By Piet vd Westhuyzen (Photos: Lettie Ferreira)

The first ever GS Challenge was held at Country Trax, the farm of BMW chief off-road instructor, Jan du Toit, near Amersfoort in September 2004.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of the first GAGSC, brainchild of Deon Meyer, was to get people to do something with their GS motorcycles that they were designed to do in the first place. Pack a small tent, sleeping bag and few bare necessities on a GS, ride to a nice place, camp for three days, do some serious riding with a few mates and explore the beautiful surroundings via some of the roads less travelled.

During last year's event two routes of approximately 300 km were planned for every day to cater for two levels of riders. The "green" routes of mostly good gravel roads and some tar for the beginners and "red" routes that included gravel roads and a few river crossings, rocky climbs and descents as special stages for the more advanced and adventurous riders.

After each day's ride, a Skills Challenge competition was held, with the emphasis on slow speed handling and manoeuvring over obstacles of ever increasing difficulty. Hein Kumm was crowned the best GS rider after an awesome display of motorcycle control during the three rounds.

The first GS Challenge was such a huge success that 90 of the original 98 participants entered for the 2005 event.

Word of mouth plus the huge media coverage grabbed the attention of many more riders and BMW received four times more entries for the 2005 event, which was hosted on a farm near Loxton in the upper Karoo. This event grew in international status and several participants from Germany and the UK joined in the fun.

After the first event, Deon Meyer and the BMW team had plans for an even better 2005 Great African GS Challenge. Firstly, routes for three levels of riders were planned. A novice category was added to the familiar green and red routes. Secondly, due to the huge popularity of the special stages on the 2004 red routes, it was decided to add special stages to the 2005 green routes as well.

Sadly it was also decided to allow motorcycles to be trailered to the event. Loxton is not around the corner for most people but trailering really defeats the object of riding a GS motorcycle in the first place.

Most riders rode their trusty GSs to Loxton, but it was with great disappointment that we passed many GSs on trailers on the way and downright disgusting to find evidence in the car park that probability 20 to 30% of all GAGSC 2005 participants trailered their bikes to Loxton. Why don't we all sell our GS bikes, buy HP2's, trailer the bikes down to next year's event and have a motocross outing by blasting up and down the special stages?

So, everybody that trailered a bike down, in my view failed the first challenge of the GS Challenge before even arriving in Loxton. Fortunately, this year's event had some more challenges in store but more about that later.

On arrival at Jakhalsdans, 7 km from Loxton, participants were met by a real oasis in the Karoo. Similar to last year's event, the organisers pitched a huge Bedouin tent to serve as mess hall and provided good food, a bar, warm showers and toilet facilities. The sight of close to 400 small tents with a GS motorcycle parked next to each on the grass campsite between huge trees is one to remember.

After the admin and settling in formalities, the official opening took place early on the first evening. With Deon Meyer's welcoming note it was already clear that the organisers tried their utmost to improve on the already high standards set by the 2004 event.

Apart from the obvious riding and skills challenge, every day had something special planned. A nice touch on day one was a presentation by a professor of geology "Oom Loog" on the Karoo and its surroundings. According to Oom Loog the Karoo is 180 million years old and he explained how its was formed by erosion and gave riders a few pointers about interesting formations along the various routes.

On day two BMW surprised everybody with the first public appearance of the new HP2 motorcycle in SA. Fittingly, Jan du Toit gave an awesome display of the HP2's capabilities by making mince meat of the difficult skills challenge course of the day. That evening during the dinner a power failure was faked and Jan du Toit and Stephen King rode in darkness into the Bedouin tent on two new HP2s under wild applause. Enthusiasts poured over the machines and BMW could have sold a truckload full of HP2s right there and then.

Jan du Toit on the HP2

BMW also managed to fly Charley Boorman out from the UK for the 05 GAGSC and for those who don't know, this is one the two actors who rode from London to New York on R1150 GS Adventures and produced a film, TV series and book called, "The Long Way Round".

Charley is a very nice chap and entertained the crowd with a humorous account of his experiences during the trip and preparation for next year's Paris to Dakar rally on a race prepped BMW F650. Charley is recovering from a broken collarbone and could not join in the riding but assisted with the scoring on the skills challenge.

Charley Boorman keeps a close eye during the Skills Challenge

The GS Challenge is all about riding but as Deon Meyer said, it is also about choices. As in life, the route that you take is your own choice and therefore your own responsibility. Some did not appreciate the significance of Deon's message on choices but before too long every red route participant would understand the significance of these simple but wise words a lot better.

The routes ranged from less than 200 km for the shortest novice route to more than 400 km for the longest green route. GPS route data was made available a few days before the event via the website, detailed briefings were held every evening and printed instructions and maps were provided. The routes were so well marked and easy to follow that navigation presented no challenge at all.

The green and red routes for the 2005 GS Challenge were a lot more difficult than the 2004 routes and certainly caught a few riders out. All red and green routes had slippery dirt roads, a few ruts, lots of sand and rocky special stages. On day 2 the red route included a brilliant special stage in the thick sand and reeds of the Sak River as well as rocky climbs and descents.

