Here is Stage 2's video,
please click on this photo for it, and grab a cup of coffee while it up loads.
If you have a very slow connection you can view this lower quality version on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG3bRYqJS_I&list=UUzsJV1emQgh4demXjKJ2JDw&index=1&feature=plcp
Otherwise pm me if you would like to download the .wmv file direct.
For most of the video I was chasing Darryl Curtis, at one stage I almost took out a game fence, but I make up for that near miss with another nice face plant later in the vid. :ricky: :ricky: That's when the fast guys took over. Perhaps one day when I am big.
I was lucky enough to open the stage but it was a flying start which upset me a bit because I never got the chance to stop and clean my goggles or anything. As a result I also missed capturing a very spectacular crash of No 107 Chris Barry on camera. He chased me out in No. 2 position. He stayed with me until half way down that pass where I started to break away by maybe a couple of hundred metres from him, pushing really hard on the short straighter bits where I could.
I picked speed up to about 120km/hr on one long, straight section, still half way down the pass, but the road dropped out of view and I ended coming into a blind corner that was tightening up way too fast. This is where an Intl. Rally std. road book would have been useful because this type of hazard would have been marked and you can ride to the road book rather than the local conditions at a slower pace.
Anyway I locked up front and back brakes and thought I was going to be a goner in some big boulders, but somehow managed to bring my Springbokkie to a stop a long, semi-controlled sliding stop, eventually low siding right into the edge of the road next to some massive boulders. As I picked it up to get going again I thought to myself that this one would be a nasty for some of the other guys too. Right then I heard this roar of another bike locking up on gravel and in came Chris at one Helluva pace straight into the rocks next to me. He did a triple somersault right in front of me bouncing as he went off and between boulders, his bike cartwheeling over and past him.
It was horrific.
Amazingly enough he sprang up from between the rocks almost immediately and charged like a man possessed to his bike which had come to rest in the rocks a good 6-10 meters in front of where he was. I was convinced he had broken something and was running on pure adrenaline, so I stopped him and asked him again to prove to me he was okay. He repeated he was fine and reassured me so I got going again. I'm pretty sure Chris would have been quite stiff and sore the next day because it was a helluva prang.
Unfortunately for him his bike had smashed its sump badly and lost all its oil so he had to basically return to the start. I only found out about this later. You can actually see him very briefly standing alone, a ways off with his bike right at the end of this video. :-\ Commiserations to you Chris, I really loved your home made nav. tower you did on your XR 650 - it is a work of art. :drif:
As it turned out Chris saw at least another three guys come off right there and I heard from quite few other had they not seen his head poking like a meerkat above the blind rise and his helmet on the road they would have crashed there too. Chris later told me he was nearly taken out by a couple of the guys as well in the same place.
I rode on almost immediately but stopped after about another 5 minutes to turn on my camera. I really wanted some footage for the day, especially after missing all that drama. This is where you hear Darryl Curtis who started 3rd, come flying past me. That's also how I ended up chasing him. I lost another 3-4 minutes sorting myself out and but despite this I could see his lines easily and so it became a great learning opportunity for me to ride behind such a skilled rider. Over beers I can tell how good he is at navigation as well.
Its good to know they are not 100% perfect, but only about 99%. ;D
Those of you who follow the Dakar will know how it is with rallies, that it is invariably easier for the No2 to make good time when the front guy is doing all the navigating. So I was able to catch up to him but (only just and it was brief) on the fast section right before the hills but as soon as it got more technical I lost sight of him again very, very quickly.
I hope you enjoy. I tried to keep it just to the highlights. You will see how unfit I was...puffing and hissing like a steam train.... Despite falling off and taking it quite up the mountain, I was pretty pleased with my performance up to this point.
One more video to come after this - My Broekskuur hell and the enduro series that lead up to it plus some interviews at the end if I can fit it in.
Remind me to tell you about Orangeswifty and Dodo and their bubblebath on the Saturday night... :thumleft: :imaposer:
Cheers
Neil
aw:
