Jacko does GS Trophy Africa 2010

[Jacko]

Okay guys, here follows the RR. I will only load the photos later. It is long-ish. Maybe it isn't that good. But I have work to do!

Holy shit. That Jap is going to kill himself, I'm thinking. He is pulling a lead and no matter how hard Dallie, our day’s marshall, is waiving his arm, the crazy Nip is stretching the cable. Sitting. In the sand. Deep farking sand. Sand so deep the sandmonster speaks of it in hushed tones.

Underneath him his bike is dancing the dance of death, gyrating in ever increasing swings of the pendulum. Then it happens. The bike’s rear overtakes the front.

He takes off with a rather flat trajectory, making impact with the ground next to the deep, sandy track. From inside my helmet it seems like a stuck record. I had seen this for the umpteenth time today.

My bike’s clock said it was after 16:00. Earlier in Salamanga Dallie had said he wanted us to be in Ponta do Ouro by 15:00. Fat fucking chance. There was still 30km to go and we’d been fighting the sand, the Japs and sometimes a combined force of them for the last three hours. And I think we’d only covered 25km.

When our Japanese friend finally comes to a standstill, he doesn’t take long to start moving. Are these guys insane or stupid?


When I was first asked to do the GS Trophy 2010 I was gobsmacked. Why me? It soon made sense. I’ve been doing adventure riding for some time, have completed Country Trax’s advanced course and, more importantly, I could give coverage over a wide range of media platforms, courtesy of the fact that I work for a big media group.

But still, I was slightly taken aback. In the meantime, unbeknown to me, there had been the usual politicking, resulting in BMW AG (the Mothership in Germany) intervening and bypassing the existing local channels and using BMW SA’s automotive side to communicate with me and dealing straight with Country Trax for help in reconnoitring the route and providing logistical support.

It was with lots of excitement that we gathered at Aldo of Touratech SA’s smallholding on the outskirts of Gauteng. We pitched our tents and settled in for the night, having seen “our” bikes – each rider taking delivery of a spanking brand new F800 GS 30th Anniversary edition, complete with GS Trophy livery and his own name and blood type. Holy shit, this was getting serious.

What follows here isn’t a proper ride report. There are a few very good reasons for that. Firstly, I didn’t plan the route. I was a journalist accompanying Team SA and sometimes helping them as part of the team for certain challenges. We roughly knew where we were going each day, but for obvious reasons the organisers were cagey about precise routes. I also didn’t take my GPS along. With hindsight it was a mistake. I will never do something of this nature again without taking my own 276C along. Sometimes I had no clue where we are – and I do not like that feeling.

Secondly, there were many non-riding related things that happened. Some were interesting, some not. So I will give you a part of my subjective experience. I write for a living so doing this here is a major pain in the arse, almost like an accountant having to do the books of his local tennis club for free. But this isn’t tennis and there are some lekker okes amongst you, so here goes.

Day 1 – Gauteng to Country Trax

We were raring to go, but the rent needed to be paid, so we spent an agonising hour or two in our twat suits, posing for the tv crew, cameramen and assorted hangers on.

Then we hit the road. But not before the legendary Tomm Wolf briefed us in his humorous style. Tomm is a veteran of a few Dakars and a supreme rider.

A very long time ago I had the experience of doing a trip with an guy who is a bit of a riding legend, judging from stories he told of earlier exploits. He also happens to scoffs at ‘guys who stand while they ride’. He was fast - on hard-packed dirt. But, erm, not quite in sand.  :biggrin: Whenever I saw the effortless way in which Tomm chucked his 1200GS (the marshalls rode 1200s) through very thick sand, standing, moving his weight around, I thought of this guy.

If said rider had witnessed this, he would've been confronted by the limitations of his own approach. Here Tomm was, displaying total mastery of a machine. In thick sand that means one thing: standing. Sometimes it's hard to accept new and improved ways of doing old things, I know. But what he had repeatedly said about "people who stand all the time" was being shown up to be patently wrong whenever one saw the 50-something Tomm gracefully handling a beastly 1200GS in extremely thick sand. He made it look like fun, not even breaking a sweat.

You see it with everyone who do training: Some believe they're too good to need training. And yet, I've never seen or heard of one single person afterwards saying that he/she didn't make, at the very least, significant gains in skill. The one's who tell you differently lie. IMHO there are only two things preventing people from undergoing professional training: Ego and fear.

We soon arrived at Country Trax where we pitched tents and then the fun and games started. Each team had to punch in five GSP waypoints, race there, collect a token and race back. Oh, and the shortest way between points was through marshes, dongas and other nice surprises.

