Well, it’s been a while folks? Hasn’t it? They days are just flying buy and I just realized it’s been 5 (five!!) weeks since I last posted.

I’ve figured out part of the problem though. My best ideas come to me in morning traffic, which worked out okay previously, because I’d get to work and do a quick post. Now I’m working a 6 hour day, and leave strictly at 2pm each day, I feel kinda bad about blogging at work.

Not to mention that work has blocked my blog anyway, so even if I had a few passing thoughts to post, I can’t get there!

So here’s a few passing thoughts that I have managed to remember for long enough to post.

First, some Kudos: Outsurance, for those non SA readers (yeah, all of you, say Hi ) is a local insurance company. They do this really nice thing, where they deploy pointsmen to intersections where traffic lights aren’t working, or that are unusually congested in peak time traffic, to ease things up. Great advertising for them, and we score too. Well, I saw two of their blokes riding off to their assignment the other day, on their typical lime green scooters, and I was impressed by the gear that the company provides for them. Most motor cycle delivery guys are in an old, doesn’t fit properly, helmet and whatever else they happened to be wearing that day. Given their income bracket, that doesn’t usually mean great protective gear. But these two Outsurance guys had been provided with proper protective gear, from jackets, pants and gloves, even down to proper riding boots and knee guards. I’m impressed. Thank you Outsurance for kitting out your guys in such a responsible manner.

Next, about being a mom. I was gonna post this on mothers day, shows how well I am doing. I wasn’t very maternal before Aidan. I’m still not that much so except where it comes to my own son. But I have noticed a strong empathy with other mothers everywhere. I ache for the poor mom walking down the street with the little boy in clothes that no longer fit him, pants that should have been to the ankle now closer to his knees. I’m sure it’s not her intention, but she just can’t afford to keep buying new clothes for a boy that won’t stop growing. I cry for moms of sick – really sick – babies who have no choice but to just cope, because their child needs them. I even feel terrible pangs of emotion for moms in movies who are trying in vain to protect their children from some unseen evil.

And I notice cases of child neglect or abuse in the news so much more these days, and it turn me cold. Knowing how dependant Aidan is on me, how could someone deliberately hurt a child?

I come from a family of sympathy criers. Well, the female side anyway. My mom, sis and I are all the same, show us a sad movie, or put us in a room with someone else who’s crying, and we’ll be crying along with them. And now because of these emotional revelations I’m so much more raw. There is just so much more to be emotional about. It’s quite a rollercoaster ride.

On the flip side, I’m often fighting back happy tears for every mom I see share a special moment with their child.

I need to keep some tissues in my handbag …

*Alex enters to drum rolls, thunderous applause and whistles*

I did it! I rode my bike to work! Ha ha, and you thought I was gonna say I’d completed my 30-in-30

Well, actually I’ve done both today, but lets start with the bike:

I have ridden my bike to work only once before, more than a year ago when I was young and naive. I hate hate hate town traffic. Cars all around me, traffic light and stop streets, it freaks me out. Almost as much as my fear of stalling my bike across an intersection. In fact, I think I’m more afraid of looking like an idiot on a bike than I am of someone actually driving onto me. Today vanity and pride won over those fears. I think I mentioned my new biking jacket? The one Hunny got me for Christmas that arrived end Jan. I just had to show it to the folks at work, but there was no ways I was going to drive it to work in my car, especially after all the flack I got last year for being the biker chick without a bike. So this morning I put on my new jacket and my big girl panties, hoped on my bike and rode to work (Safely accompanied by mother hen aka Hunny)

Whoohoo! This is big progress from me. A friend at work took these pics…

From the front: my butch pose

and from the back:

   
If you’ve been counting (I have!) today I officially complete my 30-in-30! There are 31 tags, but that’s because I posted twice in on day (can you imagine that?!) I promise not to disappear totally from the blogsphere just because I’m done with the challenge, but I am taking this weekend off.

