments of course where I almost lost it again, scrambling for traction â?? where were those TKCs now? And made it. With trembling hands I now slithered down to fetch my helmet, a fat lot of good that did huh?
I took a few moments to cool down, had a few mouthfuls of BioZest from the Camelpack, put on my jacket, helmet and goeters and made off to the road.
I wended my way along the Hemel en Aarde road toward Caledon and boy was there a lot of traffic. Not used to so much traffic on a dirt road. Just before Shawâ??s I took the right turn to Tesselaarsdal and then on to Caledon, arriving there is good spirits.
I had promised myself that if ever I am in Caledon again I would enquire if there was â??A vuil uil wat skuilâ? and this is exactly what I said into the phone when Uiltjie answered. As it would happen, it was him I greeted on the dirt road, with the quad on the back, coming from the opposite direction. Oh well, another time maybe.
I then took the Dwarskloof road to Greyton. They are working on the road and I had to ride behind the truck that sprays water on the road to limit dust â?? was tempted to take a shower but thought better of it. Soon, though, the driver switched off the water and I sped away. In Greyton I stole a few drops of water to clean my visor and took the second road to Helderstroom, and the side dirt road past the Theewaterskloof dam.
This road was a nightmare! I was stuck behind two bakkies, kicking up dust naturally, and everytime I wanted to pass, there was a truck coming from the other end and they were big trucks and they kicked up big dust clouds. This kinda gave the expression â??brownoutâ? a whole new meaning â?? man you could not even see your screen in the stuff, and going at about 40 behind a bakkie that could probably see as much as I could and could like to stop at any moment because of no visibility! Scary moments.
By the time I went over the Theewaterskloof dam bridge the TA was a different colour and I was trailing a dust cloud.
Quickly over the Franschoek pass and on to home and a welcome shower! Now I must still wash the TA â?? does not look like it even sustained minor scratches from the lie-down. NOTE: This is only the third time the TA lies down in 76thousand KM, and always on the right side - I see a pattern forming here.
Glad to hear no serious damage, and that you managed to recover easily enough. That path does look rather steep...