Imagine then the surprise when Team SA came in first in 38 minutes – after Tomm said he didn’t expect anyone to come in before 1 hour!

We settled in our sleeping bags. Tired and excited, hoping tommorrow would bring better weather. It was foggy with a light rain, resulting in a special night stage being abandoned.

 

[Jacko]

Day 2 – Country Trax to Milwane, Swaziland

We were heading for Milwane wildlife sanctuary in Swaziland. En route there we stopped at a farm who’s name I now forget. Anyway, the farmer has two aeroplanes, each with his own hangar. But that is not all. He also has three other hangars. Two of which are filled with an incredible amount of vintage tractors. And the last hangar is filled with a few very nice classic cars, including the odd Cadillac, Ford Mustang, etc.

The first special stage involved me sitting behind the wheel of a Porsche tractor with the boys having to pull me around two cones. It was back breaking stuff and they eventually finished somewhere in the midfield.

Then all four of us had to make a tractor tyre stand upright and do a slalom race with it. After the final time keeping it turned out that we had set the fastest time and the now well-known chant of “Koedoevoet!” (similar to a cameltoe, only bigger) resounded.

After a lunch we got onto the bikes and headed further for the Swaziland border. What a waste of good time. We sat around on the lawn for, what almost 45 mins. Yes, I know we were a big group, but it was that old African thing. But then I guess it IS the GS Trophy 2010 AFRICA...

While sitting on the lawn I got talking to Iain Glynn and Shannon Markle, two members of the US Team. Now forget all your preconceived ideas of Americans. Most of you have never been the US, yet have very fixed opinions of them. These guys were just super (so was Bill Dragoo, the third member and Okhlahoma resident).

We talked and talked and then Shannon asked me very shyly “how do people in South Africa feel towards Americans?” I assured him that we were open minded and that only boneheads “don’t like Americans”, because all countries have good and bad guys and that we do not feel intimidated by American culture, courtesy of the fact that we have grown up with it.

Then we hit the magical forest roads of Swaziland. Fark, I’m cross that I didn’t take my GSP along to save the track. Bahstid!

After some really wicked forest roads we were pointed down a steep hill to find the judges waiting on the other side of a muddy bog. The challenge was for the team to get to the other side in the shortest time possible. The question was which technique to use. Each guy pinning it by himself or one at a time with the other team members waiting to pull him out? In the end there was no ‘best’ technique as it depended on the individuals luck. Some made it through individually, while others needed help.

The highlight was the one Spaniard losing it and chucking his helmet, kakking on his team mates. Five minutes later everything was forgiven and they carried on as if nothing had happened. Weird buggers.

Soon after that we reached a rocky river. The challenge was for a team to get to the other side as fast as possible. But how? Pinning it or walking it? Individually or with team mates helping?

SA eventually decided on each guy walking his own idling bike over in 1st gear and it proved to be quite a good tactic, resulting in one of the better scores. The Brits, however, proved their trail riding skills by riding through in a very good time.

We then reached Milwane wildlife sanctuary where we set up camp and cleaned ourselves.

 

[Jacko]

Day 3 – Milwane to Ponta do Ouro

We were heading for Ponto da Ouro where we know the Sandmonster was lurking. But first the teams had to do a towing exercise. It involved two guys towing one another through, amongst other things, a little stream and a very long uphill full of erosion craters. I rode up alone to go and lay in ambush with my camera and was amazed at how hard the track was to ride.

And these guys were going to race up here, one towing the other.

This is where things got a bit pear shaped for Team SA as they were pushing maybe a tad too hard, resulting in Gerber Strydom’s bike finally being yanked from underneath him with less than 200m from the finish.

We then hit some gnarly dirt roads before exiting Swaziland at the XXXX border post and entering Mozambique. But it was here that tragedy almost struck when Brian Kiely, one of the Canadians, momentarily forgot that he should’ve been riding on the left hand side of the road.

It was a sweeping, tarred mountain pass, and Brian cut a corner, way too far to the right, only to be confronted by a car coming straight at him. He tried to avoid the car and ended up leaving the road.

He only ended up with some serious bruising on his left hip and his bike was relatively unscathed. One very, very lucky guy.

We then headed for Salamanga were we were to fill up with water and stuff before tackling the sandy road to the south. By now it was getting seriously hot. Dallie, our marshall, said that he wanted us “to be in Ponta by 15:00”. Cool, I thought. Then we could have some lekker 2M beers and get out of our riding gear. There weren’t any special stages left today (at least, no points scoring ones) so how hard could it be?