Whether by design or otherwise, the more difficult routes paradoxically contributed to safety in a strange way. Many people dropped bikes in the sand and on the rocky sections but apart from the odd indicator and mirror that did not survive, only egos were dented in the difficult and slow sections. On easier parts riders tend to travel much faster and if something goes wrong in a long sweep at 140 km/h a little more than just an ego will be dented.

Despite the above, the red route of day three presented participants with a little bit more of a challenge than what most bargained for. In all fairness one must admit that Deon Meyer went out of his way to provide people with all the information to choose the right route and no red route participant can claim that he or she was not properly informed or warned.

During the final briefing Deon reminded everybody again about the options and choices and described the 8 km special stage of the red route 3 as "extremely difficult" with several very slippery, steep and long descents and climbs with gradients in places of 1 to 1. He also mentioned that both he and Jan du Toit dropped their bikes on the way down and emphasised that nobody is allowed to ride red route 3 without a buddy. When Deon mentioned that the engine of the farmer's Land Rover ceased while marking the route the crowd burst into laughter. Some riders there and then made up their minds to do green but I suspect that a few did not take Deon's warnings seriously enough. Whatever the case, the stage was set for a final challenge that red route participants would not forget for a long while!

After an early departure and beautiful but uneventful ride over some sandy Karoo roads, down the de Jager's pass and through Beaufort West, participants arrived at a spot on Mr. de Villiers farm on Saturday morning that took every red route rider's breath away for two reasons. Number one, the magnificent scenery and brilliant view and number two due to the sheer terror of the near 45 degree drop of at least 40 to 60 meters. A little late to discover any fear of heights!

When we arrived a group of riders were already waiting at the bottom and several helpful riders assisted those on their way down with manpower, advice and moral support. The only way down for most was to switch the bike off, engage the kill switch, engage first gear and walk the bike down by manipulating front brake and clutch. To manoeuvre a heavy GS down you need both feet on the ground which makes it impossible to operate the back brake but the combination of compression of the stationary engine and clutch makes a very useful back brake under left hand control. It also helped to adjust rear preload to lower the seat and ease the walking down with both feet solidly on the ground.

After a while the gymnastics with the two levers on the handle bars that work in opposite ways becomes second nature - pull the right lever to brake the front wheel and release the left (clutch) lever to brake the rear under engine compression or operate in the other direction to move forward under gravity propulsion. In any case the prospect of losing a bike down the steep mountain slope miles from nowhere does wonders for the concentration levels.

Unfortunately the concentration to get down safely did not allow many people to think about life's simple wisdoms. The saying goes - what goes up must come down - or in this case - what goes down must go up again!! So after a rest and short but difficult ride up a small ridge and more use of the newly acquired lever gymnastics and walking down skills we were in for a very challenging climb that few red route riders managed to conquer unassisted. One guy later said that it felt like going up and down Mount Everest in one day.

To those with the skills to do the climb out of the steep valley on Mr. de Villiers farm unassisted - brilliant!

To those who did it with outside assistance - hats off!

To those who assisted fellow riders by riding bikes up or assisted by pushing, pulling, moving rocks out of the way, showing the way or just by encouraging and offering moral support - well done, we salute you!

And to those who received outside help but did not offer help to fellow struggling riders - I suppose we will always have your type with us as well.

To all those who complained about the final red route, may I remind you about Oom Loog's presentation and Deon Meyer's few wise words on choices. The Karoo mountains had been in the same place, minding their own business for 180 million years when we made the decision to take the red route on 23 September 2005. The mountains will probably be there for another 180 million years, long after our bruises have healed and bikes ended up on the scrap heap - so the best one can now do is to savour the experience as a valuable lesson in choices. In any case, I am sure most red route participants experienced the final special stage as a serious real challenge and will thrive on the high of conquering this for a long time.

While the last red route participants struggled to get up the mountain in single file the final round of the skills challenge kicked off on the specially laid out 4,5 km track. Hein Kumm clinched his second GS Skills Challenge title and won a brand new BMW 650 Dakar with another near faultless display of motorcycle control. Good news for aspirant GS champions is that Hein will become a BMW instructor and he will be therefore not be eligible for participation next year.

Many lessons were learnt, some about choices and some about riding. Probably the most important lesson was learnt about confidence. Confidence propels a motorcycle in difficult circumstances more than the most powerful engine, knobbly tyres, or the right gear ratios.

So, in closing, congratulations to Deon Meyer, Jan du Toit and BMW Motorrad SA for a brilliant Great African GS Challenge 2005. It was an event that every participant, novice, green or red, will remember for a long time.

We are looking forward to more of the same in 2006. If only we can ban the trailers and preserve the three essential elements of the Great African GS Challenge event. That is (1) a true challenge that includes some decent, testing riding (2) on the road and (3) off road in some unexplored part of our magnificent country.

Copyright © Piet van der Westhuyzen 2005 - All Rights Reserved