The Franskraal Tour

Much selling and buying of motorbikes happened in the Yell household over Christmas. It was with great sadness that I finally decided to sell Sir Galahad (my 30-year old Honda Africa Twin XRV750) and buy a half share in a bike more suitable for Annette to ride as well. We’d been talking to her ex editor’s husband, De Wet, about the possibility of buying his tricked-out 2008 Suzuki DR650 for some time, and struck the deal as soon as Sir Galahad was sold.

- Nick Yell

So I was hoping to bring you the “Blouperd Shakedown tour” this month, but en route to have the bike serviced at Grabouw Suzuki, we learned that owner Louis had come down with the dreaded Corona virus. Thankfully he’s okay now, and I’ll hopefully be able to bring you my first impressions of this gritty old stalwart (with many extras such as a pumper carb, long range tank and Two Brothers racing exhaust etc.) in the March issue. But setting off on Yeeha!, my faithful and well-travelled KLR650 of 14 years, is certainly no hardship; especially with Annette following in the little Pajero. It was, of course, a compromise as we’d planned to ride together after a long hiatus; yet, as I’ve said before and will no doubt say again, there are no plans this coronavirus can’t stuff up royally.

What it did mean, though, was we could find many a pretty spot under the bluegums, sit on comfy camp chairs, drink coffee and become naturally numb whenever we felt like it.

It was in 2001 — when I moved from Johannesburg to Napier — that I first got back into off-road riding. At that stage I’d been about 15-years out of the saddle, but the abundance of vermicelli-like dirt tracks around my new home called to me daily and were also well suited to a nonroad licensed dirt tracker like I was at the time. I soon found Jonny’s bike shop in Bredasdorp and there stood a revamped old Suzuki PE250 (Geelperd) with my name on it.