Bikers...

are these tough fellas you have to watch out for... or are they...

One of the Wildogs saving a calf while out on the Amageza preliminary run in Gauteng, well done Hoofseun!

"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~ Immanual Kant

Stop...

means STOP! Even a kid knows that... Or so I thought, this past Saturday I was gobsmacked when virtually the whole Quad class ignored this most basic of signs and proceeded to blast over the crossing at top speed. Of course the subsequent list of exclusions from the day's results was not taken well by many. Unfortunately I am not letting safety take a second place to popularity or convenience, neither did some of the race jury members, MSA now has to decide... and I will comment further when that happens. in the meantime... please Stop!

"With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down'. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?'" Mitch Hedberg (1968 - 2005)

"One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop." G. Weilacher

Mayday

Down the line... Hopefully these taps will not get feet... plastic does not have the same scrap value as brass... the line is 75mm and should deliver enough water for 10 pressure washers. I still do not know why Dirt Bikes need to be washed between races? It just does not make sense to me? Maybe the chain and number plates but come on guys, no need to wash that machine to concourse standards... this is not a beauty contest! it is a Motocross Race!
Here are some pictures of race day...






We had some drama medic wise but after some frantic phone calls our problems were resolved... the rest of the day was awesome, especially for the spectators, they had the opportunity to watch some great MX racing and had a grand view of the air show as well! In reflection this was a trail run for the National later this year... should be no problem to get that going smoothly now that we know where the hitches were.
"You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance." Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

Rough Ride

We went to Rouxville this weekend for me to clerk the Rouxville 200 off road race, stayed with the Heyn's family who were "hosting" the main part of the event activities on their farm. It is a small world when I found out that their son was a friend of my kids. Sadly he had passed away last year in September. Even in their sorrow they found place to remember what their son loved most and the organisers also dedicated the race to him. I hope that somehow the event helped them in the healing process after the loss. We will miss you Phillip but you will never be forgotten.

Inspecting the route... KLR style! We had great fun doing the shorter route, albeit at a lesser pace than the competitors.
The day before...
Race Day at 07h30... the first competitors set up pit facilities.
Documentation, the ladies sorting out the entrants.
Riders briefing... pointing out the things to remember.

First pair off...
Even the local Constabulary lent an enthuisiastic hand.
All seems to be in place, the Route Marshal and COC sharing a joke.
Race Control... before the radio fried.
Hold still for your tick! Tick marshal at work at Race Control.
Even the rain gave us a break, sunset after a pretty good day.
Trophies and the COC's drink waiting for the results to become final.
"Next year we will do it this way" doing some retrospection about the day's race. Andre, Carel myself and Francois discussing the event and some of the inccidents and feedback from the riders. As usual we could never please them all but one thing was clear... they all said it had been well marked and organised. Unfortunately we had two injuries and we wish both riders with speedy recovery.

Our hosts were amazing and we have new friends for life...

"Traveling there was really boring so I headed for the ditch. It was a rough ride but I met more interesting people there." Neil Young

By the seat of our pants

The route... Hoggies to Seymour via Mitchell's pass...
The mountain with a heart... just for US!

The pass goes down there.....
Getting ready to mount up for the next stop... one of many for various reasons as well!
Now where did the road go, this looks like the Roof of Africa!
A short while later on a really bad patch we got to test our ATTGAT gear... after getting out from under the bike, dusting ourselves off and checking that all parts both on us and the bike worked we decided to roll the bike over a bad patch...
A noob off roader... seasoned off roaders would have hurtled down here flat out... it did get better later on as I got the hang of gunning it through obstacles... I have more confidence in my gear after dropping Shrek three times... or was it four! So a fall would not be too bad as I kept the speed pretty low, using lower gears to brake downhill and to scoot out of slippery bits. I am getting better at this dirt stuff but without the proper gear it would have been very painful.
Here one can see the busted clutch lever from the last "drop"... need to add that to my carry on spares next time.
and here is a KLR solution... use a tool as a spare part. (axle spanner lever) It works pretty well by the way.
a Much needed respite from a very hot and sweaty decent.
From here the road re-appeared and was quite fun to ride, we decided to return to Hoggies via Fort Beaufort and Alice. I was not up to facing more of this type of road for one day.

Of course we were very glad that we had Guardian Angels looking over us, we will be more carefull next time as I think they worked overtime this trip!
"Remember that nobody will ever get ahead of you as long as he is kicking you in the seat of the pants." Walter Winchell (1897 - 1972)