Yes,
It was a big ride. When we started off i had that much gear onboard I couldnt position myself to use the foot brake and had to change gear for a hour with the heel of my boot. After an hour I dropped a litre out of each of the soft fuel cells that were drapped over the tank so I could bring my knees in closer. I was wedged in on the seat as well. The bikes didnt stop very well and we over shot a lot of corners to start with ,until we found a particular riding style, very nervous when we started.
The trouble with the berg was fabricating a rack over the rear of the bike to accommadate jerry cans of fuel and a 20 odd kg bag as well.So that meant it had to support at least 40kg of weight. I designed and fabricated a rack out of Chrome moly, it was braced off the foot peg mounts and double U bolted each side on the 30-32mm frame section of the bike where the tank and seat meet.After speaking with some of the rallye riders, the next issue was stopping the frame flexing side to side. Nylon spacers were fitted with bolts into the rear section of the frame also which made the frame solid and took out the flex.
When riding ,you had to maintain 100% focus as you were riding in 4wd ruts of sand and a fully laden bike did what it wanted and went where it liked.When things got a bit to much or crossed up with arms and legs going all direction , you were better off stopping and starting off again,we definately had handling problems, we learned after a few days to start off loading the fuel out of the rear of the bike into the front tank asap, and to keep as much weight over the front end which gave you the slightest bit of handling.
Together with the sand ruts you had corrogations as well at times. The corrogates were pretty bad,vehicles were breaking down and waiting in small populated areas for parts as well.Some people have claimed the land out there to be the second most remote place in the world.After 3 days of riding in one direction and crossing what seemed endless dunes, you realise that there is truely nothing out there and no support. We quickly developed a focus from just riding to ensuring we got through safely in one piece.The bikes had to be checked daily to make sure nothing was broken or coming loose. If something had of let go on one of the bikes, then that would just about be the end of the trip.
Check out some of the pics, I will put up some more shortly.
This is not a ride for inexperienced riders and needed a lot of preparation and testing.Will write some more later.
Regards,
