[ST] Ride on Sunday

["Marc Van Est" <MarcVE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I did my first "real" ride on Sunday.

Joined some mates for a ride that did 350 kms through some brilliant passes, as well as some fast sections.

We left Cape Town, and did Stellenbosch through to Wellington, then the Bains Kloof pass and the Mitchell's pass through to Ceres, then a very fast section through to Worcester and Villiersdorp, the magic Franshoek pass and Hels hoogte pass into Stellenbosch.

It was a revelation - Bains Kloof has to be the most savage pass to do on a big bike. Chris on his GS 650 demolished the rest of us (Suzuki Bandit GSX1200, Suzuki SV 1000), it really helps that he spent so much time on the track. He gets that GS650 to do things I didn't think were possible.

I watched him demolish Steve on his SV1000, and Steve is also a track racer of note - no idea how he pulled it off except his brake lights never seem to come on.

Bains Kloof is very unforgiving, mostly second third gear stuff, huge drops off into nothing, very rough bumpy surface and cliff faces facing the drop offs.

The fast sections through to Villiers dorp gave me a chance to stretch my bikes legs - its done 2200kms now.

I ran it up to 210 a few times, very stable, still plenty of pull left, and I was having no problem hanging onto the SV and Bandit in the straights. Its a bit nerve wrecking hitting rough road surfaces at that speed, once or twice I was off the ground with both wheels for a split second, but I didn't have a single head shake on the straights, just a few getting heavy handed over the rough stuff in Bains Kloof.

The Franshoek pass is also a challenge - very fast with sweeping 'S' bends that are blind, some a full 270 degrees that keep tightening up on you. I hit gravel on the entrance to one, lost my nerve and ran wide off the road -fortunately there was space to run off on that corner.

A classic case of look where you want to go, not at the obstacle you want to avoid.

All in all I'm very happy with the bike.

Now all I need to do is learn that smooth fast cornering style these guys have - they don't run into the corners hot and then power on hard out the other side -its more a smooth third/ fourth gear thing where in  most corners you see a small flash of brake light.

They completely demolished me with my "hard on the brakes/ hard on the power style".


cheers


marc


Cape Town
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