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Wild Motorcycle Tales

Here's a great story from Jason Blundell. Got your own story? Send it to me.

Road Trip to Namibia

South Africa really is a great country for long distance rides. Having ridden on the back of my dad's bike out to the surrounding countryside of Johannesburg when I was growing up, I couldn't wait for the day when I would get the opportunity to do the same on my first bike, a red 2005 Hyosung GT 250.

My dad had also just got himself a blue 2007 Suzuki SV650S. It finally arrived when my family and their rather large group of friends organised a five day river rafting trip on the Orange River in Namibia. I'll never forget the expression I made when my dad said that we would ride there.

Over the months leading up to the trip, we went on 'practice' runs to outlying small towns (colloquially known as dorpies) of which there seem to be an infinite number in South Africa. But finally the day came.

At 6 in the morning, we got our pannier bags on the bikes, geared up, got on our bikes, turned on the ignition and rode!

Johannesburg is approximately 1300 kilometres away from the particular part of the Orange River we were going to. The River actually forms part of the border between South Africa and Namibia. Not wanting to spend too much money, we would cover the distance in two days.

Everything was going smoothly. But if the trip was smooth the entire way, there wouldn't be a story to tell. Near the end of the day, I was coming out of a curve and proceeded to change to fourth gear, when the clutch lever instead decided to flap against the handle bars uselessly. Fortunately we were just arriving in a town, and I pulled over fairly safely, stalling the bike in the process.

Both me and my dad feared the same thing: that the cable had snapped. A quick inspection revealed that the pin that held the engine end of the clutch cable had gone on its own trip some way behind us. With a very inadequate pair of side cutters, we nicked some wire from a farm fence I had pulled over next to and twisted so as to tie the cable to the actuator. Two years later and that fix is still in place.

Feeling elated with our victory over an MIA clutch pin, we set off again. Every hundred kilometres or so, the Suzuki's stone seat and vibrations from my bike would periodically turn our rears into jelly, and we would have to take a break whilst our rears transformed back into semi healthy flesh. It was at one of these breaks that my dad noticed something. The bolt which fastened the top of my exhaust to the Hyosung's tail had lost its nut and was hanging on by a thread. Quite literally. I had done some maintenance, (which in hindsight the bike would have done better without) before the trip and a lack of tightening was to blame. The engine oil cap had also started to come loose, and the bike had lost some oil. But the worst part was the licence disk, which would normally sit between the bolt which held up my exhaust and the same nut that had dropped off several hundred kilometres behind us, had followed that nut. This would be a problem at the border post, where the license disk on a vehicle is ultimately more important than the number plate. Scavenging a bolt from my dad's bike and some good tightening fixed the problems, but nothing could be done about the license disk.

I was extremely worried for the rest of the trip, because in the worst case scenario, we would have to leave the bike at either of the two border posts we would have to pass through, and pray it was still there when we got back from the river rafting. I haven't said this yet, but I love this bike. It's more than I could have asked for as a beginner's bike, and I would not have any other bike for my first bike. With the license disk missing, this could be my last ride on it!

Later that day, we were a hundred kilometres out from our overnight stop, Upington, and the license disk was the last thing on my mind. Having just passed through a town with a very large insect population, I found my visor showed more goo than road. Couple this with a solid days riding fatigue, and we were riding right into the sunset. After that incident, I don't know how all those cowboys could walk off into the sunset so calmly.

We covered the last hundred kilometres to Upington in one stint. I don't know how my dad felt, but I was dreaming about the tall buildings (relative to the flat veldt around us) of Upington and all their glorious shade.

We booked into our bed and breakfast and went for supper at a nearby bar. (International travellers take note, whilst our currency sucks, B & B's are still much cheaper than hotels, and will offer similar if not identical levels of accommodation.)

