stevgh0
Race Dog
So there i was , fighting to keep the bike upright on a dirt road doing 70kph .. nothing more nothing less.
The loose gravel and sand has been pushed either way, i keep telling myself... Hou vas .. of jy gan jou gat los val. Luckily my guardian angel was keeping an eye on me, every time my front lost or seemed to lose traction when i hit the bit of loose gravelsand on the road it just miraculously stayed upright.
So we met at Richwood total around 9am, we set off towards durbanville hills , hitting our first bit of gravel about 11km in the road, i was sitting happily on the nice compact road @ around 120kph still weaving around abit ( back tire is a slick and the front well.. is only marginally better) we hit the 1st t junction and the bike over jumps the landing spot , but i made my turn.. on the tar road by this time.. actually.
We head off to some SARS roads on our way to kalbaskraal and i remember alex telling my , the road gets abit sandy but its okay... (err sandy? My tires has done roughly 10 000km and were doing sandy?) as im iding at about 90kph.. both KTMs left me for dead, i notice the texture of the road changed ... OH bliksem... quick quick STAAN OP! AQAUPLANE wobble wobble *OPEN THROTTLE NOW* seemed to keep me above it ... Yes again both alex and eben waited for me( thank you) and we hit the railway roads to Riverlands via kalbaskraal ... i did not have much trouble on that little piece and it went smootly .. i think there was some thick sand awaiting in a nice ditch that a bakkie or something made (thank you doos, nearly lost it there)
we went through kalbaskraal and rode to riverlands/chatsworth and camelman showed us another route via a farm that we could not take due to the farmer or something .. actually im sure he meant, THE KLE will never make it
we went hopped back onto the rail way road and this was by far the most technical part of the trip, while the ktm's were probably doing around 120kph , i could not go above 80kph, over that the bike would dance around like Michael jackson back in the 80s...
I vaguely remember a bend with a moerse amount of sand waiting for me and all i did was kick out my legs and hope i dont send this un insured bike down ... yes i survived cos somewhere between the kicking of the legs something told me , WTF u doing, stand and open the throttle,.... Okay yes i did that but not much happened ... the 33 bph just gave abit of revs and sounded pretty sad but it got me out of it.
we passed the darling golf course and the road got more fun there , open compact and a couple of dips or so, Yes the KLE HAS ZERO TRAVEL with me on board , i bottomed out the suspension 3 times , and bashed the bash plate more then a can remember. I also lost my numberplate... ( okay i found it again too )
We chilled for abit and went onto darlings dirtroad to malmesbury ... this bring me back to the 1st paragraph... please read again...
So im riding on this bike, bald back tire (not even street legal) and a front tire thats more road orientated on this gravel road, im wresling this girl and every now and then she responds with a , okay its fine sit down steve... so i do , cos by now ive been standing for probably 15 minutes @ 80kph and my legs are getting sore now ( btw im 1.94) so im sitting and wobble wobble ... ag nee man donner .... back up again.... thinking this is probably the safest thing to do and i continue to just look ahead and avoid all the loose spots ( daar was donners baie) for a while both Eben and Alex were behind me - doing 80kph , and yes i knew it would not be that long and the flew past me again , the 640 kicks dust up like you would not believe!! so i look for a dust trail and i dont even see that.. ja nee they are long gone, couple of minutes further they are waiting for me and yes i bitch moan and complain, want ek wil die bike brand! i just want tar , no more of this loose gravel bullshiiiii on bald tires...
Alex says dont worry , tar road ahead , 3km .... i celebrate in my head with beers and girls with wet tshirts going wild .. okay not so bad but you get the point.. i hit the gravel thinking the sooner i get this over with the better... let me tell you , it was the longest 3km of my life ...
we got to the Tjunction and headed back to malmesbury , where we sent eben around riebeek to wellington and me and alex cruised the tar back to ct.
Mind you the wind was gaga but the KLE did manage to occasionally run 160kph with me (120kg) on into a headwind, so yes ...
moral of the story ....
If you want to do wild things ,,,, dont do it on a bald tires .. or a KLE for that matter..
actually the KLE is fine , if you doing things at moderate pace the kle is okay , not the best , but there is probably worse *kymco/Zongshen/loncin* comes to mind
The KLE surprised me alot , its not a bike that most people will take along with 2 katooms (950/640) but the little KLE handled and behaved itself... i probably rode the bike to more of its limits then most people will ever take their KLE.
I roughly averaged around 20 km/l , including almost full throttle the whole way from Malmesbury to TableView and this into a head wind.