We soon found out. The dirt road leading south gradually became more sandy. We’d decided to stick close to the Japs to show them the way as they were all sitting, regardless of terrain. I took special care to show Tohru, my Japanese counterpart, how to stand with your weight to the rear and to look far ahead.

The problem with the Japs (actually, it was only one of many problems) was their bad English. So no matter what you explained, they’d always go “Yes, yes!” nodding in agreement. I was sure I could say: “Screw you, you little yellow-faced rice-eating, panty-sniffing, train-riding Nip!” and they’d happily reply “Yes! Yes!”

Then I saw the cloud of dust in the road. I tapped off. Then I saw the bike in the road. How was it possible? It was a perfectly straight road, with just a few very small sand patches. It was Koji Yamauchi, the Japanese team’s oldest member. He complained (more like murmured) about his right foot. Dallie immediately told him not to remove his boot as swelling would soon set in, making it impossible to get it back on again.

I knew we were in for a long day.

We discussed it an one of the guys said: “He’s alright. Come, let’s go!” So we picked up his bike and set off for Ponta. Or that was the idea.

Within a few hundred meters we came acrosse really deep, loose sand. I think the first Jap lasted for 20 metres. Which was an accomplishment. Sitting on their arses, they’d go completely Banzai, pinning the throttle. This would cause their bikes to spin and fishtail madly before the rear wheel would overtake the front and deposit the rider at some arbitrary piece of Mozambican soil. I thought of that English poem The Soldier by Rupert Brooke:

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.

So I’ll paraphrase it to:

If I should die falling my kak off, think this of me:
That there’s some corner of a Mozambican sand
That is forever Japan.

In fact, there’s a whole fucking Japanese farm there right now.

Yes, you must open up in sand. But only up to a certain point. Actually you must maintain a constant speed. Somehow, deep within their Japanese psyche they decided the “open up” bit is the solution, never mind the fact that one will eventually lose control.

It was getting very hard for me too, as I haven’t ridden sand for a year. Now, ideally I should’ve been settling in, finding my sand legs so to speak. But as I was shadowing a Jap I couldn’t stick to one track as they’d madly fishtail from one track over to the other, making deep, unpredictably oscillations in the porridge-like sand.

Last year, on our way to the R.A.W. week I also fell along the West Coast. Metaljockey was riding ahead of me. MJ is an awesome rider, but he does things differently to me. Firstly he’s very tall. Secondly he rides a 650. So he sits in most sand, now and then poking out a spidery leg and conserving energy. This also means that he would change tracks quite often, drifting from the one track to the other, staying upright and doing a lower speed than me.

So I would fall back, accelerate, catch up with him, get caught in one of his sitting-lane-change-trenches, almost lose it, slow down, let him go, etc. I should’ve overtaken him, pure and simple, but in trying to be ‘nice’ I didn’t. The result was that as I was accelerating back to me and the HP2’s sweet-spot speed in sand, I approached a corner – and my front wheel found one of his moats. Result!

Suddenly I had that same feeling again. I would accelerate to pass a Jap when he’d suddenly change lanes. Unlike Metaljockey he had no control. But the effect was similar – I didn’t have a straight rut in front of me. Only a jagged, deep rut that switched from the left track to the right track every couple of meters.

I cannot tell you how many times I almost fell. You know the feeling: You realise this is getting out of hand. But somehow you save it. You giggle, curse, shout, all at once. Then you hit the next deep, unpredictable rut left by an erratically riding Jap.

When Tohru feel for the umpteenth time I made a decision. We were all grown-ups. I was going to pass him and every other Jap. That way I could ride the sand, without dealing with their erratic riding. Now and then I’d sit down or stop, see if they were okay and take it from there. Behind me Roger, Gerber and Warren were sweeping. We were taking strain.

At one stage Dallie almost lost it. Koji had taken off, oblivious to anything or anyone else, in full banzai-attack mode. Dallie chased after him, overtook him and showed that he must slow down. Fat chance. The Kamikaze in Koji had taken over. Until the sand intervened. Dallie then gave him a stern rebuke (I would’ve klapped him) and told him not to overtake a marshall again or face disqualification.

And so it continued. When I looked at the bike’s clock it was already 16:14. We were still 15km away from the border post. And then we had to swing north again for the other 15km to Ponta.

