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The riders<br />
Next we had to find some crash<br />
test dummies, to compliment<br />
the usual three jaded Prime<br />
Mates from our office. We called<br />
on Shado Alston, a master<br />
technician with an intuitive<br />
technical aptitude, part time racer<br />
and regular competitor in timed<br />
regularity events and a superbike<br />
riding instructor, so he knows<br />
his stuff. Morag Campbell is a<br />
highly qualified Motorrad riding<br />
instructor that can outride most<br />
of guys in the dirt on big bikes as<br />
well as an architect, so she has an<br />
acute eye for detail and a strong<br />
technical understanding, suitably<br />
qualified in our opinion… and she<br />
makes the pics look good. Then<br />
we got along well known singer/<br />
songwriter and huge motorcycle<br />
enthusiast Garth Taylor, who is<br />
an accomplished mechanic and<br />
excellent rider in his own right as<br />
well as being very talented carbon<br />
fibre craftsman, he also makes the<br />
pictures a lot prettier than our lot<br />
of neanderthals do. So, bikes and<br />
riders sorted… now where to go?<br />
The route<br />
With the fuel prices being quite<br />
punitive at the moment long trips<br />
across the continent are out of the<br />
question even if all of these bikes<br />
are more than up to the task. We<br />
still wanted to have a bit of fun<br />
though and ride them in real world<br />
situations and get out of the city<br />
for a while.<br />
We all met at BMW Motorrad<br />
Fourways and headed out towards<br />
Zwartkops and Pretoria West<br />
via Terratopia. Then we turned<br />
north towards Pretoria Gardens<br />
through the Daspoort tunnel<br />
before turning north east through<br />
Pretoria north towards Bon<br />
Accord, Pyramid, Hammanskraal<br />
to lunch at the Safari mall in<br />
the Dinokeng Game reserve just<br />
this side of Rust de Winter. We<br />
returned in some torrential rain<br />
via Wagensdrift, Moloto Road<br />
and Roodeplaat dam, Cullinan<br />
and back into the big smoke.<br />
Potholes a plenty, terrifyingly<br />
busy traffic, some freeway riding,<br />
rolling green manicured suburbia<br />
and absolutely beautiful roads<br />
and bushveld around Dinokeng.<br />
We can also highly recommend<br />
stopping for lunch at The Chicken<br />
Run Pub & Grill at Safari Mall in<br />
Dinokeng. Lekker big burgers<br />
(Chicken or Beef), for a paltry<br />
R65.00 and even the big okes<br />
were satisfactorily full after that.<br />
The cokes are ice cold, the service<br />
is very friendly and efficient and<br />
the ride there and back is soul<br />
cleansing.<br />
Along the route we discovered<br />
a museum of sorts, still in the<br />
development stages and it is a<br />
playground of old aeroplanes,<br />
tanks, trucks, cars, steam engines,<br />
railroad cars, old cannons… man,<br />
just everything that will make your<br />
heart go pitter patter if you love<br />
old steel. We spent far too much<br />
time wandering around going,<br />
“Wow! Look at that… and that…<br />
and that…”, and eventually had to<br />
hang cable quite a bit to try and<br />
get back on schedule.<br />
We stopped for lunch and fell<br />
behind schedule again. With the<br />
skies getting heavy and dark,<br />
bruised with purple and grey<br />
clouds we decided to do some<br />
high speed runs… just to test the<br />
bikes properly of course, but we<br />
still got caught in the mother of<br />
all storms anyway and arrived<br />
home two hours late, soaking<br />
wet, shivering but still laughing<br />
and giggling and enjoying every<br />
minute on these mid weight<br />
bikes… yes even in the heavy rain<br />
and bone chilling cold.
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