Índex per go! Motorcycle a go!

A duffel, or a dry bag − the type you can buy from a river-rafting company − works great on a motorcycle trip. Take care not to pack heavy gear in here because you want the centre of mass to be down low at the bottom of the saddle bags instead. Rather fill it with clothing and lightweight camping gear like a sleeping bag and a tarp. Don’t pen yourself in, though. Leave some space to slide around. There are two types of saddle bags: frameless and the type that needs the support of a luggage rack. The former saves weight, but a rack can be a handy place for attaching a braai grid, a tool tube or any outsize object that can’t fit inside the bag itself. Your heavier…

During the planning stage for our South American trip, the countries Peru, Chile and Colombia were always on our list to explore at length due to their breathtaking landscapes and fascinating cultures. Bolivia was only mentioned in passing, even when talking to other overlanders, as if it’s a gateway country simply to get to Chile and Peru, and to add another stamp to your passport. Of course, we had read about the Salar de Uyuni; the largest salt lake on Earth, but we had also heard of the higher fuel prices for foreign vehicles, the dash along the Lagunas route, and stopover in La Paz, but not much else. This piqued our interest and later we discovered what a unique city La Paz is. It nestles between mottled mountain cliffs…

You may be wondering why we’re bothering with tinned food, especially when Johané spoilt us with such gastronomic delights (see previous page). Well, sometimes hunger allows no time to follow the culinary arts, and fresh ingredients aren’t always available. This is when you grab a tin and devour the contents right there on the pavement outside the shop. We went shopping at the four most common supermarket chains in South Africa: Checkers, OK, Pick n Pay and Spar, where we bought their own brand’s tinned meat. We then added independent brands Bull Brand and Top One because you find them everywhere. Some brands offer chilli and chakalaka flavours, but we decided to stick to basic corned meat to even the odds among the brands. We bought two tins of each…

3 internet forums Wild Dog Adventure Riding This adventure motorcycle forum with 25 000 members was founded in 2006. The Wild Dogs Forum is the largest of its kind in Africa and here South Africans and overlanders visiting Southern Africa talk about routes they’ve done, find out about routes they would like to ride, share their technical knowledge with others and plan social gatherings. The forum name of the original founder is KiLRoy. wilddog.za.net Adventure Rider This international adventure motorcycle forum is mainly visited by Americans, but it also has a relatively large membership from other nations. The forum was established in 2001 and now has more than 350 000 active contributors. But ADVrider is more than just a humongous internet forum – it has grown into a media network…

Because I once believed that it was possible to describe this intense, never ending elation using words, I usually began with the story of the elephant… Thanks to the Zimbabwean customs guy dragging his heels as he checked our luggage, it was already late afternoon when Dave Briggs and I cleared the Beitbridge border post. Dave was on a K75, me on an old R1100GS. We had to reach Kariba before sundown, because you don’t ride a bike after dark in northern Zimbabwe. There are antelope, bush pigs, cattle and horses everywhere – not to mention the pedestrians. And so we twist the throttle a little wider. Just before the turnoff to the Mana Pools National Park, at 150 km/h in the soft, golden glow of an African dusk, we…

The easiest way to camp is to simply stretch out on a mattress under the stars, sans tent. The Northern Cape’s salt pans and the plains of Namibia and the Great Karoo are eminently suitable for this kind of dossing since the chances of unexpected rain is slim to none. But most of us sleep better when there’s a roof over our heads. The psychological effect of a shelter, even if it’s just a tarp suspended above you, provides lots of comfort after a hard day of riding. Survivalist The first use of a bivvy bag is recorded in the 1916 war journal The Anzac Book when Kiwi and Aussie troops camped in minimalist one-man tents in temporary bases (or bivouacs). By the sixties, the bivvy was a popular choice…

Sea Point’s promenade is now on your right – with its many walkers, dogs on leashes, children in prams and runners with headphones If you’ve ever looked for an excuse to see the Cape on a motorcycle, we have just the route for you. Join us as we follow a tar road across some of the oldest and most beautiful passes in the country and encounter some remarkable characters – from a dog who officially served in the navy to toys dating back to World War II and a guy in the cosmetics industry with a penchant for vintage motorcycles. We depart from Green Point in Cape Town and ride 200 km all along the coast. The route runs through Hout Bay, Kommetjie and Simon’s Town, and around False Bay…

The so-called Baby Boomers – people aged between 60 and 75 years old today – grew up with the legendary Vincent Black Shadow and several Harleys, and when they got their licenses, the Kreidler 50, and later the Honda CB750 and Kawasaki Z1, were extremely popular. But when it came to adventure motorcycles, they had no choices other than converting road bikes for dirt. Generation X, supposedly those between 40 and 55 years old, grew up with a poster of a Suzuki Katana on their bedroom wall while they rode a fifty to school. The GS arrived on the scene around this time, yes, but BMW was “so boring”. Those who finished school in the 1980s – a generation between generations – now around 57 years old and neither Boomer…

Adventure motorcycles are typically divided into three categories: lightweight (200-500 cc), middleweight (up to 900 cc) and heavyweight (1000 cc and over). These categories are not only determined by engine size but also physical weight. Take the lightweight motorcycle, the Honda CRF300L, for example. It weighs a mere 142 kg, which makes it especially suitable if you intend riding an extreme route. If, instead, you’re planning a trip from Agulhas in the Cape to Nordkapp in Norway, then a lightweight motorcycle might sound like the wrong choice. Who, after all, wants to ride 17 000 km at 90 km/h? Well, north of Angola, you will almost never get a chance to go faster than that as the rainforests of Central Africa simply don’t allow it. (Check out Onno Sakkers’ Congo…

Ifind it hard to dissociate the name Angola from the 27-year civil war in which South Africa played a significant part. Most of my generation were called up “vir volk en vaderland” in the eighties, but for the majority of the current, young population of Angola, life has simply moved on and it’s easy to just go with the flow. Tourism is encouraged here (South Africans don’t need a visa), the officials are helpful and, in the towns and cities, people are sweeping the streets. The two biggest changes we must adapt to in Angola, however, are that the local time zone is one hour behind home, and we have to ride on the right-hand (wrong) side of the road. Along the way Anne garners a fan club. Women don’t…

In 1982, the now defunct Afrikaans magazine Motorfiets published an article about Eckhart Hollstein (30), a German guy from South West Africa – this was before Namibian independence – who undertook an overlanding trip through Africa. Eckhart started his journey in Munich, Germany, in November 1981 on a Honda XL500 he had purchased earlier that year in May. Bad luck struck early on when Eckhart lost control of his heavily laden XL500 on the Italian autostrada and he ended up in a ditch. It scared him enough to ride at a more sedate pace to Genoa. From there, he sailed across the Mediterranean to Tunisia, from where he rode to Algeria. Here Eckhart met a fellow adventure rider on a BMW R80G/S and together the two crossed the Sahara. Eckhart…