So after a fitful night of half-consciousness (and one episode of flagging down the only truck that passed by the whole night for water), I woke up to find 5 bushmen poking around the outside of my tent.
Besides the whole crashing constantly thing of the previous day, I also, in my infinite wisdom after my […]

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So it’s now one day out of Luanda.  I haven’t slept well, it’s hot as Hades, and packing the bike is a pain in the ass (thanks to my overflowing wisdom in not bringing hard metal panniers and being forced to shove everything inside crappy softbags, my duffel bag, and the rest bungee’d and cam-buckle-tie-down’d […]

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Well not really.
I did manage to snap another cylinder head bolt (in my defense, it had gotten bent from the impact from the gas tank during one my many medium-speed wipeouts in sand in southern Angola that popped off the rubber gas tank mounts and was leaking oil), and this of course means with no […]

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The tracks  for this ride diary abruptly end where my GPS met its maker under what were probably wheels 1-9 of several 18-wheelers, but the commentary (as usual) continues on and on and on…
The ride from Windhoek to the Namibian border is a long, boring, and dry, boring, plain, (did I mention boring?) trip.
I was […]

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…If you go in for a tire fitting at the only Kawasaki dealer in all of Namibia, and you specifically ask them NOT to use your fresh tube but rather patch the slow leak in the old one and ask them NOT to steal your metal valve covers, they WILL use your fresh tube and […]

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After my wipeout coming back from Sossosvlei in southern Namibia and some much needed R&R in Windhoek, quite possibly the world’s most boring city (with all apologies to St. Augustine, Florida) , and with connection from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, I got […]

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Off-road and dual-sport motorcycles are meant to ridden over rough terrain with full loads at medium speeds - when they fall down nothing snaps off; they ride better fully loaded; and they maintain handling capability on all types of traction.
One thing they are not good at is being run at high RPMs for a long […]

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Riding a motorcycle is never a question of IF you will crash, it is always a matter of WHEN you will crash.
And riding an overloaded dirt bike at 2000 meters in a high desert mountain pass doing 120k/hour on un-graded gravel roads with sudden elevation changes and blind turns is no exception.

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This is part of a occasional series highlighting the actual rides with GPS tracks and maps for those who are really serious about following along.
After a tough goodbye from Cape Town on the first beautiful day in weeks, I overloaded my bike with too much crap and headed north - into Southern Namibia; heading west […]

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…If a bunch of trucks flash their high beams repeatedly during the day while you’re flying up the N7 at 160 KPH in northern South Africa, it’s not because they hit it on accident, it’s because you forgot to strap down your shinguards properly on the back of your overloaded bike and they are about […]

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