What’s more, the other countries were starting to overtake us. And the more we had to ride in other people’s tracks, the harder it became. Bugger. You’d just pick up speed, hook 3rd gear when a Jap would fall. At some stages we could go no further than 200m without one of them wiping out.

It was here that I almost had a humour failure. One Jap had taken his own turn-off. Yes, I know that all roads lead to Ponta, but who’d nanny him 100m further? We momentarily got split up as a group. Eventually we regrouped some distance further. I was gasping for air.

Eventually the call was made for Roger and Warren to lift two Japs to Ponta, take a lift back in a support 4x4 and then ride their bikes in for them. The remaining two Japs would idle further, duck walking their bikes in 1st gear. Yes, it was slow going, but at least they wouldn’t fall.

When we reached Ponta I was toast. We had covered a stretch of sand that Roger said he had done in just over 20 mins in SIX HOURS… Soon the beers raised our spirits and after some really nice fish and some Porra chicken we went to bed tired, but relieved.

At least, until the DUMB FARKING DUTCHMEN returned to the campsite at 01:00 in the morning, turned on their music and kept on laughing at one another’s dumb jokes until way past 02:30 in the morning.

When we departed the next morning a few young Dutchies stood around in their rugby shorts, bare foot en still deur die kak geslaap. The one was taking photos with his cellphone and I felt like riding up to him and saying: “Ja, jou klein p**s, julle het darem lekker geraas gisteraand. Ek is sommer lus en skop daai selfoon in jou gat in op met my GS boot.” The other guys told me Ponta is a very bad place over the SA School holidays. It will never see me again, unless I stay in a private lodge away from the rugby-shorts wearing crowd. If civilised behaviour makes me a snob then I’m one loud and proud snob. Fuckit, I do not have to waste my remaining life in the company of idiots.

 

[Jacko]

Day 4 – Ponta do Ouro to Pinda

One of the reasons why I didn’t reposition the young arsehole’s cellphone was because we were actually in good spirits. This was because it had rained quite a lot the previous night. So the sand was damp and a lot easier to ride.

And what’s more, Japan was now Germany’s partner country…

I could hardly believe it when we reached the border post about, what 10 min later! We rode hard, but smooth and although I was at the back, I kept my own pace, stopping less than a minute after my team mates.

We went through the border, filled up and headed south towards Pongola along a fairly muddy road. SGB, our marshall for the day and master of understatement said “it’s a short tar road” to our next special stage. Hehe. Not quite. But we were gooing it, drifting the back wheel out of the long sweeps. I was in the zone and enjoying it. Our partner team were the Spanish. Crazy, mad motherfuckers. Totally el Loco, especially Jaime Sainz Cuena, a forklift operator.

The special stage involved Jan du Toit’s famous “Elephant Turn” test. Basically the riders had to accelerate down a tweespoor, slide around a cone and accelerate back, simulating an emergency U-turn on a remote African stretch of road.

Then we headed further south. There was more sand to come. Fark. The problem was that the track wasn’t only narrow, but the fact that there were trees and bushes right next to it. So if you got out of shape you could hit a tree. Not comforting.

Then there was Team Spain’s media guy. He was hopeless in sand (it did made me look like a sand god, though he-he). I tried to stick behind him, but I soon found out that he was going to kill me for reasons explained earlier. I made dash and left him.

This meant I was on my own, with the leading guys far in front of me and the guys who stopped to help him out far behind me. I hit a silly piece of churned up sand (deep ruts in wet sand is harder to negotiate that dry ruts as the former is more pronounced and forces you off heading with much more force) and almost moered down. Almost. But I was stationary. So I pinned the accelerator. No luck. I was digging myself in right up to the belly plate. Fark.

I threw the bike onto its side, picked it up again and tried accelerating again. No luck. So I started digging. The trick is to also clear the sand in front of both wheels so they don’t have to overcome that drag. And obviously clearing the belly plate and rear wheel as much as possible. Eventually I got it out by standing next to it and accelerating out in 2nd. I was poked, but by now I was in full adventure mode, lauging loudly at myself. I was out of breath, out on my own and fighting for control. Good! I was glad to be alive after my heart attack and had resolved to approach life in a different way. I was actually relishing the struggle and felt as elated as I was as a young paratrooper after a hard speed march with full kit.

When we finally regrouped SGB told the Spanish to stick with their own media rider (the crafty fuckers let the SA’ns pick him up each time) and Team SA would stick together.

Problem solved. Well, for us. Not for the Spanish! What followed was an evil, sandy tweespoor of note. The trees and bushes were so close to the road that it often klapped you hard on the arm, one branch even klapping me on the mouth where my enduro helmet was open.