Right back at the beginning of the challenge you might remember me saying that it’s hard for me to form habits. Well, I proved that to myself with this. At around 28 days I very nearly forgot to post. It slipped my mind for most of the day. If 27 days isn’t long enough to create a habit, then what is? Good thing I like my electric toothbrush so much or who knows what’d happen.

On a related note, I have found my next challenge: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Yeah, it’s more than 8 months away, but who’s going to do this with me? Common guys, it’ll be great! Go sign up! I always wanted to write a novel, this may actually get me started. I mean, if I can blog for 30 days straight, I’m halfway there, right?

Confidence is a funny thing. If you don’t have it naturally it’s so difficult to gain. If you do have it naturally then it sticks like glue. Then there is the confidence that comes from naivety, which is what I think I had with my biking. You’re confident because you don’t know any better, then something bursts your bubble and you need to learn confidence all over again, one baby step at a time.

My head knew that there were dangers involved, but they didn’t translate through my body. I wanted to get on a bike, so I did it. Then I came off said bike, and now my body knows what it has to be afraid off. Not having a bike to ride for 6 months didn’t help either. Getting back on after 6 months was like learning all over again. The difference is that this time, I was nervous.

Speed doesn’t bother me much. Each ride we go on I start out slowly, but as my confidence grows I get more comfortable with the throttle. It’s the cornering that quickens my heart rate and tightens the muscles in my arms & shoulders. My eyes see the barriers I might crash into before they see the route I’m trying to take, and any good biking instructor will tell you that your bike goes where your eyes are looking… My brain has to remind my arms that I need to relax. I can almost feel those impulses traveling from my brain to my arms, telling them they need to relax so I can lean into my turn. It’s amazing how the human body works.

My confidence is slowly returning though. I could feel it creeping back into my veins with each kilometer traveled, each turn executed, each successful negotiation of traffic I did this morning. It was a glorious feeling: each time I didn’t panic when the road ahead wasn’t clear was a victory.

When it returns this time, it will be confidence that comes with knowledge and experience, and that to me is the best kind to have.

Shew! What a busy weekend!

The greenie & I went for our first run together in over 6 months on Saturday morning. To be quite honest I was more than mildly surprised that I remember how to ride, the sequences of the gear changes, braking with front & rear brakes, and pulling away without stalling, you know, that kinda thing. When I was learning to ride I stalled at least once every time I tried to pull away. Most frustrating, and the more frustrated I got the more I stalled. Saturday I was fine, maybe it’s just a false sense of security, but I didn’t stall once! It was a short but great ride, great because the bike really is running better than ever, and short because I had to hurry home to go to…

The massage course I told you about. Sports massage. It was run by the lady I normally go to when I need pummeling back into shape, and it was a very informative and practical course. By the end of Sunday we had been taught how to give a full body massage in an hour. It’s actually a pretty difficult thing to fit into one hour, doesn’t leave you too much time to work on problem areas. We paired up and practiced our techniques on our partner. I can truly say that by Sunday afternoon I was all massaged out. I think students get a little over-zealous when they find a knotted muscle. After a practice leg massage, full leg massage, practice back massage, and full body massage I felt quite pummeled. It was a lot of fun though, and the time flew by so quickly.

I’ve tried a little practicing on my Hunny, he’s not an easy candidate, his muscles are quite a bit thicker than your average bloke, but he says I’m not doing too bad

With two days of course, and an assortment of other activities it hardly felt like I’ve had a weekend at all, but that’s okay, there is always the next one. Oh no wait, that one is fully booked also. *sigh*

How do you eat an elephant?

- One bite at a time.

An update on the Greenie’s story. On Monday Hunny fetched a new set of (second hand) carburetors. Tuesday we took the bike back to Danie at Randburg motorcycles. Wednesday we waited. Thursday mid-morning Randburg motorcycles phoned us up to say the bike is ready for collection. We dropped everything and went to fetch! Amazing! I think I have a crush on Danie …

Hunny rode the bike home, and says it’s better then when we bought it.  I’m a lot closer to excited now Just the new exhaust left to fit and we are done.

