first full day on the Rally Raid KTM 690..

This morning around 7am, I left Strand in the Western Cape heading for Ceres. I took the R44, through Stellenbosch over the N1 highway to Wellington. I filled up all my tanks at Wellington, about 13L including the fuel that was in there already.

I headed straight for Ceres via the Bain’s Kloof pass, beautiful scenery, sweeping bendy roads through the mountains.

While taking photos, I noticed the rear Rally Raid aux tank is wet, looked like it only seeped through the cap. I have noticed though, that when you fill the two front tanks, the level drops quite quickly and it pushes up the level of fuel in rear tank. I opted for the clear tanks, so you can easily see the fuel levels which is a big help.

I soon arrived in Ceres and then headed for Sutherland. The tarmac soon stopped and it was pretty much all gravel from there on until I reached Sutherland.

In Sutherland, I filled up again, stopped at the local butchery for some “droe wors” and a coke. I then noticed fuel dripping from the rear tank, it looks like it is leaking from the top mounting holes.

I will have to check out the leak when I get to Bloemfontein, in the meantime, I will not completely fill it. So far, it is difficult to judge how much I can get out of all the tanks, but after 250km, I only filled up around 11L, so I am sure you can easily reach over 500km with the tanks.

After reaching Frasersburg, I decided to change my route again, instead of doing 250km of gravel to Victoria West, I got on the tarmac road for Beaufort West. I am currently sleeping over at Haus Holzapfel, heading to Bloemfontein tomorrow morning.

So far, I am very happy with the KTM 690, it easily sits at 120km/h and with the new seat from Guts Racing, Rally Raid fairing and the extended range with the Rally Raid tanks, it makes a great travelling bike. It’s also feels very agile and light to maneuver on the gravel roads!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beaufort West,South Africa

New mini-African adventure

This blog was mainly dedicated to my London to South Africa expedition on my BMW F800GS, but I have decided to still use this blog for any other motorcycling tours/adventures I might do.

I recently purchased a KTM 690 Enduro R from KTM in Cape Town. It is a bike they nicknamed the Oryx since they do a Rally Raid fairing and tank conversion.

I have also locally (in the UK) ordered some other Rally Raid products like the rear aux tank, tank bolts, GPS bracket, etc … which I plan to take with me to South Africa in Feb 2012 so that they can fit them before I take delivery of the new bike. I have also purchased the Rally graphics kit, so when I am done with it, it will look something like this:

So, in the little mini-African adventure, I will be riding my new, what I like to call, KTM 690 Rally bike from Cape Town to Bloemfontein about a 1000km away. I am going to try and avoid any motorways and/or toll roads, planning to sleep over somewhere halfway.

I had a quick look at Google maps and most of the roads I plan to take will be gravel or some form off “off-road”.

I plan to take my helmet cameras and document as much of it as I can, tweet and blog as well … so watch this space. I will depart Cape Town around 15 feb 2012.