Alrighty so I have a moment to tell a few stories, in case anyone cares to listen.
Firstly a round up of the petrol statistics...
Total Litres Consumed by the Vibrator - 164.582 l
Total Cost of litres consumed - R 1 329.63 (not bad considering my guesstimate was R1200 for the trip)
Total Fuel Stops : 21 - Range between the Buell and R6 balanced at about 200km so we didn't want to take chances.
Km/l Average : 17.63 (not bad, considering this includes two tanks or "frames" which saw nothing less than 200km/h on the clock)
The bike would run up to about 160km/h with consistent fuel usage across the board, but the moment you crossed that line I only managed about 150km on the tank instead of the usual 200+. Bear in mind this is a 14.7 litre capacity with a slightly over zealous reserve light.
Ultimately I think it's not down to the bike being thirstier at higher revs, but rather a case of aerodynamics requiring much more power at those speeds. The R6 on the other hand tended to be more economical in the 180km/h region.
Day 1 (Thursday) - Fairly event free, and rather boring. As I said before my perception of touring has changed dramatically, and in future long trips like these should be covered with less than 500km a day and time to spare to make any stops possible. Ultimately an end destination shouldn't even be on the cards, but that could get a little hairy especially with regards to accommodation at the end of the day.
Our destination was Port Elizabeth on day one, and our progress was fairly slowing. We had been warned with regards to lots of road works, but hadn't really had any problems up to about Stormsrivier where we hit the first real Stop/Go. Those of you that rode with to the Buffalo last year will be pleased to find that the roads around Caledon are now complete and in fantastic condition.
The toll road through Stormsrivier is however under construction, and I'm guessing they are adding an extra lane on each side, which ultimately will remote the only bottleneck on that entire section of road. At the moment though the surface condition is shocking, and of course the Stop/Go's aren't much fun especially when you are suffering from numbum after doing 500km already.
So the final 200km stretch into PE we were just about gatvol, and ready to nail it, just to be pleasantly surprised by the worst road works of the day just outside PE. Fortunately being on bikes we slipped past to the front of every single Stop/Go which eased the pain somewhat.
We stayed in Blue Water Bay just past PE, in a B&B which is basically a massive house with I think 5 different apartment sections for guest, and a community breakfast area. Think we paid R190 per person which included breakfast and was quite reasonable. Smallish room, but completely separate bathroom with fancy bath and shower, and also a separate entrance where we parked our bikes right at the door. We were however rudely awakened the next morning at 6:00 by some Whamkilikili doef-doef stuff which sounded like some conference or something.
722km for the day if I remember correctly.
Day 2 (Friday) - First stop was Oakley in PE so Nico (R6) could take some specs in to be repaired. Oakley made good and said they could do it on the spot and have it ready in 15min, so we decided to wait and headed out at about 9:30 for Grahamstown.
Apparently we missed something, because everyone is always gaaning aan about Grahamstown, but we found nothing spectacular at all, and struggle to find petrol never mind anything else. We were warned that the road to King William's town was in a dire state, and filled with cops. We passed one Gatso just outside Grahamstown, but got away with a friendly wave, which in retrospect might have been a sign to pull over....oh well.
The roads towards the Transkei in my opinion are in better condition than anywhere else really, and there are some fantastic passes in between which are in perfect condition actually. Problem really is that the roads have recently been reconstructed and thus there are no lines. Pot Hole warning are everywhere, but we found them to be pretty much unfounded. Often you'll have pot holes to the shoulder, but those are hardly a problem for a bike which travels closer to the middle.
I can't remember exactly but I think it was just outside Peddie where I came around a corner at about 120 just to find a massive queue of cars waiting for the Stop/Go. Naturally a bit of hard braking was in order, but what made it hilarious was the oke with his red flag, because the faster I came closer the faster he waved as if it would make a difference. Slightly hairy situation, but nothing too serious. Fortunately I took the chance of having a peek past the cars, because they were standing for a good kilometre, and we opted to skip past all of them.
King William's town is actually quite a nice little place. Naturally nothing spectacular out here in the Wild East but they seem to be on the ball.
Next stop Mtatha (Umtata) where I was born.
Now I need to mention that the country is absolutely fantastic to ride through. The scenery is just amazing, and it stretches for miles on end, and absolutely everything is green. It's also an amazing cultural experience because naturally everything is Xhosa, and it's clearly apparent that many of these people have never seen bikes in their lives, or at least very rarely. Every stop in the completely black towns like Peddie and some of the other small villages was met with absolute wonder, and people asking questions about the bikes and where we were going, like we were celebrities or something. It was also apparent that nobody knows that a bike is legally required to have it's lights on at all hours, since we got flashed by every second car to tell us our lights were on.
