Recce of a possible new route for Advanced level of Club training

carelvdmerwe's picture

This story originated at the last club meeting. After each monthly club meeting there are usually a couple of people who moves to the back of the club house where there is a fairly large flat wooden surface where an “un-official” meeting is held and a wide variety of topics are discussed over a “vuil coke” or two. This flat wooden surface, also more commonly known as a BAR, is globally renowned as the place where some of the best ideas or solutions for problems originates from.

At the last ”un-official” club meeting John Carr and Neels were discussing the possibility that they (the trainers) are considering to incorporate a more advance training session into the club’s current training program. These guys are putting a lot of time and effort into make these training days interesting and to keep improving on the training techniques and conditions. They held an “experimental” Sand Training day in the beginning of February and it was a huge success, there were so many interest that they had to split us into two groups. We learned a lot and after a couple of minutes of “playing” in the sand my fear for the Sand Monster became a lot less. Each and every one was sceptical and afraid in the beginning, but in the blink of an eye we were playing like a bunch of children in the sand.

I’ve attended a couple of level 1 and level 2 training days presented by the club and I must say that after each session you walk (rather ride) away as a more skillful rider. Not only are these training days a good learning experience, but you get to meet new people with the same passion for bikes and nature. Not to mention the mouth-watering lunches supplied by Anura and the rewarding cold craft beers at the end of the day. I would like to make use of this opportunity to thank the trainers (Neels, John, Arno, Peter and Anna-Marie) for all your time, effort and initiative that you put into these training days, and also thanks to Anura for providing as with such a beautiful playground.

Excuse me for getting a bit of track with my story…… so that evening after the club meeting John and Neels were discussing the possibility of doing a more advance level of training, basically a technical outride with natural obstacles where you can practice in a “real life scenario” all the techniques that you have learned in the level 1 and level 2 training sessions. For those of you who have attended the last couple of level 2 training sessions would know that there is usually an out ride to the beacon on top of the mountain at Anura at the end of the training session.  John told me that I am more than welcome to join him on Sunday when he is going to Anura to work out a route for this new level of training. I told him that it sounds like fun and I’ll keep in touch with him.

Saturday I quickly popped into Flying Brick where I bumped into Gerhard and Ilse. I met them on the sand training day and we started to chat. I mentioned the idea to Gerhard that John wants to work out a route on Anura for a next level training session and he said that it sounds like fun and asked if it is possible if he can join. I phoned Neels and asked him if it is OK if Gerhard and I can join John on his “expedition” on Sunday. Neels said that he will confirm with John and that he will get back to me. Before we left Flying Brick Neels gave me a call with the well-known words from John Carr which are “No Problem”, just let me know how many you are going to be.  So I made use of this opportunity to phone 2 of my friends who I knew will be interested in this type of riding.

So now we are four guys going to take up this challenge with John Carr. Still fairly early into the day we renamed John to Captain Kudu, but that is a story best not being discussed on a public forum. So the four of us,  Zack on his F800GS, Gerhard on his 800 Triumph Tiger, Martin on his Honda XR650L (aka Die Rooi Hammer) and myself on my F800GS got together at the Wimpy at the Winelands Engen Garage for a quick breakfast before we depart to Anura.

On arrival at Anura John asked us to hang ten for a little while. They were busy giving a briefing to a group of people attending the level 1 training session.  Shortly after Captain Kudu came out and gave us a briefing on what is on our agenda for the day. I knew the moment when John put his leg over a brand new F800GS that this day will be very interesting. The captain took us on a nice little tour through Anura, we even went through the almost dry dam where we had the sand training before we headed to the hill with the Blue Gum trees. We stopped at the foot of the hill and Captain Kudu told as that it is time for the fun to begin. We left the road through a ditch heading into the Blue Gum trees. There was barely a sign of any form of road,route or track.