Only thing now is that I’m on course all weekend … *sob*

I have had this post planned for a while. It’s taken a number of different tones over the past 6 odd months, starting with Jubilation: “Yippee! My bike is back, and she looks better than ever!”. Then it moved on to “Finally! My Bike is back!”. Some relief and jubilation in the tone. Then it was “Well I eventually got my bike back, but at least she looks great!” Annoyed but happy.

At about 4 months in, I was planning a hate post for the guy that was repairing the damage to my bike: “The stupid bastard still has my bike! I can’t believe someone could offer such shoddy service!”. At 5 months I was in tears, would I ever get the damn bike back? I hated my formerly trusted mechanic for making such an idiot out of me.

Last Friday, at six and a half months, greenie came home. I thought I’d be elated, but the elation hasn’t come. Rueful relief is more like it.

What follows is a post of the tribulations and excuses that made this a six and a half month journey. Not great reading for you I am sure, but hopefully therapeutic for me.

At the end of April this year Hunny and I did a 4000 km trip from JHB down to Port Elizabeth, along the coast line to Cape Town and back. Hunny on his Suzuki M109R, me on my Kawasaki ZZR400. The little 400 coped extremely well with the long distance. Our average pace was probably between 130 – 140 km/h and she did just fine.

On day 6 of the journey I had a lapse in concentration at a crucial spot, hit some gravel and we came down. Not a scratch on me, but the greenie took a bit of a hit:

Good thing Hunny brought duct tape, we were able to stick her back together and carry on. The damage seemed to be only cosmetic, except for my right foot peg which he were are to get welded back on 400km’s later. No right foot peg made for some interesting riding and a couple of cramped muscles, but that’s another story.

We arrived back in Joburg on May 2nd, and that afternoon took the bike in to our trusty mechanic Norman to ask him what we should do. Norm agreed that the damage was repairable, no bent frames, just cosmetic. And that’s when the waiting started.

Norm doesn’t do the paint & repair work himself, he sends it out to another provider. This guy (don’t know his name) was supposed to come in and pick up everything paintable (we decided to give the greenie a complete respray) and give Norm a quote. Well, paint guy took his own good sweet time, and came back with a fairly expensive quote, so Norm asked another guy for a quote, but it was in the same ballpark, so we decided to go with guy one, because we knew he did a very good job. So we finally got a quote to submit to insurance, this was 6 weeks later …

It’s notable that at this point, when Hunny went round to nag Norm for the quote, they tried to start the bike, it wouldn’t start. Norm said he’d look into that.

Anyway, insurance approved the quote, so now things were supposed to start happening. My work colleagues and friends were already asking me on a weekly basis “So when you are you getting your bike back?”. Embarrassed to say we didn’t even have a quote yet, I explained that we know Norm takes a little longer, but he does a really great job. (Which he does, but at what cost? My sanity?)

Time went on, and I kept asking Hunny what was happening with the bike (He was dealing with Norm at this stage), but progress was slow. We had planned a bike trip on the long weekend starting 9th August, and Norm had promised to get the bike back to us by the end of July. July came and went, and so did the long weekend, with only excuses from Norman. He had the paintwork back by this stage, but had done nothing at all with the bike in the meantime, and the bike still didn’t start!

At this point I’m feeling like the biggest idiot. It seems there is nothing we can do to get Norman to do his job, and because the insurance quote was approved for him to do the work, we couldn’t take it away from him without additional expenses. We know that he does do a brilliant job, and I was convinced that the result will be worth the wait. By this time I had asked my work colleagues not to ask about the bike anymore.

