BrianB

felt the same way when we did our epic Wolkberg trip in Tzaneen... unspoilt beauty etc. KK will be a walk in the park for me... cos nothing is too technical. I'll probably do it on my back wheel alone I'll even take it on with my 200Kg Adventure bike or anything on 2 wheels.

Exactly where is the entrance for King Kloof cos I checked it out last week on maps.google and according to their co-ords it's a Farm Stall next to the main road... no where to enter. Seems like you park just next to the main road on a grass patch behind the stall. Is that correct? I did van Gaalen's in May and really enjoyed it & would like to do KK.

According to Mapsource your plotted route is 88.2km. Half the route is gravel. I did it a while back on my 750 Africa Twin.

nothing beats hooking that low range gear combo to do that climb at snail pace, especially when you have to balance your weight between not lifting the front wheel while maintaining sufficient traction on those loose stuff (or avoiding wheel spin. then there is that hair raising fast descents, dodging rocks and keeping the wheels on the ground. Then when the going gets easy again, you pop that wheelie for a good 200m untill that side wind tells you it's a good time to put it down now :-) Road riding makes you focus a lot on your stats and physical and mental strength and how far you can still go or willing to go. Riding off-road completely shifts that focus to the fun side of cycling and you feel like a kid. Those short adrenalin bursts are awesome. I have the same amount of fun as with my Honda Africa Twin when riding off-road.

That's a bit too primitive for my liking

seems to me the front wheel just collapsed under his weight. Was he too heavy for the bike setup?????

I found myself in the exact same position as you in November when I decided that I had to get myself this MTB cos I've been wanting one for a long time now. A good friend of mine gave me a aluminium GT 20" chucker that I used as a BMX basically to play with & really appreciated the small bike for it being of such good quality compared to the ones you normally find in Makro etc. I was also looking at about R5K max to spend and there are really good deals on the Gumtree etc. and the local biking magazine even suggested the Mongoose at Sportsman's Warehouse for R5k, but somehow I wasn't really attracted to it. Then the one day I walked into Cajee's and walked out with a R13.7k "Scott Genius 50" valued at well over R20k. Reason for this was because I knew that I would end up selling the R5k bike at some stage for an upgrade and the truth is that you never get your money back when selling... so I decided to buy something I won't sell in a hurry... it works out cheaper that way me thinks. The Scott dual suspension works really well cos you need a hard tail for climbing and a soft tail for downhill and with the 3 suspension settings on the fly (Lock-out, Traction & Full Travel) it offers more. So I think that if you buying a lower budget bike that you know you would sell later on, I suggest you buy a 2nd hand one and you will most likely get all your money back when re-selling.