Club GS Ride to Cullinan – 5 July 2009

Club GS Ride to Cullinan – 5 July 2009

This month I will be leading the Cullinan Club GS ride to Cullinan. I have worked out a route of about 250km with varying terrain, split up like so (in enjoyment factor order)
Tar roads - 55km– 22% -

Dirt roads - 116km – 47% -

Railway Service roads - 62km – 25% -

Twee spoor - 14km – 6% -

All the dirt roads are Level 1 to Level 2 roads, in other words you can drive them with a normal sedan. The railway service roads are mostly level 2 with here and there a level 3. The 2 spoor is level 3, with very short stretches (less than 100m) of sand and a small water crossing. This sand will not be problem, everyone that went on the Loskop Dam ride in April made it through this stretch without incident.

We will stop after 120km for a quick re-fuel for the okes with the small tanks, then we will do another 130km and end up in Cullinan for lunch.
I have not finalised the lunch arrangements, but I will keep you posted.

This ride is a must for newbies, and I encourage all new and nervous GS riders to please join. Drix will be riding sweep and he will look after you all the way.

Should you have any questions, please ask, or drop me a PM. You can also come and chat to me at the Club Social next week Friday.


Here are some pics of what you can expect:

Sharkie promises that the roads will get better.

Looks good thanks Sharkie.

I will unfortunately be at Nottingham road for a Hare Scramble race. But the route lookks like a very good newby/novice route.

Enjoy

I be there Sharkie with my TTR250. Thanx for inserting refuel stop.

I did some more parts of the route on Sunday, and I will have to cut the route a bit shorter. The railway service roads are in good nick and should not cause any problems. The water crossing is pretty low and great fun!

The lunch spot in Cullinan has some great burgers for about R40 and also a full buffet for R65.

It is gonna be great ride, and it will be newbie friendly!

Yesterday I was with Sharkie and Marnus for the ride. I can definitely say this route is newbie friendly, easy tracks and railway service roads, and big wide smooth dirt freeways.

Oh, yes the burgers are excellent. Big, that even I could not finish mine! And come with chips on the side (had to leave half of them too).

See you there this Sunday.

Looks great!

I am glad this is newbie friendly... This will be my first GS ride and I am a bit nervous. Look forward to the trip though.

Pity I have to lead the S's on Sunday.

Your route looks like a piece of cake for an RT.

tj wrote:Pity I have to lead the S's on Sunday.

Your route looks like a piece of cake for an RT.

Seriously, you would be able to do the entire route on the RT, the water crossing might be fun, but it will be doable....

This is SO railway service road

I'm looking forward to the club ride. Sharkie may support the wrong team, but he always picks the right line!!!

Marnus wrote:This is SO railway service road

I'm looking forward to the club ride. Sharkie may support the wrong team, but he always picks the right line!!!

NEE MARNUS

Jy gaan die mense bang maak!!!

I actually cut that railway line out of Sunday's ride, not so much for that piece, but for the pebbles later on. That piece on this pic is a helluva lot of fun, just ask Happy .................................

Here is Happy going through the water crossing, at about 10 times the recommended speed



The crossing is pretty smooth at the bottom, so no worries

ps: Thanks Marnus for a great pic!!

Daleen wrote:I am glad this is newbie friendly... This will be my first GS ride and I am a bit nervous. Look forward to the trip though.

Hi Daleen,

No need to be nervous, there are loads of help all around all the time, so you will never be in any trouble.

Nasty scare tactic Marnus. Want to give the newbies heart failure already. Newbies, please note this service road is not in the Club ride. Next 3 paragraphs is my experience of this service road.

That service road was sure interesting. As you can see, the road is more a track than a road, with most of the traffic of this road goes through a gate just at the beginning of the slope, indicating that the track to the top is seldom used. This slope is definitely not even, and if you look closely at the track in the shadows of the bush just to the right, you get to see how rocky it is. Not a problem to ride up, just a bit bouncy, just keep the revs up and you will be fine. What made this slope more interesting that Sunday, is the cut elephant grass that was dumped on the slope covering those loose rocks. Now who is crazy enough to dump grass on rocky slopes? The grass providing more slipping action on the rear wheel in addition to throwing the rocks about.

Getting up to the top of the slope was the easy part. It was the sudden stopping at the top that was tricky when I suddenly had 2 bikes parked in both tracks in front of me, near the top edge of the slope. Bikes just parked behind the photographer Marnus. To prevent crashing into the bikes, I slammed on brakes, really hard on front brake so ended up planting myself in the grass to the left with bike landing on my ex-broken foot (broke it in March GS club ride - Waterberg). It was sure painful with the weight of my bike on it. Sharkie and Marnus got the bike off and helped me to stand up. Thankfully I was wearing my Alpinestars Tech 7 boots. Yes, proper riding gear is essential when riding on more technical terrains. A little walk to inspect the slope and to give myself a little rest, I was back on my bike ready to go down the other side of this ridge to meet the long gravel track. Yes, long, it just seemed to go on forever. I was just thinking, "Marnus just don't stop. These gravel ruts are really slippery.". Once you in a rut you stay in that rut, so I had to deal with smacking through the elephant grass leaning over the track the entire gravel ride.

Well for the newbie, this might sound scary. Don't worry, this track is not included in the Club ride this coming Sunday. This was the most challenging terrain I had to ride on so far with a comfortable pace (what I was happy with). I exclude the 2008 Year End gathering at Badplaas going down the gravel loaded mountain pass, as I was going very slowly, especially around the bends. To Sharkie, Marnus, Pieter, Collin, and other experienced off-road riders, this is a walk in the park stuff.

Now the river crossing. Marnus, thanx for such a great photo!

It is very easy. As Sharkie said, it is fairly smooth at the bottom. I just went in as fast as I could to make the biggest possible splash the 2nd time we crossed the river. We back tracked this part of the route for we wanted to do the river crossing again. I really enjoyed crossing it the first time round and really wanted to do it again. Normally you go MUCH slower, to prevent big splashes. Please note, before I attempted the speedy crossing, I already had inspected the river crossing the 1st time after we crossed the river, and I stopped before the crossing to choose my line before giving gas. The entire river crossing is almost in the photo just to give the newbies an idea how short this crossing is. As you can see from the front wheel, the crossing is very shallow.

Oh we also visited the MX track on our route, which will definitely be skipped for the Club ride. I fell twice on the MX track. It was my first time on a MX track so I definitely made mistakes, like ending up in neutral going up a big slope is not a good idea. Though I did enjoy the short trip on the MX track. I have plenty to learn still, definitely be learning on the smaller obstacles first before taking on the larger ramps again.

I've been missing out on a lot lately! Been away most weekends, but I'm here this weekend so if you guys are planning something on Saturday please do tell!