My birthday was on the 14 of August. When we didn’t get the bike back in time for the long weekend, I told Hunny that if it wasn’t back in the garage by my birthday, I’d call the 30 odd guests that were coming around for my birthday bash and tell them not to come. It was an empty threat, but Hunny did go to Norm and tell him that was my birthday, and Norm promised to (his own words) “pull finger” to get the bike back to me on my birthday. Birthday came and went, as did party, with no bike.

Somewhere around about here I decided to give Norm a call myself, just so he could lie to me also. He made some empty promises, weak excuses, and basically told me he was doing me a favor, and losing money, to salvage the bike because it should really have been a write-off. I told him that if it were written off I would have a new one by now. It was a cheap second hand bike when we bought it, so the quote to repair was ominously close to write-off value. In hind sight that would have been the wiser option, but it seemed silly to write off a bike for cosmetic damage.

And then the wait continued… Hunny was visiting Norm on a weekly basis to get the latest collection of excuses, and we were both feeling incredibly despondent about the bike. I started worrying that the insurance would refuse to pay the claim because too much time had elapsed. Hunny had Norm phone the insurance company. He fed them some story about waiting for parts and got their agreement to still pay once the claim was submitted.

At this point it was the non-starting of the bike, discovered before we got the quote, that was holding up matters. Norm suspected it was a compression issue, but just wasn’t getting around to doing anything with it. Hunny had a huge blow-out with Norm about that, and Norm assured him that he’d get to it within the week. Hunny thought they had reached an understanding. When he went around a week later to find that absolutely nothing had been done, he lost his cool. He went around the next day to fetch the bike (minus fairing etc) to take it to another shop so someone would at least look at it.

Randburg motorcycles got back to us within a week, having diagnosed some problem (I forget what…) and fixed it, and said that while there was a compression issue, it wasn’t too major and was likely long standing, we’d probably bought the bike that. They’re probably correct as twice while riding the bike I’d had a lack of power on pull-away, but that was twice in 6 months, so not a big deal.

Sadly the bike now had to go back to Norm to be fitted with fairing & etc, because he still had those parts. This was around mid October. Norman did get around to putting the bike together (minus the new exhaust) and we were getting hopeful that the end may be in sight. Norm then took the bike for a ride (its first in 6 months) and said that there was still something wrong with the engine, but he’ll take a look at it. Surprise surprise, a week later he’d still done nothing. In that time I’d been to visit him because I thought it only fitting that he lie to my face also, but Hunny had had enough. He went around that afternoon, came to an agreement with Norm that he’d take what the insurance gave him, we’d take the bike and the still not fitted exhaust, and we’d call it quits.

So the next week the bike was back at Randburg motorcycles, with my new favorite mechanic, Danie. The last time the bike had been with him it was missing some major parts that would have allowed him to test drive the bike, so he was quite apologetic that we had to bring it back. He explained that he was very busy at the moment, but would get back to us in a week, and amazingly he did! Wow! He thinks the bike it much better, but not 100%. It needs some new parts for the carburetors which will need to be imported from Japan at 6 -8 weeks delivery time, but we can take it home in the meantime.

Sourcing parts is the major problem with buying grey imports, we have learnt our lesson. We can also get a set of second hand carbs from bikeshop-online, they have 11 sets, and if the one we take isn’t hundreds, we can swap out through all 11 sets. It’s a tough call.

So end status is that yesterday Hunny rode by bike home from Randburg motorcycles (I haven’t ridden in so long I have probably forgotten how!) and it’s now in our garage with a stunning paint job, a carburetor problem and without its new exhaust. We still need to collect the new exhaust from Norman and get it fitted elsewhere.

If you are still reading, I think you can understand why my enthusiasm for getting my bike back is not what it should be. But she looks pretty, here are some before & after pictures.

Full view …

Part of the screen snapped off entirely, but duct tape is amazing stuff. This held together for the remaining 1 000 odd kilometers.

