Archive of BMW Motorrad Club Cape (2006 - 2019)

Andy's "trip teaser" on the forum was very tempting: 

'A Must-Do trip on your calendar," he said. "OFF ROAD. You can dream you went on it, wish you were on it or you can book and get onto the trip."

True to form, the trip filled up very quickly.

As always, Andy delivered on the promise: We had it all - sun, wind, rain, thunder and lightning, hail (yep, the hard white stuff), slippery mud, sand, rocky ascents, smooth gravel, loose gravel and more.

Following is the report and some pics of the ride in our part of the group - looking forward to seeing everyone's pics!

The routes were:

Saturday route 500km

From Somerset West to Bettys Bay, gravel up Highlands Pass into Elgin (breakfast at Peregrine's), Grabouw, tar via Viljoens Pass, Villiersdorp, Rooihoogte Pass and then gravel via the Koppies road to the Scherpenheuwel gravel road (over the Doorn River), Ashton, back on tar for a brief while through Kogmanskloof pass, Montagu and then gravel again over Langkloof Pass, Ouberg pas, Rooinek Pass to Laingsburg, a short section on the national road and then the last bit of gravel to Merweville.

Overnight in Merweville. option to camp or B&B

[OPTIONAL NIGHT RIDE: 50km circular route night ride, in full moon conditions, head and tail lights masked out 90% with cardboard. riding in pairs, 200m between each pair, on tweespoor farm roads; promises to be great fun.]

Sunday route  400km

From Merweville, via the R356 (gravel) to Sutherland via the tweespoor up Benna's Pass (Rooidraai Pass), Ouberg Pass down to the Tankwa Karoo, and back to Ceres (it got late so the intended gravel detour via Katbakkies Pass did not happen), back on tar for Mitchells Pass, Bainskloof Pass and home.

Gavin and I left Cape Town on the Friday afternoon to spend the night with friends who have a farm just off the Koppies road - they were kind enough to bring a birthday celebration forward by a day so that we could do the trip (what better way to start a trip than with champagne).

View from the top of Rooihoogte Pass

Early morning, my friend Suzi and I went for a quick trot around the hills before we met the group on the Koppies road.

Exchanging one kind of horse power for another

Andy gave us a timecheck when the group was finishing breakfast at Peregrine's Farmstall, and we waited on the Koppies road.

Waiting for the group on the Koppies road

Our esteemed leader was the first to approach...

Andy on the Koppies road...

Geelkameel (?) coming up on the Koppies road...

From the Koppies road, we took the Scherpenheuwel turn-off towards Robertson, stopping en route to regroup. (Road conditions were great - this is a lovely area to play around in.)

Regrouping after the Scherpenheuwel section

Refuelling in Ashton

From Ashton we rode through Kogmanskloof and turned off after Montagu onto some great gravel towards Laingsburg.

 There were some really lovely rock formations to admire: Noeline en route to Laingsburg

We did have one tiny incident on this section when a corner jumped up at Stan while he was trying to stay on Andy's wheel through a corner (he thinks he grabbed some front brake). It was not a sidestand incident - he and his bike did truly part company. Although Stan and his bike were well enough to limp to Merweville on Saturday, by Sunday morning the aches and pains had caught up & the bike was trailered back.

Snack break en route

After refuelling in Laingsburg, we hit the tar for some 40km and then turned off to Merweville. The last stretch had a fine sandy layer on the road to keep you awake after a long day's riding, and we pulled into Merweville just before 6.

For the record, Merweville has one street light, two places where you can find accommodation, a church, some lovely windpompe, a handful of houses and that's pretty much it. It's just awesome.

Windpomp in Merweville

Merweville main road

Springbok Lodge: Springbok Lodge had 6 rooms to rent; some club members stayed at the Koup Gastehuis and the rest camped.

 Springbok Lodge se eie windpomp: Annie said from where they were camping, she could hear it starting to squeak in the middle of the night ... this was just before it started to rain

The camp site was not your traditional type of camp site...

Supper was a braai with lamb chops as you only get them in the Karoo, a braaibroodjie and salad. This was the spot where it all happened (pic taken the next morning ;-)

BMW Cape Club comes to Merweville!

Early the next morning, one of our club members gave a local resident ("Die Burgemeester"), who said that he had never been on a bike, a spin around town. (He may not necessarily remember that he had been on a bike; his hangover seemed impressive. The local's hangover, that is.)

Merweville church: The church has received money from the Rupert Foundation and is now being extensively restored

Merweville taxi/local transport.

Unfortunately the rain and clouds put an end to the idea of the full-moon night ride.

Day 2

Breakfast was served by the same tannies who had done the braai the night before: Yoghurt, cereal, toasted cheese, eggs, bacon, sausage - enough to make your heart cringe and arteries cough, but oh so nice.

