a new toy...

the panniers arrived... pk received them at his place today. i got wind of it round 19h30, there was not much happening at the laundrette except for my clothes tumbling around so i shot through to paarden eiland and picked them up. beauts! put all the pieces i could together already, like a kid with a new lego set.
the rest i'm gonna have to do when the sun is back out. i wish i could park my bike in my apartment, but there are a couple of tight corners... i don't wanna scratch her! the weather has been terrible for the last couple of days, so the bike has been taking a bit of a beating standing outside.
i'll put some pics up once the panniers are attached and raring to go! keep it real!

the wednesday meeting...

yesterday was another meeting. pk rocked up at my place a couple of minutes early. he was sick and also in a seriously foul mood. luke waltzed in seconds later with all his gear on, looking like he'd just stepped off the catalogue shoot! awesome stuff. pk's mood swung temporarily!
lukas brought us an awesome watertight kit bag to strap to the back of the bike. the gear from germany looks a good buy, especially the boots. i think they need some wearing in though as changing gears seemed a bit difficult... apparently the shower is the place to soften them up...
we stood in the kitchen wolfing down some hot dogs, luke ate the most. we are seriously starved of selection on biker gear in south africa, or at least cape town... the catalogues from europe depict shops full of jackets helmets and every single gadget for a bike.

onto the meeting! we checked out our immunisation card and found that the mad quack from the travel clinic seemed to have forgotten signing us off on the meningitis jab. also something about waiting 6 months before getting the second hepatitis b shot... need to look into that!
the next thing was the visa's. this will be a bit of a headache, we have already touched on the subject, we checked the bradt guide against the info given in the lonely planet and then again against what i got from phoning the embassies in SA. well, typical for africa, we got conflicting results. there are certain places where i just think we need to get the visa before hand. in many countries they say you can get the visa before entering the other, but that also takes time, which we'd rather be spending doing something else... the decision we came to was that we'd re-look the path of using a visa company, which i have once again emailed.
aahh... then there was the small matter of paying for the pannier's.... this huge amount of 6020.00 rand is what separates from having nice shiny aluminium panniers that are lockable, detachable, and can be knocked out in case of a fall or buying/manufacturing something that will just hopefully do the job, like maybe some canvas bags? it's time to decide...
i've redesigned the sticker slightly. when we get the panniers it should fit nicely on either side.

it's a bit of a sluggish time right now. there's still 5 months until we leave, which almost seems like too much, but then there is stuff to do and there's work, which is now going to start getting busy... motivation is a bit low, but it's part of getting this whole thing together. some stuff is fun and easy to do, others just seem like such a schlep. what makes it worthwhile is thinking of the adventure that is coming up... adios!

it's done...

the beast went in for the 5000km service. the lads at eurobikes in woodstock seem to have done a sterling job! the bloke there reckoned he had to stand on a can to keep his balance before he took her out for a test ride after the service... they seemed to have enjoyed tinkering around on the bike a bit too. the service cost was R1199.00. i mention all the costs so that just in case some other soul reads this blog, they will know what they are in for ... there is only so much u can budget for the rest you just gotta see for yourself.
the idea has been put forward to have the starting line on top on signal hill. what the hell, might be fun, especially getting some of our mates and family up there at the crack of dawn to see us off... that's of course if they could be bothered!
i share a picture with you...

a new angle...

i've been thinking, that since we are getting all the gear together, the bikes kitted out and planning the route so carefully... we should try and help in some other way. i think by just doing this whole thing it might just awaken some interest. i'm just throwing ideas around. getting a charity involved would be interesting. organising an evening where we show people the gear, the bikes, what it takes to get this whole thing organised. would people pay a small amount to come and look at the plan, so that money can be collected for a non-profit organisation?
shoot the idea down or give me an idea, i'm pulling at straws... it's not just about rocking up at some hall with the bikes and all the gear. we've actually put in the time to carefully plan this and it's been fun for us, that's the main reason to do it!! so just by doing something fun, there must be a way to get some interest going and be able to make a donation somewhere... could be awesome! lend us your brain!!

panniers... a twist

the previous pannier idea has been ditched. we had an engineering firm quote us on our design, it works out a little cheaper, but then there's this dude in PE who makes these panniers & brackets (thanks to the wild dog adventure riding forum). it works out about a grand more, minus the hassle of doing it ourselves. still this option is way cheaper than the KTM dealerships. they have been ordered so hopefully they'll be here soon and we can give it a test run...
it's time for my bike to go in for the 5000km service, will book it sometime this week. today in six months time we should have passed windhoek and heading direction Oshikango at the Namibia/Angola border... it's time for a ride!