".....it was a beautiful spring morning in 2008. i was riding to work aboard my ktm 950s, when i decided it was time to pursue my dream, to compete in the paris-dakar on a motorbike!"
this blog is capturing my journey to dakar, allowing me to share my progress, challenges and stories, with all my friends, family and everybody who comes across this site.
let the journey unfold....
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Some cool Dakar films - 27.01.09
as much as i want to capture the speeds i have ridden at and miles I have covered, i realise that I have not shared any of my feelings, or my excitement and inspiration to ride. the more people i meet the more i realise i need to race the dakar. this truly is an opportunity of a lifetime and i need to see it through. i have not really discussed this with many people, but to those who are coming at this fresh i am not claiming to have competed in this world class event and i have not even ridden a race in the uk yet! but like i said at the start, once i have a few races under my belt i should know have far i have to go!! never the less, i am loving writing about my exploits, planning the trips, and more importantly, riding the bike.....it's inspiring!!
and if you want to see why i want to race the dakar take a look at my blog entry in july 08 'the presentation v3', but for an immediate rush check out these films, they are incredible !!
after lunch with jani and family, julian and i headed back to the farm on our motorised horses!
and in the evening we went boar hunting!
the following morning (my penultimate day in south africa) we finally headed to the cederberg mountains! the 90 minute drive to clanwilliam started at 0630, so we had breakfast once we had hit the gravel road and offloaded the bike. the 158km route over gravel roads and rough tracks took the best part of six hours to complete, including a rooibos tea break in wupperthal and lunch on a pass overlooking cederberg....oh yes, also included my painful effort to remove my repaired number plate which i managed to completely destroy this time around!
my bike loaded up on julian's bakkie on the way to clanwilliam
breakfast
wupperthal
this really was the highlight of my trip in the western cape, as it was a journey into a completely new area of south africa, over 3000ft passes, with wild country spreading out as far as the eye could see in every direction. even at that altitude it was around 28 degrees, so the landscape was very arid, dry, dusty but covered in thick bush and rooibos.
wild country
cruising along the gravel road to algeria
on the last day we headed to stellonbosch for some wine tasting; first stop was the meerlust wine farm, one of the oldest and most famous in south africa. meerlust means "more lust", i like their style!
julian has been a massive support. his generosity, hospitality, patience and encouragement was fantastic. these two weeks away turned me into a knew man, i'm fitter, my knee is stronger, my biking skills have developed massively and i even learned a little more of the mechanic side of things. thank you so much julian : ) i will be back - my honda is oiled up and sitting in one of the barns until i return (gilbright, please look after the bike).
my arrival in london was ahead of schedule, but at 0813hrs, we flew through very thick, very grey and very low cloud and landed on a damp runway....it was only 4 degrees....an english welcome home!! there were south africans on board who looked visibily traumatised by the experience......why they would want to come to england at this time of year i will never know!!!
what a week...... life on julian's guest farm has been full and very entertaining!
having finally beaten the mosquitos with lemon scented 'doom' i have had two fantastic nights of sleep and having overcome an annoying head cold i feel fantastic, even after four very large single malts and debating the legal system with julian until 3am this morning! i've already been out training on the bike today (friday) and had a refereshing swim in the river, so tackling the blog during the heat of the day seems appropriate.
highlights of this week.....
on monday julian planned to meet one of his many vip guests who was arriving by helicopter, a bell 407 (barnes will love the movie clip), in the air over paternoster. a crazy idea but it worked and was great fun! with myself in the co-pilot's seat and hendric behind in with the camera, julian spotted the bell above the sea mist and before long we were a hundred feet apart flying together all the way back to the farm. watching and filming the helicopter land, we circled the farm a few times taking photos before landing and greeting the mayor of berlin and friends!