And then things got hairy...
Now I might have been born in Umtata, but I didn't realise that the surrounding country was virtually in the mountains,and thus ridiculously high above sea level. Needless to say we literally got stuck in the clouds, which effectively brought our viewing distance down to less than 30m.
Cattle dodging had already been fun for most of the day, but entering roads you haven't seen before blindly was rather intimidating. Ultimately I'm guessing we did about 200km perfectly blindly, both outside Umtata and later approaching Port St John.
As dangerous as it was, it was a lot of funny. Amazing to see the massive landscapes completely disappear and losing 360 degree vision entirely. Makes you really feel small in the world.
And that's when it got really exciting...
You see Mtatha/Umtata has this ridiculous infatuation with speed bumps. Not normal large speed bumps, no rather a series of small very hard very upright speed bumps in a row with a cars length between them. A case of "this is a 60 zone, if you don't do 60 we'll make you do 60".
Not only does it completely cock up the flow of traffic, especially at peak hour when we passed through, but it's bloody dangerous. Traffic comes to a complete stand still in town, because of people negotiating the bumps out of town. And there's no robot in the main street, just a four way stop.
I figure we lost about an hour, just trying to navigate through and out of Mtatha.
And then we went back into the clouds...
About 10km outside of town I see a 80km/h sign, and fortunately slack down to about that speed, and then soon after follows a 60km/h which I don't really slack down for. And then...blindly I strike a massive speed bump, and I have zero chance of cutting speed because there are another 5 in close succession. Needless to say I figured I bent a rim or two, and possibly lost an exhaust but the bike help up well, and my luggage was still in place.
Oh somewhere along the line we realised my running light was dead, but later from the rest we heard it's been dead for a few weeks. So I was riding in front, since cars only saw my numberplate light, and my brake lights.
The final stretch to Port St John was in the clouds, and full on showers this time at a steady 80km/h following a Ford Focus through the mountains because we couldn't see anyway.
We arrived absolutely soaked, and not having stopped to put the rain cover on the luggage, figuring we only had so far to go, all the stuff in the bags was wet as well.
Friday night was good fun, considering the Gautengers bought a drum of Crayfish for something ridiculous like R350. Naturally all under the table, and I figure I had about 12+ straight off the braai. Envy...wa ha ha ha ha.
Saturday saw us doing about 10km of offroading up and down a mountain on roadbikes just for breakfast, but keeping it slow made it event less so all was good. The Gautengers decided their measly 900km was too much and they needed 2 days to ride back up, because it was too much for them coming down, so they set off on Saturday afternoon.
Of course this was after I had my fun on the ZX14 and Z1000.
The Z1000 is very nimble, and actually a little bit scary in my opinion. I also sensed a very strange vibration which made the Buell seem sedate, half way up the revs. The rear suspension was a little bit soft, so maybe that caused the vibration, but it seemed completely revs related.
The ZX14 was just over the top and way too much bike for me. This particular one has a Full Arata system on, Power Commander and I believe some cam work done as well. We all know I can't wheelie, and I managed to lift this bike second gear virtually off idle. Absolutely clinically insane!
It is however a very comfortable bike, I couldn't believe it. I figured it was just a bigger over the top brother of the ZX10, but it is in fact much more of a tourer than expected.
Saturday night saw us getting slaughtered at the resort's pub. They basically have a standing rule that when Pool is played the loser buys shots for all players. Being pretty good at Pool meant not leaving the table once, and getting a drink with every round. Fortunately I didn't feel as bad as it really was Sunday morning, and by the time they started putting Mampoer down, I figured someone needed to go Braai otherwise we would never eat, so off I went.
Sunday we aimed for East London, because the R6 had managed to stretch it's chain, even though it was find on Thursday night. Must have been those bloody speedbumps, or it just went weak at a point unexpectedly. It was a rather slow and relaxing ride, since the rest had a rather intimate discussion with the Mampoer the previous evening.
Yet as the time went by the speed increased, and that's when we passed a Gatso with a nice little blue man jumping into the road. I was already 100m passed the thing when I eventually stopped, as I was thinking of skieting if the R6 did as well, but he pulled over so I figured if this copper wanted my number he would have to take a walk. No problem, five minutes and R40 later we were back on the road, and the 141km/h in an 80 magically disappeared. It's days like these that I don't mind the corruption in this country.