The missing piece of fairing from below the indicator is still somewhere outside Wellington. Paint guy did a great job of fixing that …

As you’ll know Hunny & I are both bikers. We’re a bit late on the trend but we’ve just finished watching “The long way round“. Ewan McGregor and his mate Charley Boorman rode two BMW Adventures from London, across some of the roughest terrain imaginable in Europe (Think Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and the infamous ‘road of bones‘ in Russia), with a quick flight across to Alaska and down to New York.

115 Days,  30,395 km. Makes our little 4 000 km Cape Town trip sound like something that aught to have been done with training wheels!

If you are into biking and can get your hands on it, this is a great series (10 episodes). The countries that they ride through are so remote but beautiful, and the people so unbelieveably friendly. I’m a little green around the edges with envy, but I’m not sure I have the strength of body or character to pull that off. I have a new found respect for Ewan, some days you could see that the going was really getting them down (12 hours, 70 miles?) but he preserved in a way you wouldn’t immediately expect from a Hollywood actor.

So if you have a few spare evenings, and biking is your thing, give it a watch, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

As a footnote, the same two blokes just recently travelled down Africa on their bikes, the dvd/book or whatever is on it’s way soon (October 2007). I’d be interested to see their opinions on yout continent.

What we tried to do with this trip was reach the coast as quickly as possible and then take our time riding along the coastline as close to the sea as we could from PE, around Cape Point to Cape Town, and from there head inland and home.

Today we started our travels through the garden route, one of the most beautiful parts of the country. The Cape coastline is known to have some volatile weather and day three was the start of our weather woes.

We set out from PE at 9:00 AM, all sunshine and smiles. Despite a chill in the air it was still pleasant riding to Knysna for lunch. We traveled through Bloukrans pass, and was that not just the most beautiful place ever! A long winding decent into such a quiet green valley. It felt like we were in some forgotten place until a BMW X3 came screaming around the corner.

Knysna is every bit as beautiful as people say it is. We ate lunch at the Heds and watched folk with yachts and speed boats sail out to sea …

The sun was still shining on us when we left Knysna and took a quick stop past Victory Bay, just to see. Leaving Victory bay the weather started turning on us. No rain yet, but some rather unpleasant crosswinds. We rode most of the rest of the way to Stillbaai with our bikes leaning into the wind.

We were guests of Mike and Louise at Hibiscus House for the night and what wonderful hosts they were. The rooms themselves are in a house next door to their own home, so privacy isn’t an issue and you are right on the river.

We borrowed and umbrella and walked to “The Rocks” for dinner. Mike recommended them as serving what may be the best steaks in the country. I have a suspicion he could well be correct with that one. The place is a meat-eaters paradise. See the pic of the specials board below! Some other interesting items on the menu were:

1. The Rocks Grill: 400g Rump, 2 pieces of chicken and spare ribs

2. The Fisherman’s special: 150g Sirloin, Lamb chops, chicken drumstick, onion rings, 2 eggs and chips

3. As a side item, along with onion rings, chips, pineapple slices and fried egg, you could order 150g sirloin. “Can I get the Rocks grill with a side of sirloin please?” A meat lovers paradise I tell you.

During dinner we caught a news report on one of the local radio stations warning that gale force winds were expected along the coast the following couple of days (our intended route!) and that emergency services would be on full alert. We decided to see what the weather was like the following morning before making the decision whether we’d hang around in Stillbaai for another day or if we’d just push through to Simon’s Town. We may have made the wrong call on that one, but that’s day four’s story!

Highlights:

1. Bloukrans pass, absolutely stunning.

2. Lunch at Knysna. Good food in beautiful surroundings.

3. Mike & Louise from Hibiscus house. Such great hospitality.

Lowlights:

1. The unfriendly crosswinds.

The happy snaps:

Taking a break at the bottom of Bloukrans pass, the photo doesn’t do it justice …

How dense is this vegetation?

