Summarising my African Adventure

So to sum up my 8 week African Adventure, I will start with the motorbike that I used, the Yamaha T7. I have to say I was surprised at how good this bike was. On the tarmac it cruised at 70 mph fully loaded with no signs of weave and the standard seat was extremely comfortable for the long periods that i was seated. The bike started first time for the whole of the trip, it didn’t falter once even when I was using low grade petrol.

When it came to taking the bike off road, it handled the punishing rocky and muddy trails that I encountered with ease, yes you could feel it was a heavy bike but it powered through the challenging sections. I would add that for the challenging terrain through South Africa I did not have the side panniers attached to the bike and this made a big difference to the off road handling.

It was only when I was riding with my colleagues on KTM 790’s that I noticed that the power delivery of the Yamaha T7 is not quick on acceleration or top speed, however when riding alone the power delivery on both tarmac and off road was sufficient for my riding ability. When it came to riding the technical off road sections the low down torque that was on tap made riding the Yamaha T7 at a fast pace a breeze.

The Yamaha T7 is also a good looking bike. When traveling through South Africa I felt like a celebrity, as whenever I stopped people would come over to look at the bike and then ask me if they could take a photo of it as they had not seen one in real life, only in magazines. They were all very complimentary about the look of the bike and it seemed were waiting for the release of the Yamaha T7 in South Africa. I lost count of how many times this happened, but clearly Yamaha need to speed up the release this bike in the South Africa as there are a lot of customers waiting for it to arrive.

So moving away from the bike there are a number of questions to answer that will help to summarise my African Adventure.....

What was the biggest challenge when organising the trip?

This was trying to determine the best and safest route for me to take. I logged onto several overland forums but when I ask for advise I either didn’t get any answers to my questions or received unhelpful or irrelevant information. So when finalising my route I decided to base this purely on the research I had carried out myself without the help of the forums.

What was the most memorable moment on the trip?

Riding through Botswana and having to stop because there were elephants and giraffes wandering across the road. This really made me feel I was on an adventure through Africa.

What was the most worrying situation I encountered?

When traveling through Malawi and a group of around 20 men had blocked the road ahead of me by pulling a tree across the road to stop the traffic. The aim was for them to try and get money from the passing motorists. As I approached them they were all shouting at me to stop but I noticed a small gap between the tree and another large log so revved the bike up and headed for the gap. The men jumped out of the way and I got through, but this did make the heart pump a bit quick.

Which section of the route was the most memorable?

This is a difficult question to answer as there were many memorable parts of the route but one that sticks in my mind the most was riding off road through the Baviaanskloof mountains in South Africa. The terrain was varied from water crossings to technical mountain tracks and the views were ammazing. It was the sort of ride I would normally do on my Enduro bike so to complete it on a big 700cc bike was great experience.

What was my biggest worry when doing the trip solo?

I think in the back of my mind I was worried that if the bike broke down what would I do. I am not particularly mechanically minded so would have had to seek some help. There were sections on my route that I felt that I was in the middle of no where and if the bike had broken down in these areas it would have been very difficult to transport it to somewhere that may have been able to fix it.

Would I do the trip again?

My objective was always to ride a motorbike through Africa by myself and I achieved that, so I don’t think I would want to replicate the same same journey again. However would I do another big trip, more than likely!