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Claire van Zyl

Claire van Zyl's picture

Rider Info

Your Current Bike
BMW F700 GS
Years on a bike
2-3 years
Introduce yourself

I love beautiful motorbikes, fast cars and American long nose trucks. I am a "Tomboy" and love adventure, hiking, biking and camping. I hate shopping!  The only exception is buying hiking, biking or camping kit! 

When I was 5 years old I told my Mom "When I am big, I am going to drive trucks across America".  When I was 19 years old I had the opportunity to learn to drive Code 14 trucks (articulated vehicles exceeding 25 tons).  My Mom encouraged me to grab this opportunity and reminded me of my dream as a 5 year old.  In 2 years I personally drove trucks with interlink refrigerated units and curtain sider trailers over 20000km across South African and Namibia with friends on my learners licence. I travelled a lot more kilometres as a passenger.

I have wanted a motorbike since I was 13 years old, after watching the 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix and Wayne Rainey tearing up the track.  Also loved watching Ayrton Senna racing Formula One until that fateful day 1 May 1994 at the San Marino Grand Prix when he was no more :'( I couldn't watch another Grand Prix after that until I saw a documentary on Lewis Hamilton in January of 2007. He would start his Formula One career in March 2007. I decided I would be rooting for this young racing driver. 

I rode my Yamaha Sygnis Scooter everyday for a year while living in the UK, in all weather including rain, hail, sleet and snow, so I know what it's like to get reeeeaaaaallly cold on 2 wheels.  Riding on icy/snowy roads with 2 wheels made things very interesting. I now try to avoid riding in wet and miserable weather as I experienced enough of that for a lifetime.

I chose to get Storm my 150cc motorbike as my first bike, so that I could learn, build up skill and confidence before riding bigger bikes. Storm and I have done 25800km together in 2 years and 9 months. We even did 550km in a day from Cape Town to Meiringspoort (beyond Oudtshoorn).  Storm has very road tyres but we were blessed to have successfully ridden the 3 gravel passes above Citrusdal on the R303 - Elandskloof, Middelberg & Buffelshoek passes (42km on gravel there and back) - in April 2018

I had the pleasure of doing 3271km on the Sexy Beast (1600cc BMW) in 2 months including two solo trips of 967km & 700kms. This proved to me how much confidence I had built up on Storm my 150cc.

I recently passed the 30000km mark riding bikes in the last 2 years & 9 months.

My heart's desire is to explore the dirt roads and passes of South Africa and beyond. Meerkat has now made that possible.  I can't wait to attend Offroad training.

Let the adventure continue and the offroad adventure begin!

History

Member for
1 year 10 weeks