attempted to fill up my leaking front forks with fork oil, but even with 'all' my mechanic training, text books, notes and a good set of tools (kindly provided by julian), i very quickly realised that upside down forks needed careful attention and a clean workshop.....so i made contact with the nearest bike garage, a yamaha dealership in vredenberg 40km away, and with julian's assistance loaded the bike onto his toyota bakkie and drove there myself. unfortunately the garage had keep the bike in overnight as they needed to order up new fork seals from cape town, so i headed back to kersefontein without my bike so decided some other training was required in the form of a long walk, a short run and some swimming....it is so lovely having the time and space to do these things : )
craig, the garage owner, very kindly allowed me to watch him work on the forks and some interesting facts came out; firstly the guy i bought the bike from thought he had had the seals replaced, in fact the mechanic of the garage that no longer exists, used silicone gel to rather than replace the seals; rather than use fork oil, some sort of hydraulic oil had been used; as a result of this real bodge the spacer was badly scored (as there was so little oil remaining in the forks) and over time the chrome slider had worn in the middle which in effect had tapered it; i also noted that the forks had no pre-load adjustment and the spring was not progressive ie no tighter coils at one end. so, with the seals replaced the bike should make it through the rest of the holiday, but longer term i may want to consider replacing the forks entirely!
another interesting discussion ; ) was had over the tyre pressures required to cope with the rocky and sandy terrain of the western cape. i had a tear in the rear tube, which according to craig was a result of running the tyre on virtually zero pressure.....he recommended keeping the rear tyre as high as possible 2.5bar and having the front tyre at about 1-1.2bar (14.5psi = 1 bar). however, riding the bike that evening was like riding a entirely different bike and i am not sure i am totally happy with the set up; i don't seem to have the same grip and therefore turning ability, and across the sand it really struggles - i know i am quite heavy......and since returning i have removed the wing mirrors (whilst on julian's farm i do not need to be road legal) but have managed to destroy the number plate by hitting a bump too hard and under compression the rear wheel hit the plate; i have lost the rear rhs indicator - probably attached to some bush somewhere in the velt; and today, while trying to stand on the seat holiding on with one hand, i fell off and bent the handle bars, broke the front lhs indicator, and smashed the lhs had guard, oh and the seat fell off....well it was only held on with plastic ties afterall!! i think this is an indication of things to come....
the rear wheel is moving very differently than before now that the front forks have been repaired and with more air in the rear tyre, so i think i am going to reduce the tyre pressure to about 1.5bar and see how that improves both the traction and smoothness of the ride. it may be that the rear shock has gone as well! no one ever said that this was going to be easy, or cheap for that matter! so once i have finished working on my blog i will start bending things back into place and fixing what i can.
by jani's hut
over the last 7 days i have covered over 270km off-road, travelling up to 120kph and generally between 40-80kph. i have to really concentrate at these speeds otherwise i will be picking up pieces of bike and myself, if i am still able to walk that is! i bought some knee/shin pads and now have a neck protector/brace, together with my dainese arm/shoulder/back/ chest protection, arai motocross boots and ktm helmet, so i do have some protection. on the deep sand however, i am lucky if i can travel over 60kph as the bike cannot move any faster. the sand is so slippery and as i have said before it is like surfing - it really is a great sensation! my knee is holding up well which is great, i have been on three 17 or so min jogs on the softer sand/ gravel tracks to reduce the impact, swimming most days and yesterday i took the little rowing boat (8ftx4ft) and covered about 6km of the meandering berg river in about 1hr 40mins, ending up at jani's cottage, where i moored the boat and ran back to the farm - only took 20 mins as it is a straight route back.
julian and i are planning a trip to the cederberg mountains next tuesday. loading the bike onto the izuzu bakkie rather than the old toyota, we are going to head out to citrusdal and follow a 158km curcuit incorporating clanwilliam, wupperthal, cederberg and returning to citrusdal, i will be on two wheels, while julian will follow in the bakkie. a fair amount of the route is track rather than dirt roads, so we may not manage to make it all the way round, especially between wupperthal and cederberg. using google earth and some online maps we think the route is passable. either way it could be a lot of fun!
finally, to add to the list of wildlife i have also seen osterich, tortoise, a pelican, a shark (will add a great movie clip), huge hares, a fox type creature with huge ears which are wider and rounded at the top and today i spotted what looked like an otter, but it was grey, with a long bushy tail that had a black tip, perhaps it was a large cat?
