Background
For the first time in South Africa a rally nut had taken the plunge and invested weeks and weeks of time with his friends riding in amazing places to put together an event that would revolve around paper road book navigation a la the Dakar. Thanks Alexander, Marissa, Wayne, Kobus, all the marshals, pilots, caterers and people of Sutherland - It was an experience that I will always remember.
Here is my 1st video including a the buildup, some prologue pictures, and interviews with many of the competitors along with the start of the first special stage from my point of view. More on this later.
Poignantly, apart from Darryl Curtis and myself I don't think a single competitor had ever completed a navigational rally. It was to be a baptism of fire for many.
We were warned it was going to be something between the Roof and the Dakar and would run for a total of two days. The cost was very, very low as far as rallies typically are concerned, but most importantly it was to be in my home country - South Africa - on a continent where I believe that Dakar should be. I was delighted and spent a lot of time chatting with Alex in 2011 ahead of the event. For those of you who do not know me, I am passionate about rally. It's one of the last frontiers where one can truly test one's endurance and wit in a high-speed mostly off-road environment. It’s not just flat out racing, its racing with your head, you can get lost and lose time, you can look too long at your road book and end up buying the farm, or an missed caution can result in a brutal end to your rally. But more than that, this kind of event tests one's limits of endurance and skill. It requires a high degree of concentration and focus which is difficult after hours and hours in the saddle, and in no time things can quickly go wrong. For me it’s a very emotional experience, and it totally clears my head when I am doing it.
When the Dakar is not on, I spend my free time designing rally routes and building road books, so naturally I asked to be involved in the organization of the event but Alexander insisted that I rather ride it as a competitor. He said it would be a good boost to many of the others who had never done a rally before. It did not take a lot of convincing. ;D
This presented a slight problem as my current place of residence is in Peru and I do not own a bike in RSA. I decided that my weapon of choice would be the "Springbokkie" my Yamaha WR450F which was conveniently setup for doing events like this, and in storage in California.
Although the paint job was a little worse for wear, don't be too harsh: This puppy finished the 2nd longest rally in the world after the Dakar, 4,500km across Brazil in 10days. You can read all about that one if you click on the link in my signature line.
I had a brand new engine put into it and shipped it to Cape Town in March ahead of the rally. Yes this was expensive, but I rationalized that I was doing my bit for South African rally and I wanted to come back and do some riding at home.
Preparation
Andre Stoetbul “KROKODIL “ was kind enough to have my bike delivered to his place of work in Stellenbosch for me. He is a good bud who actually takes life very seriously 8) when he is not on weekends with the dawgs. Not only did he get my boney through customs for me, but he also got the 400kg crate it was in the truck without the use of a crane!
Yip the Yamaha is way heavier than a GS.
Seriously, I had a spare engine in there, six rims, six tyres with mousses, a whole box of spares etc.
Stoetie being Stoetie was not satisfied with only unloading my bike he put it together again, got a new battery, filled it with fuel and took it for a test run. What an absolute legend. :thumleft:
As if that was not enough, he invites me to come down to Paarl and stay with him and his better half to get the bike ready. Then in true Stoetie fashion he offers to trailer the bike to the event. By that time I realized he had basically appointed himself as my manager and frankly, I was delighted by the idea.
:headbang:
There was some electrical/starting issue with the bike so he took it into the KTM guys in Paarl who got the machine working.
I flew down early on the Wednesday before the event that weekend planning to give the bike a shakedown run with MrBig who kindly offered to show me some of the local routes. Now bear in mind I have not seen this bike since 2010 and it has had a total of only 18 days saddle time on it. Importing it to Peru was going to be too expensive so it stayed in the US until I needed it. I basically had two full days to get used to the bike again, because the plan was to drive up to Sutherland on the Thursday night.
Andre says to me “Erm I took it for a test ride but it was not very fast, it only went 60km/hr. Maybe I can’t ride it…. anyway I prefer my big KTM”. He was being serious, I think he was worried he would break it and was unused to the nimbleness.
“Don’t worry about it Andre,” I responded I’m sure it’s fine.”
Thrilled I went through the bike, stroked it a lot and got it started up. Something wierd happened though because all my electrics went out after I turned it off again and was fiddling with the HID light. :-\ I got it going thanks to kick starter but so at least I was still able to ride it. Boland Bikes KTM were unable to assist so on MrBig's recommendation I took it down to
Helderberg Yamaha.
So off I went, showing off to the kids coming out of Paarl school. I got to the fuel station and the bike died there again. Crap. I kicked myself into a frenzy trying to get it started and after a while I eventually did. Clearly there was something wrong with the carb. The ride to Helderberg was lekker, I hit that track on the side of the main road and let the suspension soak it up. It was AWESOME. I got to Helderberg Yamaha who did a brilliant job of sorting it out. It turned out to be a blown solenoid or something like that. ??? (Disclaimer: I know a fair bit about riding bikes, not very much about fixing them, let’s leave it at that shall we? ;D )
It turned out that there was quite bit that my american friends had not gone through the bike properly apart from install the new engine (not impressed). So the Yammaha guys also stripped the bike down and fixed quite few other little niggly things, cleaned the carb etc. , and we also put on a 14-48 sprocket which I have used before and makes the bike quite a bit faster. Of course the chain was now too short with that setup so they did that for me too. The Helderberg Yamaha okes took my bike on at No 99 with no advanced warning and made space in their busy workshop schedule. Headed up by Workshop manager Karen Jurgens who offered me lots of coffee and made sure I had everything I needed, they were awesome. Thank you guys, seriously the best service I have seen in a very long time. :thumleft:
Guys, you must watch out for Karen hey, she is nice to look at and you end up saying “yes” to everything.
So while my bike was in for some TLC, Stoetie then goes the extra mile and loans me his bike to take my rims to a guy who can get some mousses and tyres put on them. :ricky: That 990 of his is totally awesome. Stoetie: I owe you big time boeta. :notworthy:
Later on Thursday the Yamaha guys picked me up and I rode my Yamaha back to Paarl through driving rain. MrBig: Im really sorry we never got to go riding together. Maybe next time.