We ended up staying at the Premier Regent hotel in EL, because I wasn't particularly keen in going to stay with my family, and Nico's buddy couldn't help us out. We were warned the Backpackers is a bit risky, and when we found out the hotel has rooms for R320 a night we figured it's a bargain.
Terms & Conditions and Fine Print apply as it always goes. Turns out the rooms have absolutely no view or hole to the outside world. No windows, only a ceiling fan. It wasn't that bad, but it definitely wasn't great either.
Monday morning saw us heading for De Rust. The plan was to head back out along the N2 as we had come, and then jump onto the R62 from there.
And heading back to Grahamstown is where the little "oopsie" happened. I'll write it down to getting into the momentum of overtaking. No lines on the road and I took a peek past a truck, and my brain said there is a massive gap to overtake with no oncoming cars. That was until I found myself next to this truck which became longer and longer the more I accelerated, and then all of a sudden a car from the front.
I figured it was the end of the road for me, because there was no run off whatsoever, not even a gravel section. Needless to say I'm still here, and what resulted was a pure miracle. I ended up line splitting about five cars head on, while also locking up the rear under braking in an attempt to get back behind the truck. And I knew I couldn't try to look behind me to see where the truck ended, because surely I would run right into it.
It was HECTIC very very hectic. And after coming out alive at the other end I immediately pulled over for a breather, because my concentration was shot.
Naturally I let Nico take the lead, and the pace was dropped considerably for the remainder of that section.
Coming past PE we picked up the pace again, not being too lus anymore and just wanting to relax a little.
Once we hit the R62 the ride became fun again, and we were slaughtering corners until we met the sign to Uniondale saying road closed. But the sign was sorted of in the middle of the road, and we saw numerous cars come out. Turns out the road was flooded, but there were single lane sections open, and the locals assured us we should be fine.
Fine on a bloody GS maybe!!!! We negotiated some dongas with our sportsbikes, which some okes with their duellies would be scared of. Best of all, some were at relative speed, because we couldn't see the surface changes at all, due to the sun shining directly in our eyes. The Uniondale road is almost identical to Meiringspoort only not as long, and not as hectic. It could be a great biking road when it's repaired, until then I would advise even cars to steer clear.
No such luck as to pick up the Spook in Uniondale, I guess she didn't smaak sitting on top of the luggage.
The final stretch round the back from Uniondale to De Rust sucks. The sections with corners were a nightmare due to the time of day and the sunlight completely blocking our vision with dark visor or shades on. The rest is perfectly straight for kilometres on end, pretty damn boring unless you plan on doing top end runs.
De Rust was the same old same old. Herrie's Pub is a little bit more expensive than I remember, but we figured after eating crap on the road for 5 days, we could afford to dish out on a rack of ribs. Needless to say it wasn't fantastic, but it did the job.
Tuesday morning I figured it was my duty to go show Nico Meiringspoort. The road is as good as always, but the trucks have mangled the surface just a little bit since my last visit. We only did one up and down, because we needed to get on the road.
Oudtshoorn here we come for breakfast at the Steers which Abu will remember we stopped at as well. We hit a Stop/Go just before the pass to Ladysmith where we ended up waiting for a good 20min. Not bad since it's the only Stop/Go where we actually stopped long enough to take our gear off. Made some friends with some locals, whom we passed back and forth all day as we stopped and such.
I initially wanted to shoot over Tradouw to the N2 like we did before, since I was heading for the Strand, but then I figured I would accompany the R6 all the way home.
By the time we hit Montagu we were tired, and the warp speed drive was engaged. The Buell unbelievably has still not been top ended. The R6 was very optimistic though, since it saw 240km/h on the clocks, and I'm dead sure the Buell can't maintain that.
Filled up at Robertson, and Scott's warning about the heat was really hitting home. The closer we came to Capie Town, the more fluids we needed to take at every stop. And with the riding going a little bit woes, the bikes were also suiping quite heavily.
A priest in Robertson lied to us, telling us Worcester is only 15km out. Bastid, it was a good 35km, but anyway. Hitting past Worcester we opted to the take the tunnel instead of the pass like we original planned. And then it finally happened. As I adjusted in my seat for a stretch, the right knee finally gave up. No more jumping around in the seat then, and just nurse yourself home Shaun.
The 70zone through the tunnel and down the mountain was blatantly ignored, as we simply couldn't care less.
Eventually hit home with exactly 2795km on the clock, and I'll sure as hell do it again but next time taking a lot more time and possibly taking a different bike.
I've added a few pics, saving bandwidth you know...