At the bar we started talking with two other bikers, one of which told us about her husband's story in the northern parts of Africa. Her husband was with a large group of riders doing a tour of northern Africa. Now passing between countries in the rest of Africa is no small matter. The mountain of paperwork required to get 30 or so riders between all the countries they were touring was enough to fill a large book, so she said. In one country, she neglected to mention which, a single police officer/soldier/militia/man with a gun was giving them kak (I'm sure you can work out what this translates to) for not having something or another in order. He said that he would have to accompany the group whilst they detoured to some governmental facility in order to sort this out. Now the group leader was fairly certain that whatever this man was talking about was a load of bull, so as the indignant enforcer climbed on the back, the leader gunned the throttle, stood the bike on its rear wheel, promptly throwing off the enforcer and took off with the rest of the group towards the border post, leaving the enforcer behind shaking his fists in the air.

Well, we headed back to our rooms and turned in. The next morning when we started on our second leg I started noticing a strange feeling and sound. Whenever I would pull off, the bike would feel slow and seemed to 'bounce' its way into moving. Instead of revving up nicely, the revs would sound like they oscillate before stabilizing, and the bike would start accelerating properly. I didn't think much of it at first, but it got steadily worse and worse as the trip went on. The second leg wouldn't be as long as the first, and as we rode into Sbringbok, we met up with some of the family who were driving up from Cape Town.

On this trip I had already learnt a lot. One of the lessons I had learned was that a 250cc motorcycle might not be the best machine for long distance touring. For the greater part of the trip we had been travelling west, and the wind which was with us the whole way was pushing us to the left. Now that we had started north for Namibia, we were riding into the wind head on. Even opening the taps fully didn't make the bike go any faster than 100 kilometres an hour in that wind. On one of our breaks my dad said to ride behind him, so as to slipstream him. It was certainly one of the scariest parts of my riding experience, getting about a foot away from a large mass of moving rubber was hair raising. Mercifully, the wind lessened, and I could ride normally again. At the next fuel stop, my bike had gained an increase in mileage of about 50 percent from the slipstreaming.

We were getting very close to the border and we found an unexpected surprise. Up until now we had been driving on some of the flattest ground and straightest road we had ever seen. And just outside the South African side of the border post, there are some of the best corners and twisty sections I have ever ridden on. As we approached the border I had become increasingly worried this would be my last ride on this bike. When I saw this section of road, I thought to myself: "If this is my last ride on this bike, I will damn well enjoy it!" So I sliced through those turns and had an absolute blast, and I was feeling on top of the world as we neared the border post.

Apparently there was meant to be some sort of luggage check at the SA border post. Not so much as a batted eyelid as we handed in our papers and passed through without a second glance. The Namibian border post was more of an old aircraft hanger than a border post. There was a parking lot and a queue for the checking of passports and papers. That's it. There wasn't even a gate to prevent anyone from simply driving straight through the border post. More likely than not if we had simply parked, hung around the buildings a bit, gone inside and come out a few times we could have then simply driven through and no one would notice. But we were good. We handed in our papers and went in legally. No flinging of people off bikes here. And what of the bikes? license? Not a word was said, either by us or by the border patrol staff.

Almost immediately after we left the border post, we took our turn off to the river rafting company. I'm going to summarise here. We rowed some boats, we camped, the family made music (In true Blundell fashion) and we fell in the water.

Now time to worry again, because we were going the other way through the South African border post. The Namibian border post was still more old aircraft hanger than border post, so I wasn't worried about that part.

This time at South African customs, we had our number plates taken down, and our license disks looked at. They asked about my missing one, and we told them what had happened. My dad at the beginning of the trip very wisely decided to bring with us the proof of ownership forms for our bikes and the customs official casually glanced over these. He seemed satisfied and let us through. That was it; the whole ordeal wasn't really anything to worry about.

The ride home was uneventful, until we got to Johannesburg. By this time that weird feeling that the bike had on the first leg was beginning to become a problem. I talked to my dad about it, and we examined the chain. It was shot. It had stretched so much that it was making it difficult to pull off without stalling. Worse, it was still stretching.

Joburg drivers have a habit of pulling off very quickly when the light goes green, and one doesn't want to be caught up in the mess of impatient car drivers all trying to get home from work. Nevertheless, we made it home in one piece. My dad's trip meter counted a total of 2638 kilometres there and back.

Despite all the problems I had, I loved every moment of the trip, and while river rafting isn't really my thing, riding to see the family again very much was. -- Jason Blundell

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