Cape 2

As a dirt novice in early-2000s GS days, I went riding with a dirt veteran. We hit mud. I’d learnt to gas it when hitting loose sand; surely the same applies to mud?
 
Um…
 
No.
 
 
The cloud thickens in the dark night sky. The lightning flashes, and roaring thunder rolls. 
 
The rain starts.
 
Nothing gentle about it. It erupts into a downpour. The downpour becomes a deluge. The deluge begins to look like a flood. (In fact, they did have a flood here a couple of months ago.)
 
“Tomorrow’s going to be… interesting,” remarks route captain Chris, anxiously. Not words I want to hear. Aside from an actual crash, the things riders fear most are diesel, loose sand, and mud.
 
 
The morning dawns.
 
We assemble at the circle of bikes.
 
I am anything but encouraged to learn the resort manager deems it necessary to escort us, with a 4x4 bakkie (Ute; say the first five letters of Buckingham and you’ve got the pronunciation.)
 
“Ride through the water,” advises the resort manager, from the cab of the bakkie. “Avoid the side of the road.”
 
The four motors start.
 
Reluctantly, the procession makes its way to the dirt road.
 
And the ordeal begins.
 
The Bandit rolls onto the dirt road. She slithers uncomfortably in the mud. Then she encounters an opaque pool. Heedful of the advice, I wade through the water. Steam hisses from the exhausts. Emerging from the pool, the Bandit’s traction improves encouragingly for a moment.
 
It doesn’t last. Almost instantly, she again begins to slither and slide.
 
Another puddle, another moment of encouragement as she emerges from the water and briefly regains traction, before reverting to her drunken skating.
 
Puddle after puddle. Rinse and repeat. Metre after metre, each score of metres feeling like a kilometre.
 
The ground texture changes. Instead of pools & puddles, it becomes an inches-deep bog of greasy, slimy mud. She hits what seems to be a particularly bad patch. The back end swings around crazily. Reflexively I put my foot out to keep her upright. She begins tilting over. It takes all my strength to halt the fall. I manage to stop her from going down any further, but I haven’t enough strength to get her back up again. I gesture desperately to the bakkie. At first, nothing happens. Then, by magic, the Bandit pops upright. The two labourers jumped off the bakkie’s load bed to come to my aid. “Dankie, dankie.” I pant. “Thank you, thank you.” I am tiring, and sweating like a horse under my helmet and leathers.
 
I resume combat with that thick, greasy mud.
 
The Bandit skates and slides, flapping like a fish out of water. On adventure-bike training I was taught to look where you want to go, not where you fear you’ll go. In this quagmire, it just isn’t working. The Bandit is slithering like those trucks you see in WW2 documentaries, as they try to get through snow and mud. Like in those movies, the Bandit is 45 degrees off course, crabbing first one way, then the other. It’s alarming, and very tiring.
 
The motor revs of its own accord as the back wheel spins in the mud, no matter how little throttle I give it. I try running her on idle. In this mud, she stalls. Paddling alongside the bike, I restart, and feed in as little power as possible. She jerks in protest. VZZ-zzz! VZZ-zzz! VZZ-zzz! The unhappy Bandit jerks forward, crabs crazily, and squelches to a halt.
 
It's all I can do to hold her upright. I’m out of strength.
 
Weakly, I raise the white flag. Bandit and rider surrender.
 
The bakkie labours uncertainly to the verge of the mud road and manoeuvres into position in front of the Bandit. The driver and the two labourers jump out.
 
A big motorbike weighs a quarter of a ton, no matter what lies the brochures tell. Four pairs of hands elevate this hefty motorcycle and hoist it onto the load bed of the bakkie. I have barely enough strength to climb up there myself. The bakkie’s motor guns and the vehicle lurches forward, slewing from side to side in the slippery mud. The labourers don’t know how to hold a motorcycle and it’s and uncomfortable ride as I pull against them.
 
At length the bakkie crawls through the manually-opened gate. Once again, four pairs of hands lift the heavy Bandit off the bakkie and down onto terra firma. Then the bakkie turns about and sets off back into that awful mud, to collect the next casualty.
 
Half a lifetime later, the four bikes stand at the verge of the road – the real road, not the mud monster – preparing to set off under their own steam.









I propose a waffle breakfast. Not exactly health food, but after that ordeal we could do with some sugar. The lads vote aye. We set course for the Colesberg Wimpy. “Take it very easily at first,” Chris warns, and one glance at the pic of my tyres will tell you why. Indeed, as the Bandit climbs onto the tarmac, she feels as if she’s riding on rims without tyres. Within seconds the tyres bite reassuringly, and the mud-encrusted Bandit once again begins to feel normal.
 
While we munch our waffles, Felix goes into the town. Felix suffered a puncture in the front (!) wheel of his 800 GS on Day 1. The Colesberg tyre dealer seems quite used to motorcycles, and is able to aid Felix in repairing the front tyre, the second such repair of Felix’ trip. Chris, too, reports the front tyre of his Africa Twin is losing pressure. It has some sort of hi-tech valve that is malfunctioning. We can’t get an air hose onto it. For lack of a better alternative, Chris elects to ride as is and let the pressure come up as the tyre heats up.   
 
The battle with that goddam mud, plus the two tyre issues, have put a dampener on morale. With body language devoid of that “yippee, I’m riding!” liveliness, we set off into the Karoo.
 
I’d so expected late summer heat, it was touch-&-go whether to wear leathers or a mesh vest bearing plastic armour and a kidney belt. I opted for the sensible leathers. Thank heaven I did. The Karoo gets as cold as it gets hot, and I’m freezing my nuts off. Chris, too, dons his rain suit jacket over his riding jacket.
 
The N1 itself is an efficient but unimaginative route, until enlivened by a detour to drop in on Chris’ daughter, who wisely lives in the Karoo.
 
Returning to the N1, we resume the ride.
 
Then an unscheduled stop happens. Felix’ headlight disappears from my mirrors. I stop and wait, he fails to appear, and I send a text to the other lads, and turn back to find Felix. There he is, front of the bike propped up on a column of stones, administering first aid to the front wheel. A good Samaritan, driving a bakkie and trailer, stops to help. Felix’ bike is loaded and borne to the nearest town. Once again the front tube is replaced. His rim band isn’t saving the tube from the spokes. (Disclosure: I may have the wrong day; this may have happened on Day 3.)
 
And once again, we cruise the N1.
 
A sign appears that says, Welcome to Heaven.
 
Well, it really says Prince Albert Road, but turning off the N1 onto the Prince Albert Road is your apprenticeship in Heaven. When you qualify, Heaven itself is an eternal Karoo ride. Petrol, tyres & harp are courtesy of The Man Upstairs.
 
A picture-book ride on the Prince Albert Road brings us into the magic little village itself. Parking the bikes, we administer a little bottled gastronomic first aid so we don’t have to eat on an empty stomach. We walk to the Rude Chef restaurant and discover the hostess does indeed strive to uphold the name. Bellies full, we end the day better than we started it. 








All I now have to cope with is an airfleet of mosquitoes. I didn’t bring a mosquito bomb, and the net over the bed doesn’t keep them off me. A bout of anti-aircraft hand-clapping manages to nail a few of them.
 
Night 2 lays the ground for the magic of Day 3. We are headed for the Swartberg (Black Mountains), a piece of real estate sent to Earth to show very good kids what Heaven is like. And those very good kids just happen to be us.
 
 
 
Regards
Stan L
South Africa  

I KNEW IT ! ! !
Had a smaller, 350m downhill, red clay version myself and I was knackered after that short distance .
Will post later.