After an eternity we finished that part, exiting the reserve close to Lake Sibaya. Let me mention here that I almost fell from laughter a couple of times when I saw SGB taking a ‘detour’ into the bushes. But anyone would’ve kakked, as the poor marshalls were on 1200GSs. They really aren’t the best bikes for these tight sandy tracks, courtesy of their weight and 19-inch front wheels.

Our destination was the world-famous Pinda Game Reserve. But I also knew we’d stay in much humbler accomoddation – our trusted yellow MSR two-man tents.

Second photo: Myself, Gerber, Roger, Warren and SGB near Lake Sibaya. As it is Movember, we all grew 'taches. Except SGB. I think he had one when he was born.

 

[Jacko]

Day 5 – Pinda to Pongola

When we left Pinda we were confronted by a herd of elephants. We had to stop, but two riders thought it was fine to gas it and ride past them. The one bull did not take kindly to it and stormed. Have you ever seen a game-drive vehicle catching up with two GSs – in reverse?! 

Not long after riding did we stop for the day’s first special stage – the tyre changing competition. Two teams would compete at a time. The aim was to remove both rear wheels, swop them and reassemble everything. All against the stop watch.

We were paired with the UK today and we knew that they’d be one of the real threats in the coming day or two. For the first minute or two the Brits were in the lead. But Team SA had a trick or two: They ran to the nearest huts and grabbed a few concrete building blocks. This meant that the bikes were in the air. Now, it might not sound significant. But it means that the bikes are standing perfectly vertical. So when you put the rear tyre back it happens very quickly. Unlike the Brits who had their bikes pulled at an angle on the side stand. This meant that the calliper was always falling in the wrong place, seriously hampering the process.

SA achieved the fastest time of the day and the boys were elated.

We then headed for Pongola where we filled up the convoy.

EDIT!Oh, I totally forgot - this is where I almost died. I was gunning it up a dirt road that winded up a mountain pass that overlooked lake Jozini. I think it was the Ghost Mountain road. Farking apt, as I almost became one too. As I approached a corner, a blue bakkie came around it, approaching from the front. Sipho was clearly out of control, the bakkie being sideways and coming for me. I instinctively ducked left, gunned it and kind of braced myself for the impact. Clearly it wasn't my time as Sipho swung the bakkie around to drift in the other direction, missing me by a metre or two. Unfortunately Shipo didn't drive off the road and remove himself from the gene pool as guys behind me also spotted Sideways Sipho. [End of edit]

Afterwards we headed for the Pongola reserve on a rocky 4x4 trail. Against a steep, rock-strewn uphill I moered over to great laughter. If only my legs were 4cm longer…  Roger Kane-Berman raced to help me, doing his by now familiar Corne & Twakkie thing saying: “Hey, watcha doing guy?”

That afternoon we arranged for two special stages. In one, team members had to pick up a spear while riding, turn through cones and then throw it at a target. The second special stage involved a rowing competition. Each country had two boats of two rowers each. We faced off against England. Yeah, bring it on.

Me and Roger Kane-Berman got into one boat with Gerber and Warren in the other. I think they expected me to suffer a bit. Well, Roger and Mr. 2 Titanium Stents were the first canoe back by a few seconds. 

Unfortunately there was no rope on the jetty to tie it up with! As per the rules your boat had to be tied down before the clock stopped. Another “If only…” If the rope had not been misplaced when the boats departed we could theoretically have won the GS Trophy, courtesy of the extra points over the UK during that challenge.

We were seriously pissed off. But we soon put it behind us and moved on. Dinner was lekker, with a magnificent view over the lake. And at least we did better than the one Italian boat who managed to capsize THREE times. Tomm Wolf soon dubbed them “the Italian Navy Seals”.

It was ha-ha funny. But even funnier was the next morning when we looked at the dam and saw a crocodile of easily three meters swimming on that exact same spot. The Italians turned a bit pale.

 

[Jacko]

Day 6 – Pongola to Country Trax

We were heading out of Pongola along beautiful roads, gaining altitude towards the higher laying areas of Mpumalanga.

Eventually we reached a rail track were two interesting special stages were waiting.

For the first one we had to ride into a very long train tunnel and switch off all lights. We were asked to guess how far we’ve ridden since the tunnel’s mouth and how far we think the remaining distance is.

The second challenge involved the team having to push their bikes inside a small set of tunnels underneath a railway line, around a point on the other side and back again. Unfortunately Warren slipped and fell in the water, but the boy still set a decent time.

