Adventure Magazine Issue 12

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Contents

Industry NewsGear ReviewHekpoort TrainingCiello GraNdeSuzuki Jimny ReviewBainskloof Explorer


Issue TwelveA couple of things have changed in this months issue of Adventure Magazine. There is more adventure in this one than ever before.

We take the baby 4x4 Suzuki Jimny for a quick drive and let you know what its like from a non biased point of view. So many reviews are often too favorable towards a certain product. We tell you how it is.

We took a ride up to Bainskloof earlier this month and was surprised about how much terrain there is to ride. It really is motorcycle

and mountain biking heaven. (How well these 2 go hand in hand, remains to be seen.)

Once again, if you are planning a ride that you think we should know about, drop us a mail and we will gladly share it with everybody else.

Till next month!

Please submit your stories to [email protected]

For more information and sales visit www.hexdiagnostics.co.za or call +27 21 880 1433

http://www.shiftracing.co.za

http://www.hexdiagnostics.co.za

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Industry News

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Vryburg and the Vryburg Mo-tor Club played host to the second round of the National Off Road Championship this past weekend, the Kalahari 400. The very well organised event produced some fantas-tic results for Yamaha.

DCM Yamaha’s Louwrens Ma-honey dominated the event by first putting his Yamaha YZ 450F on pole position after Friday’s time trial, and then led the race from start to finish on Saturday. The very fast race saw Mahoney record a top speed of 148km/h on his GPS. His DCM Yamaha team mate, Jade Gutzeit, also riding a Yamaha YZ 450 F, proved the race craft of the all new Yamaha YZ 450 F by chasing Mahoney for the entire 400km’s and bring-ing his mount home in a well earned second position, despite his bike catching on fire at the third refuel point of the race. Quick work by the DCM Yamaha crew had the fire extinguished before any damage was done and got their rider back into the race without costing him any race positions. Mahoney

and Gutzeit also took first and second positions in the Open Class, putting them in joint first position in the 2010 National Championship.

Dirtsure Racing Liquimoly Rider Michael Creevy rode his Yama-ha YZ125 to a stunning 125cc Class victory, beating similarly mounted Dominic Mantle (Ac-tive Metals Yamaha) and Kent Plescia (Mafikeng Dirt Riders Yamaha) into second and third positions. Connix Internet Sal-leys Yamaha’s Charan Moore finished 4th in class, giving Yamaha another clean sweep of the 125cc Class.

Shimwells Yamaha’s Zac Bo-tha rode his Yamaha YZ 250 F, equipped with a 300cc big bore performance kit, into a very well deserved second position in the 250cc class, whilst FDBR Yamaha’s Alex Vowles brought his Yamaha YZ 250 home in fourth position in the same class.

DCM Yamaha’s Brad Van Aswe-gen finished in fourth position in the 200cc Class on board his Yamaha YZ 250 F in his second ever national off road race. The


Industry News

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Pietermaritzburg based eighteen year old is making steady prog-ress in his adaptation from the more technical riding required in National Enduro to the faster National Off Road Champion-ship.

Connix Internet Salleys Yamaha rider Errol Dalton brought his Yamaha YZ 250 home in second position in the Seniors Class, keeping him at the top of the National Seniors Championship with a third of the racing season completed.

In the Masters Class, Shim-wells Yamaha’s Ray Lloyd and privately entered Martin Poole took second and fourth in class respectively.

In the Silver Cup, a class for the novice and clubman riders, and also the class where the riders that complete in the National Junior Off Road Series, that wish to gain experience on the Senior Racing circuit compete, Port Eliz-abeth youngster Timothy Young, who is vying for the National Junior Off Road title this year, rode his Xtreme Yamaha/ Yama-ha Support backed Yamaha YZ 250 F into a very well deserved

class victory. P.E.’s Rover Club members have been touting this young man’s skills for some time now and it appears that their praises were not unfounded.

In the quad race, EMD Racing Lonestar PEP’s (and former National Quad Champion) Bri-an Baragwanath brought his Yamaha YFZ 450 home in a solid third position overall and second in the Q1 class, whilst Sandpalm Doors/ Southern ATV’s Russell Ferreira rode his similar machine into second position in the Seniors Quad category.

And of course, with all of these race successes, Yamaha was awarded the Manufactur-ers Trophy for the bike race for the third national race in a row. This is a true testament to the race competitiveness and reliability of the Yamaha brand.


