It’s Monday, one of our best friends, Sean, just bought his first motorcycle over the weekend, a Kawasaki KLR 650. He wants to go for a ride, Dom and I know it has to be a good one, we want him hooked on this lifestyle just like we are. We want the pack to grow.
By Wednesday the plan is in place; a relatively short ride out to Tulbagh from Cape Town. We plan to find a camping spot for the night, so tents, air mattresses and sleeping bags are in order. We’ve come a long way since sleeping in the ground. Our Harley Davidson Sportsters are used to this treatment by now, but Sean’s KLR only has that little stock medicine delivery box on the back. Good thing we have our ever faithful ace in the hole, Ross and his Ford Fiesta, bearing a four man tent and French press. So, we have a roof and a destination, and in inkling of where we will be getting drunk on Saturday night.
Friday, every campsite in the vicinity of Tulbagh is booked, bloody hikers. Ross comes through yet again, with an off the yuppie trail guest farm that has two camping sites, both of which are available.
Saturday! The day has finally arrived and I am giddy. My two man tent and weatherproof Sealand bag are strapped to my motorcycle before I even start on my morning eggs, and we’re only leaving at lunch time. Thanks to a trip Dominic, myself and two other friends did along the east coast of South Africa a couple of months ago, from Cape Town to Johannesburg, I have the packing down to a tee. As it turns out, the sissy bar is the most underrated accessory you could ever put on your Harley Davidson. On one side you have your tent, and on the other your carry bag.
Allow me to digress. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt over the past few months, is that when you leave the city on your sportster, great things can happen. Motorcycle ‘aficionados’ and even Harley themselves tend to pigeonhole the sportster as a city slicker. Built for the hipster with the plaid shirt and manicured beard to bar hop from one craft beer shack to the next. It is a joy to discover just how far from the truth this can be. The fact is you can easily do between three and four hundred kilometers a day on the open road quite comfortably. Hell, I’ve done 800 kilo’s in a day, and while I wouldn’t recommend it, the cold beer at the end of the line is always well worth it.
But back to the sportsters capability. Because of the 12.5L tank, typically you will do between 180 and 220 kilo’s before a refuel. On the open road, with some Willie Nelson in your ears and wine lands, farms and mountains falling away on either side of you, the two hours it takes to do that distance is over before you know it. Then you stop, grab a pie and a coke, refuel and push to your camping spot. This is when your ass may start to get a little uncomfortable, so what to do?
I’ve found the riding position can be changed quite easily, depending on which part of your ass is starting to get a little uncomfortable. Some pegs mounted a little behind the standard position, which would typically be for the pillion, allow you to hook your boots in, scoot a little back and lean forward. This takes the pressure of your back immensely. You can even go so far as to lay on the tank, superbike style.
I would also recommend keeping your standard controls position, unless you happen to be a little taller. By keeping your feet under you, you maintain the sportiness of the bike, being able to pivot around tight corners on mountain passes with a little more confidence. We are currently working on a design for a small crash bar that will also allow the rider to rest their feet in the typical forward control position, for even more comfort.
Back to business, we converge at Peppa Jacks in Durbanville, and after a beer to loosen the grip, take to the back roads. Always take the back roads. Highways are crap, there are a lot more assholes and there is the underlying obligation to keep doing 130 km/h. There are barely any small towns, sporting small pubs with character and butchers peddling some of the best droewors and chilli bites, and you certianly won’t find roadside coffee stands or padstals. It’s only about 130 kilo’s to Tulbagh, and it takes us nearly two hours to get there because of the old adage, there is just as much joy in the journey.
When we finally get to Tulbagh, we stock up with boerewors, chips and bread rolls at the local spar. It must be said that currently we are spoiled to have Ross and his support vehicle to load a case of beer and the groceries. Typically we would have to set up camp and venture back into town to get the essentials. We may not always have Ross along, or fingers crossed he may end up on two wheels as well soon, so we have started working on a plan to load a few extra essentials.
We make the mandatory stops at 2 or 3 of the local pubs, one of them boasts over 30,000 empty bottles of Underberg along it’s walls, and so we also contribute our bottles to the wall. Starting back in the direction of Cape Town, our campsite is to the south east of the town, hidden amongst the alien Blue gum forests on the east side of the Voelvlei dam. There’s a dirt road to get to the campsite, this is where you can have a little fun. Sportsters aren’t renowned for their capability on dirt, but they may surprise you. Keeping up 50 to 60 km/h is quite easy, and a few sections of loose deep sand gave us a chance to test our skills and leave little brown marks in our underpants. As long as the your front wheel is pointing where you want to go, keep cranking the throttle!
We checked in with the land owner at the farmhouse, who pointed us in the direction of the campsites and commented that we shouldn’t run out of wood. We didn’t expect much, given everywhere else in the area was booked up but this place, but were taken aback by the quality of the rustic facilities. The two little sites had a shed with a solar panel on the roof, which powered the geyser and USB charging point. Inside the shed was a flushing toilet, glass door shower and his and her basins. There was copious amounts of dry woods strewn about. Blue gums, at least they burn well. We had found an actual hidden gem.
After Sean flushed a brown trout down the loo we pitched the tent, made fire, burnt meat and proceeded to reach a tasteful level of inebriation, all while soft country essentials played in the background and a starry sky moved slowly over our heads. Lively discussions about topics we have little to no knowledge of marched on from stock markets to the sad reality of adult male hemorrhoids. No one to shush us, because there was no one to bother for miles. Finally we retired to our blow up mattresses and sleeping bags, with a sterie stumpie to help us through what remained of the night.
The next morning a yogi sip soothed our rather cottony mouths, a swim in the rather muddy dam helped expel the hangover gremlins and an aromatic coffee courtesy of our private barista Ross got us ready to get on the road again. A couple of hours later we were riding into Cape Town, each of us peeling off at our respective off ramps. Less than three hours later we were already planning our next destination.
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