From here on it was fast riding on mostly tar roads. This sounds good, but it isn’t, as the potholes were insane. You’d do 140 around a tar corner, only to be confronted by series of potholes that forced you to play a potentially lethal game of Pac Man. It was unnerving, but we wanted to push on to Country Trax.

At some stage we noticed the Italians, with whom we were riding today, were missing. Roger or Warren turned around and went looking.

It turned out that one of them had fallen victim to that other great South African pastime: Rock throwing. A little *%$@# had thrown quite a large piece of rock at one of them, hitting him on the head and shattering his enduro helmet’s peak. We also learnt that one of the support group, someone we all know, was close behind and apprehended the little reprobate. I understand that justice was served.

Finally we reached Country Trax, where the last special stage involved a slow race. SA once again did quite well. But was it enough to overtake the UK?

That evening we had a ‘fun’ competition where all the teams had to finish a bowl of rice with one pair of chopsticks.

Team SA won, even klapping Japan. 

Below: Me and the legendary Tomm Wolf.

 

[Jacko]

Day 7 – Country Trax to Touratech, Gauteng

Today we didn’t have to get up that early as the first special stage were to be held on the farm. It involved a very, very complicated skills challenge and it was going to decide the outcome of the GS Trophy.

Team SA had a four-point deficit. So the pressure was on them. But Team UK also had to pull out all the stops or lose their lead.

In the end Team SA really went for it, scoring the highest points total of any team that day. The UK played it tactically clever, opting to ride around certain points and relinquishing points, rather than risk further penalties for putting feet down.

Afterwards we rode back to Gauteng. We were knackered. Bums were sore. The wind was pumping. Ahead lay the final points scoring and the final results. We knew we were doing okay with the photo competition, but what about the other countries?

We could only wait.

That night, when the winners were announced we sat anxiously, hoping that we’d wiped out Team UK’s lead.

It was not to be. We lost by one point.

Still, it felt good to go up to the stage along with Roger, Warren and Gerber to receive my own trophy and medal. I shouted “Koedoevoet!” and the other three joined in.

It was an amazing 2000km over 6 days. We met incredibly lekker guys. We talked for hours. We laughed. We cursed. We giggled and we fretted. The other three guys were continuously speaking in Corne/Twakkie voices, calling one another “guy”. It never stopped being hilariously funny, despite the fact that the other countries looked at us strangely because they didn’t “get” it and possibly thought we were retarded. Maybe that’s why it was funny.

I was so incredibly privileged to attend this event. I made life-long friends. I saw some terrific riding. I saw beautiful places. I rediscovered my personal mojo after my heart attack, knowing that I am physically up to anything again. And hopefully I made a constructive contribution to Team SA’s effort.

To the marshalls: SGB, Leon, Dallie, Reinhardt, Marchant and the logistical support without whom none of this would've been possible - Jan, Tomm, Rainert, Eddie, Gert, Celia, Chris, Johan, Gerhard and many more - thank you from the bottom of my titanium-stent pimped heart.

To Roger, Gerber and Warren: “Hey guys. Whatcha doing guys? I love you guys.”

To everyone else, a special message from Team SA: “Hey, suck my big balls!” (this is an expression of endearment, by the way)

And to Rob H: My name isn’t “Jacques”. It’s Jaco. Ask the people at BMW in Munich.

 

[Aquatic]

About time sir.
I'll read the rest tomorrow

 

[tau]

Nice Jacko. Waar is my t-shirt????

 

[Jacko]

Nice Jacko. Waar is my t-shirt????

Hy wag vir jou - as jy 20 kg verloor het.  :imaposer:

 

[GlenInk (R.I.P)]

Very cool !

 

[krister]

:thumleft:

 

[Veldbrand]

BaCool span RSA!
Thanks Jacko.
Sal graag die foto's wil sien.

 

[letsgofishing]

GREAT STUFF JACKO - a really entertaining ride report ( not that I would have expected anything less!)

 

[man on the moon]

Thanks Jaco , great report :thumleft:

 

[Boer!]

Great Job Jacko.

Had a few good laughs, guy.

TX. :thumleft:

 

[DeonDj]

Great Jacko,thanks!

 

[IceCreamMan]

Sweet man ... :thumleft:

 

[Hentie bm]

Thanx Jacko en baie goed geskryf  :thumleft:  :thumleft:

 

[bradleys]

Thanks Jaco ,lekker report ,really a nice read and some cool pics ,