Featured Gear


Featured Gear

I often wonder why we want loud exhaust pipes. The rea-soning behind the “loud pipes saves lives” I understand to a certain point. Before I gutted my pipe I had a couple of cars change lanes in front of me in traffic. Yes, it’s annoying, but from a motorist, pedestrian or even a neighbours’ stand-point, have you thought about how annoying a loud exhaust pipe is at 6 am in the morning when you are ready to go on your breakfast run?

Face it; quiet pipes are the new loud pipes. You can ride

your off-road stealthily in parts where you couldn’t. You can ride mostly everywhere with-out annoying other motorists or pedestrians and I must admit that when idling my thumper in the driveway, I’ve had the cops come around for the noise. I think that it’s a little excessive and my bike was only warming up. But I was getting annoyed with that so I decided to look at alterna-tive options.

A. New exhaust pipe (After market)B. Second hand Stock pipeC. RepackD. Exhaust insert – Typi-cally 96 decibel approved.

After browsing the internet I came across Pro Moto Billet’s performance race inserts and thought of giving them a try. After all, they aren’t that pricey and the concept should work. I just needed to get the bike out of the annoyance noise level.The biggest problem was open-ing my stock can. The bolts over the years had become extremely congealed with the heat so I decided to have them drilled out at a local engineer-ing shop. Dropped the insert in and closed it up with some rivets. I then re-installed the exhaust and started it up. What a huge difference. The bike almost sounded stock again. There is a slight power decrease, but it’s very little. I think the noise makes you feel as if there is more power and that’s often not the case. A little horsepower decrease will not affect my trail riding any-way.

It’s a good investment, I can take it out whenever I like and for right now I keep the neigh-bours happy.

They are available for most bikes and start off around the R500-00 region.

Call 021 511-1007


Hekpoort Weekend Off road skills course

Your facilitators for the weekend: Johan Gray of African Dream Adventures (ADA) - Instructor Hein Prinsloo of ADA - Instructor Judy Vieth of ADA – Instructor Michael Steyn of Dual Purpose Adventures – Camp coordinator and chef. R970 Pp

082 897 0220


New Rides

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Cielo GrandeGuatemala Mountain bike Report

We set out from the Mayan village of El Hato at 10 in the morning, with the equatorial Guatemalan sun already high in the sky. The usual smatter-ing of village dogs and curious children see us off as we began the climb to the top of the Cielo Grande ride, one of the best rides in all of Central America. As we begin the steep climb – I mean steep, as in 20 degrees plus– the children run alongside us until they run out of breath, laughing and yelling in a curi-ous mixture of Spanish and local Mayan dialect.

Stunning views of the valley keep us company up the ascent; Antigua sits in a bowl surround-ed by volcanoes, including the decidedly volcano-esque Volcan Agua, complete with a plume of smoke from its still active peak. Sitting at the bottom of a bowl, there’s only one direction from Antigua – up. This is good news for climbophiles, but there are few ascents for the meek – almost all involve a sustained granny gear grunt. This one is no exception; in fact, it’s the steepest climb I’ve ever tackled on a mountain bike. Despite the angle, or perhaps because of

it, I’m loving every gruelling minute.My tour mates – 2 couples, a banker from Toronto, and the racing brothers from Uxbridge, Ontario – are experiencing mixed reactions to the climb. The brothers are, as usual, at the front, adding more vertical to their GPSs by cycling back to the main pack and then ahead again, like dogs. Lisa is occupying her usual spot at the back, slow but steady and unfazed. I’m somewhere in the middle, content to soak it all in and experience every twitch-ing muscle as it screams out in protest.This pain’s beginning to get comical. This climb is laughing at me, taunting me, goading me on… Every time I turn a


corner expecting to see a flat spot or at least a lessening of the pain – just a small respite from the anguish – the road gets steeper. At one point, I can no longer climb in the saddle for fear of falling back-ward and have to stand up on legs that are just a few watts shy of total shutdown.

I look down toward the valley, at the city of Antigua 2,500 vertical feet below. In the restaurants and coffee shops tourists languish in the mid-day heat with their iced teas and piña coladas, blissfully unaware of the torment being endured above them. Surely we must be close to the top, I think. Surely no one can en-dure much more of this. Yet there are our guides, hap-pily pedalling and conversing amongst themselves.After another round of mental debate (“get off!” “No way, keep going” “get the hell off!” “No way you are going to quit”) threatens to shut my fragile mind-body connection down, I dig down to what feels like the depths of my soul and find a tiny reservoir of hope, a few last calories, a storehouse

of courage. I think I can spy the two brothers in the distant hori-zon, relaxing beside their bikes.I lower my head; desperate to avoid what I’m sure is a mirage. Just keep pedalling, one stroke at a time. Ignore the pain. Keep moving. Eventually it will end… won’t it?