Well impressed.
add some pics later , not much but some .
The loose gravel and sand has been pushed either way, i keep telling myself... Hou vas .. of jy gan jou gat los val. Luckily my guardian angel was keeping an eye on me, every time my front lost or seemed to lose traction when i hit the bit of loose gravelsand on the road it just miraculously stayed upright.
So we met at Richwood total around 9am, we set off towards durbanville hills , hitting our first bit of gravel about 11km in the road, i was sitting happily on the nice compact road @ around 120kph still weaving around abit ( back tire is a slick and the front well.. is only marginally better) we hit the 1st t junction and the bike over jumps the landing spot , but i made my turn.. on the tar road by this time.. actually.
We head off to some SARS roads on our way to kalbaskraal and i remember alex telling my , the road gets abit sandy but its okay... (err sandy? My tires has done roughly 10 000km and were doing sandy?) as im iding at about 90kph.. both KTMs left me for dead, i notice the texture of the road changed ... OH bliksem... quick quick STAAN OP! AQAUPLANE wobble wobble *OPEN THROTTLE NOW* seemed to keep me above it ... Yes again both alex and eben waited for me( thank you) and we hit the railway roads to Riverlands via kalbaskraal ... i did not have much trouble on that little piece and it went smootly .. i think there was some thick sand awaiting in a nice ditch that a bakkie or something made (thank you doos, nearly lost it there)
we went through kalbaskraal and rode to riverlands/chatsworth and camelman showed us another route via a farm that we could not take due to the farmer or something .. actually im sure he meant, THE KLE will never make it
we went hopped back onto the rail way road and this was by far the most technical part of the trip, while the ktm's were probably doing around 120kph , i could not go above 80kph, over that the bike would dance around like Michael jackson back in the 80s...
I vaguely remember a bend with a moerse amount of sand waiting for me and all i did was kick out my legs and hope i dont send this un insured bike down ... yes i survived cos somewhere between the kicking of the legs something told me , WTF u doing, stand and open the throttle,.... Okay yes i did that but not much happened ... the 33 bph just gave abit of revs and sounded pretty sad but it got me out of it.
we passed the darling golf course and the road got more fun there , open compact and a couple of dips or so, Yes the KLE HAS ZERO TRAVEL with me on board , i bottomed out the suspension 3 times , and bashed the bash plate more then a can remember. I also lost my numberplate... ( okay i found it again too )
We chilled for abit and went onto darlings dirtroad to malmesbury ... this bring me back to the 1st paragraph... please read again...
So im riding on this bike, bald back tire (not even street legal) and a front tire thats more road orientated on this gravel road, im wresling this girl and every now and then she responds with a , okay its fine sit down steve... so i do , cos by now ive been standing for probably 15 minutes @ 80kph and my legs are getting sore now ( btw im 1.94) so im sitting and wobble wobble ... ag nee man donner .... back up again.... thinking this is probably the safest thing to do and i continue to just look ahead and avoid all the loose spots ( daar was donners baie) for a while both Eben and Alex were behind me - doing 80kph , and yes i knew it would not be that long and the flew past me again , the 640 kicks dust up like you would not believe!! so i look for a dust trail and i dont even see that.. ja nee they are long gone, couple of minutes further they are waiting for me and yes i bitch moan and complain, want ek wil die bike brand! i just want tar , no more of this loose gravel bullshiiiii on bald tires...
Alex says dont worry , tar road ahead , 3km .... i celebrate in my head with beers and girls with wet tshirts going wild .. okay not so bad but you get the point.. i hit the gravel thinking the sooner i get this over with the better... let me tell you , it was the longest 3km of my life ...
we got to the Tjunction and headed back to malmesbury , where we sent eben around riebeek to wellington and me and alex cruised the tar back to ct.
Mind you the wind was gaga but the KLE did manage to occasionally run 160kph with me (120kg) on into a headwind, so yes ...
moral of the story ....
If you want to do wild things ,,,, dont do it on a bald tires .. or a KLE for that matter..
actually the KLE is fine , if you doing things at moderate pace the kle is okay , not the best , but there is probably worse *kymco/Zongshen/loncin* comes to mind
The KLE surprised me alot , its not a bike that most people will take along with 2 katooms (950/640) but the little KLE handled and behaved itself... i probably rode the bike to more of its limits then most people will ever take their KLE.
I roughly averaged around 20 km/l , including almost full throttle the whole way from Malmesbury to TableView and this into a head wind.
Well impressed.
add some pics later , not much but some .