The "entrance" to the new route to be explored:

Much to our surprise there was no official track. The only sign of a track was that of a guy that was over eager with a chainsaw not too long ago. Apparently John was there earlier in the week to plot a sort of a route and I guess it that was the cause for the chainsaw massacre. The only sign of a possible track for us to follow was the cut down trees and branches. This caused quite a bit of natural obstacles.  John led the way and his four brave (or maybe stupid) troops followed him. Here we quickly realised why the trainers drill us with clutch and throttle control and to make tight turns in confined areas and swerve between cones. The only difference here is that we had to face real life obstacles and not soft little orange cones that are evenly spaced from each other. We had to face small spaces between trees and low hanging branches, try to avoid sharp stones and low cut tree stumps to avoid punctures. There where branches and cut down trees lying on the ground that we had to ride over, sandy uphill’s with tight little corners, steep and slippery down hills covered with leaves. We had to exercise extreme caution not to hit any trees while we were sliding down between the trees with locked rear brakes while feathering the front brakes and excercising clutch control. We had to practices team work helping each other like when Zack went up a steep little hill that was quite sandy with a tight little turn to the left. His rear wheel span out as he entered the turn and he put his bike down. Unfortunately his bike was lying with wheels upwards against the hill. I had no place to “park” my bike to help Zack to recover his bike so I had to let my bike lean against a tree. Martin came to help us. We had to turn Zack’s bike before we can pick it up due the angle of the hill and the way the bike was laying on the ground. Shortly afterwards we were up and riding again. We did this route a couple of times to make the “track” more visible. Unfortunately we don’t have any photos of the newly ridden track between the Blue Gum trees. We were too exhausted and taking photos was the last thing on our to-do list.

After a short brake Captain Kudu took us op the hill to the beacon. It was not a very nice sight to see all the damage that was caused by the recent fire. But sometimes sacrifices must be made and it was nice to see the new life starting to grow. The green clearly stand out amongst the dreadful black dead burned trees.

For me it was nice driving through the pine trees. I grew up in the pine forest, my father used to be a Plantation Manager. The smell of the pine trees brought back pleasant memories of my child hood. The road up the hill was quite steep with a lot tight and sharp corners full of pine needles. They are busy cutting down the burned trees, so the road is in a fairly bad condition due to all the trucks and machines cutting down  the trees to take them to the sawmill, especially the corners where in a bad condition.

We took a quick stop to rest at the top of the mountain. Here you can see one of the the hairpin corners.

Martin wanted to play a little more and he took his Rooi Hammer up to the top of the mountain. He took some photo's of the view from the top.

After a short brake we took on the journey back to Anura. It was a interesting trip down the mountain due to the tight and slippery corners.

I am looking forward for to see what the more advanced training session will consist of and to take part in it. Thank you John for allowing us to join you. This course will be epic.

I am glad to say that no bikes or people were injured in this event.

Comments

carelvdmerwe's picture
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Joined: 2012/08/16

Some more photos:

 

Anna-Marie's picture
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Joined: 2009/10/13

Well done, Carel.  Baie dankie.  Lekker gelees en mooi pics.  

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Joined: 2008/01/28

Brilliant

Hans Ambulans's picture
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Joined: 2013/10/01

Mooi storie Carel!

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Joined: 2012/09/12

Baie mooi prentjies, begin lees aan die  verslag, maar dit is too much English vir die Afrikaanse girl lol.  Well Done Carel! julle is ysters

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Joined: 2013/01/30

Maar my hel, so jy is maar 'n soutie aan die binne kant.

Nice report dude. Love the pics too.

Shaun Stassen's picture
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Joined: 2013/01/04

Sad to have missed this. Looking forward to the next one. yes

Jackie Wiese's picture
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Joined: 2012/02/26

Dankie vir die goeie verslag & foto's Carel!

Dit lyk sommer baie lekker en "challenging"! Doen so voort.

Tarryn Beretta's picture
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Joined: 2015/08/26

What lovely reading, thank you for the report and the Pics.  

It looks like loads of fun, and I can't wait to take the Husqvarna up there!

Regards Tarryn

~ 2016 BMW F800 GSA - My dream come true!!! ~