After about 5 minutes in this curious zone, where all time slows down and nothing exists but me, my pain, and my in-creasingly laboured breathing, I begin to hear voices. At first, the voices sound like taunting. But then the voices become clearer – it’s the brothers, goading me

on, up the last forlorn stretch of lonely Guatemalan asphalt. I look up and there, decidedly un-mirage-like and laughing, are Sean and Adam, fists held

aloft encouraging me up the hill.

I collapse in a crumpled heap at their feet, still clipped in to one pedal. The agony is over, replaced with the ecstasy of the summit. Over 3,000 verti-cal feet of steep climbing, in the hot morning sun are be-hind me. Ahead lie 15 miles of the sweetest single-track Central America had to offer.When I get back, I promise myself, I’ll pull up to the near-est restaurant, order myself an iced tea, and languish in the afternoon with the rest of the tourist-bus hordes. I might even have a piña colada or ten.


New Rides

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TNTSmall Package


The Suzuki SJ has been around since I can remember, but what made these little 4x4’s so popu-lar was the very little weight and good articulation for a standard vehicle.

We took a quick drive to give you guys a driving impression.

Climbing into the Jimny, things are all jazzified. Everything shouts small city car. From the driving position you can see pretty much everywhere, the steering is direct on the road and the VVT-inspired 1300 engine loved to be revved the nuts off it. In actual fact it only really gets going when the tacho passes the 5000 rpm mark. It was never designed to be a speedway racer, but this little

recreational vehicle could hold its own on the freeway at speeds around 140kph. If you are a bigger framed person or even taller than 1.8 meters you may struggle though. I had to squeeze my 1.9 + meter frame in and I managed, but I felt cramped and the controls felt awkward. The Jimny has a relatively small fuel tank, roughly around 30 litres but with a good fuel economy you should be able to reach you destinations with relative ease with some owners reporting 6l/100km. Instead of driving spiritedly, rather take it slow. It’s at home at 110kph. 120kph see’s the tacho at around 4000rpm so you have to realise its geared short and aimed at the trails.

This is where this little car shines. It’s light, has a peaky engine and loves crawling up just about everything. The stock tires are okay for sand and gravel, but will have to be re-placed with some all terrain or even mud terrain tires in the win-ter, espe-cially if you are thinking of wander-ing into the unknown.

The only real com-petition in the price bracket is the Terrios.

But that lacks a low range.

They retail for R169 000-00 and there is not much that can compare with it.

www.suzukisa.co.za


Bainskloof Explorer


So I dropped on a more tar-friendly Sahara 3 on the WR and decided to hit some gravel and explore the Wellington area, just outside Cape Town. The route went flawlessly, but the only complaint I have is on the gravel road; the more tar orientated tires simply do not work as well as they should. The longer gearing also seemed to be a bit of a letdown since the bike was just geared too long for the hill climbs.

I planned my route via Google Earth; man, that’s the best tool to be had. I’ve, in the mean-time, discovered even longer and more extreme tracks head-ing over the mountain towards Du Toits kloof, but I’ll explore them another time.

As I headed into Wellington and up Bainskloof pass, I ventured onto the first bit of gravel track I could find. There were a couple of dodgy characters parked off in the bushes and they had me wondering what they were up to, but I left them be and head-ed past. The road quickly got rocky, but nothing too extreme. The gearing I had just was not suited towards the terrain. I

followed the tracks upward, avoiding ruts and trees alike. The trail seems much like a mountain bike trail and I don’t even know if I needed per-mission to be up there. Luck-ily the exhaust insert I put into the exhaust not too long ago kept the audible rackets down. I didn’t notice a single person or movement up there and I would probably recom-mend that you go up there in a team, incase something goes wrong. Obviously as I went higher, the terrain got rougher, to a point where it turned into soccer ball sized rocks. Finger on the clutch and I just bounced over them. Eventually I took a wrong turn and had to turn around, not to me chickening out, but it was


getting rather late in the after-noon and I still had to make my way down this mountain. Coming down was a bit of a mission. I forgot the way I came up and while riding very relaxed, I did not leave many marks in the road like I usually do. I figured, down is down and I would eventu-ally get back to the tar road, took a left where I was sup-posed take a right, and well, you get the point. Eventually I reached the pass and idled back into Wellington. I hit the gravel back to Riebeek West, thankful for the long gearing that I once regretted on the trail. I think its called compro-mise?


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Adventure Magazine Issue 12