At breakfast, Andy starts to wind up the group: COMMITMENT!!! he says. The route now goes up Rooidraai Pass, this is A TECHNICAL PASS. You  have to commit at the bottom, choose a gear, make peace with the off-camber steep sharp corners, ignore the rocks and just GO! If (when) you stall your bike, just wait for someone else to park first and then come and help you; on your own you won't get going again.

Noeline and I looked at one another and I'm sure a nervous giggle could be heard from our side of the breakfast table.

After breakfast I asked Annie if the pass was as bad as Andy was making out. Annie was pale: I try to not think about the mountain section, she said, especially when I heard the rain starting to come down...

Hmmm.

It was about then that I started getting nauseous - not sure if it was the oily eggs or the fact that even Annie was approaching this section with caution!

But first we had to get there.

We left on the R356 for Sutherland, and as we did so, it started to drizzle. Now, I don't know if you know Karoo gravel roads and rain: They never see the wet stuff, and when they do, the road gets a lovely snotty slippery coating. Great stuff, especially if you ride it for the first time. It was, as they say, "interesting". But - stand up, look up and easy-on-the-throttle got us all through and finally we got to Rooidraai Pass.

The climb was everything that Andy had promised: Interesting, rocky, muddy, rutted, off-camber, steep, fascinating and HUGE fun.

Regrouping at the top of Rooidraai Pass: Sorry, the idea of stopping on the pass to take a pic did not cross my mind. Funny that.

Top of Rooidraai Pass

Fortunately there was less mud at the top of the plateau, but suddenly the temperature started to drop to around 6 degrees.

The next minute it started to hail.

At first I could not quite believe the "ping-ing" noise on my helmet - after all, it is supposed to be summer, right?

Then the little white balls started appearing on the road. Let me tell you, hail HURTS! Fortunately the road did not get too slippery (not at the speed to which I had slowed down anyway) and we soon were riding in a white landscape (see Wayne's pics).

From here on followed a lovely winding farm road, eventually reaching the tar road into Sutherland some 10km outside town. We got to the fuel station some 30 minutes before closing, refueled, and were off again to Ouberg Pass.

Now, the one-and-only previous time I had done Ouberg Pass, I was chased by a Cobra while trying to negotiate one of the top corners. I have to admit to wondering if it was still around.

Well, if it was, I did not see it, and Noeline and I managed to get down the Pass without falling over, happily using engine compression to get us down safely.

The Tankwa Karoo has been one of my favourite areas since our first bike trip to that area - apart from the dry riverbed crossings, that is. I forgot about those, and was riding along in a bit of a zone when I hit one of those walls on the far side of the river hard enough to make my teeth feel like going through the back of my head. I am constantly amazed at what (abuse) our bikes can take!

Eventually we get around a corner and see bikes parked alongside the road. Great, snack stop, I thought, and started slowing down - just in time to see Noeline ahead of me starting to fish-tail, and then do an in-depth inspection of the stretch of sand we had just hit. (Note to self - there usually is a second reason why the group stops where they do)

But, before Noeline even had time to stop laughing, five tough men were clustered around her bike to pick it up off her.

She promptly turned around and rode through the sand patch again, slaying that sand monster. Attagirl!

While waiting for the last of the group to arrive, some very dark clouds came rumbling towards us, bring with them a heavy curtain of rain. "Time to go," Andy said, and we started trying to outrun the rain, the decision having been taken to leave out the Katbakkies/Kagga Kamma section as the mud and rain had slowed us down considerably earlier in the day.

So off we went.

We kept dodging rain, and did not get too wet, but had to cope with a nasty crosswind into Ceres. Hot chocolate was by this time calling with a very loud voice, and most of us stopped at the Engen and refuelled our tummies with a burger and hot chocolate at Steers after putting fuel into the bikes. We could not understand why the back-up trailer was taking so long - later Andy said that they got a puncture, and then broke the jack while trying to lift the Jeep, trailer and Stan's bike! Fortunately PeteO was riding sweep with Annie and McGyvered a solution, only for them to stop again as they got to the R355 to assist some other bikers who had punctured.

From Ceres, it was a hard ride back home, and we pulled into Cape Town just before 6.

On/after a trip like this, it is hard to express enough thanks: To Andy and Annie for choosing a fantastic route and organising everything; thanks Andy for stopping so often en route so that we could take pics/ eat some snacks/ water a bush; to PeteO for sweeping (Andy says Rusty was also sweeping but I mostly seem to recall seeing him doing a wheelie out in front somewhere ), to Anneke who drove the back-up vehicle, and to each and everyone on the trip - you were an awesome bunch of guys and girls to spend a weekend with!

And you know what's one of the nicest things about the weekend? My bike is decently dirty and covered in mud... as it should be!

Till the next trip - happy riding on routes where you can keep the ABS turned off...

Karin

Day 1

Day 2