The view from lunch at Knysna

Two very different bikes, even the parking in Knysna has a view

Hibiscus house: our room had sliding doors that opened out onto a patio on the river

Todays special at The Rocks

Day two had us on the road at the much warmer hour of 9:00 AM after a breakfast of bacon, sausages and omelette’s at Umtali Lodge.

We passed through a couple of tiny towns, but non stuck in my memory quite like Hofmeyer. Perhaps two roads in the entire town, it boasted a clinic (identifiable only by the ambulance parked out front), a bottle store and 3 biltong shops. Apparently biltong is big in these parts.

Sheep farming seems pretty big in this part of the Free State also. It’s a good thing that counting sheep never did have much success putting me to sleep!

The road from Hofmeyer to Cradock was hands down my favorite. Riding towards the mountains on pale gray road in the warm sunshine, inhaling fresh air and sweet grass smells. It’s why I own a bike.

We stopped for lunch in Cradock and that was quite a surprising town. An old town, but so neat and clean, it looked like they gave everything a fresh lick of paint especially for us!

From Cradock it was through Olifantsnek Pass to Port Elizabeth. The windy city was true to form and sent a headwind out to greet us but that did nothing to dampen our spirits. We arrived at our chosen stop for the night, the Formula 1 hotel, at 3:30 PM. One glance at the dodgy looking room and we headed out and got drunk. Well not quite. After taking a walk on the beach we ate some prawns and drank some Jacks while watching the sun set out on the deck at Jimmy’s killer prawns. It had truly set before we pulled together enough (dutch) courage to go back to that hotel room

The Highlights:

1. The warm sun and really ridable roads through unspoilt countryside made this day one of the best days of the trip.

2. The trucker at the top of the Olifantsnek pass who stopped his truck, walked directly to Hunny’s bike and said straight out: “Dis ‘n fokken lekker bike!”

Lowlights:

None?

Happy snaps …

Crisp sunlight at Aliwal North when we set out …

Top of the pass …

Me getting my toes wet: see how brave I am

Gulls on the beach …

And so ends another day: sunset from the deck at Jimmy’s …

Two weeks ago my Hunny and I set off on a much anticipated trip across our country, South Africa. Read the intro on my old Blogger site here. I promised a write up with photo’s and here it is, starting with:

Day 1: Tuesday 24 April

We set out from home at a rather chilly 6:30 AM, with only what would fit into one backpack and one tankbag as clothing and toiletries for the next 9 days. Early morning riding is lovely, especially when all the traffic is traveling towards town and you’re heading out. I used to think the Pretoria/Centurion traffic was the worst in the country until we drove past 40km’s of traffic (yes, before 7:00 AM in the morning) coming from the South towards Sandton / Rivonia. All 3 lanes of the highway were at a crawl if not a standstill. Boy am I glad I only live 15 km’s from work.

The further we headed out of town the colder it got. Our fingers started to freeze into their handlebar gripping position and I swear I had icicles forming inside my nostrils by the time we stopped outside the Vaal toll plaza to try and warm up a little.

It did warm up after that. We stopped in Ventersburg for some breakfast and when we left there the chill seemed to have pretty much left the air. The remainder of the days riding had some lovely smooth and straight roads and we set a good pace. Still, excluding a stop for lunch at the only tea garden in the tiny town of Zastron and a few petrol fill ups, it was pretty much solid riding all the way till 3:30 PM, where we stopped for the day at Umtali Lodge in Aliwal North. Less than 15 minutes later I was sound asleep. That was some hard riding: 685 km’s, the most we did on any one day for the whole trip.

The Highlights of day one:

1. The trucker who called us over to warm our hands over his cabin heater when we stopped to thaw out just past the Vaal toll plaza

2. The well maintained easy riding roads of the Free State.

The Lowlights:

Apart from the freezing cold the worst aspect for me was the amount of wildlife roadkill we rode passed: mongoose, small foxes, birds and other indistinguishable creatures. Pretty sad.

The happy snaps:

Stopping to thaw out …

Lunch in Zastron, the town may be small but the burgers are big …