. Not really too big a problem on the road. The trick is to travel fast enough to skim over the little bumps and smooth over the ride. If you drive to slow it will be extremely bumby and very, very uncomfortable. These corrugations are half of what made the road to Timbuktu hell.
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| Hiding from the blistering sun |
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| Hard work |
Normally corrugations are quite small and with the bike 50km/hr is enough to smooth over the ride. You just need a road in good enough condition to keep the speed up. It was like that for the few first few kilometres on the gravel to Timbuktu. Just as I started thinking the road might not be to bad things changed. The corrugations started getting bigger and bigger, to the point that I needed a speed of about 80km/hr to keep things smooth. Fast for good gravel and extremely hard with a road that was rapidly deteriorating with big potholes and loose deep sand. Still not to bad just had to work really hard on dodging the holes and sand, and try and stay on the smoother parts of the road. It was very hard on my bike though. I repeatedly had to slow down to dodge the potholes, or go through the sand and then speed up again to smooth over the corrugations. I was not always successful and hit a few potholes really hard, or I would be to slow on the corrugations and it would feel like the bike is shaking apart underneath me. If the road stayed like this it would be 200km of hard hard work. My luck didn't hold though, the corrugations increased to monster size, and I couldn't go fast enough to smooth out the ride. No matter how fast I went the bike would literary shake to a near halt. Was hell. No matter what I did it felt like my bike was slowly being ripped apart below me. I tried everything to smooth things out, and even tackled the loose sand, and donkey tracks on the side off the road. Didn't help much, I just got stuck in the deep sand. My best bet was to stay on the main road and just take the big corrugations at a very slow pace and hope the bike holds. I ended up doing fast sprints of 60-80km/hr to smooth out smaller corrugations, and then shuddering to a halt on the big corrugations and going at about 10km/hr on these stretches. All the time still dodging potholes and sand to the best of my abilities. My bike was being tortured, shaken to death, and I could clearly understand why some bikes just don't make they journey. On the worst stretches I managed only 10 kilometres in an hours hard work. I have never driven a road so punishing and was really worried about my bike.
It took me 4 hours to reach the halfway mark, and I was shattered. It was a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere, but they had delicious rice and sauce for lunch, and very friendly locals. They where all very surprised that I was tackling this road alone on a big motorbike. Not even the locals take their bikes on this road. In the 200km stretch of road I saw one other moped on the road. The locals take these bikes everywhere, everywhere else in Africa the roads have been littered with these small bikes.
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| Sand trap. Waist deep. |
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Transporting chickens to Timbuktu
They are all alive |
The second half of the road was part better, with less big corrugations, and part worse. The big corrugations where replaced by massive sand traps. During the rainy season the trucks on the road dig big mud holes, which then fill with loose sand blowing in from the dessert. This sand was unbelievably slippery, and it sometimes it felt like you where on an ice rink. Other times it would be so loose that your bike just wants to sink in, really hard to keep the bike going through this. The deepest of these sand pits was waist high (I stopped and climbed in) and the longest was about 40-50 meters long. On the worst stretches they where every 100 meters or so, with the area in between littered with corrugations. At least the sand traps where not as punishing as the big corrugations, but they where physical hard work, and a came very close to falling quite a few times.
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| Making a fire and tea on the ferry |
Just before Timbuktu there is a ferry crossing witch I wanted to reach before it closed down for the night. Would then be a quick ferry crossing and about 10km of tarmac to get into Timbuktu. For once my luck held and I reached the ferry with 10 minutes to spare. Phew. Was prepared to wild camp along the road but it would be safer to reach Timbuktu. My quick ferry crossing turned into a marathon crossing. The boat's engine was broken, so they strapped two piroques with 25 hp engines to the side to propel the massive ferry. Was extremely slow going, but I was entertained the whole way by some very friendly locals on the boat. Great stuff.
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| Kids eat cat as delicacy and then hang skins over the phone lines |
I didn't reach the legendary Timbuktu until about 8pm that night. I have been on the road since 7am. I was so exhausted that I nearly dropped my bike on the sandy streets a few times. I just managed to unload my bike and drag myself to bed. Dinner was never even an option.
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| Happy Musaka making tea |
Timbuctu was exactly as expected, nothing but a few sandy streets and mud houses. The hell I went through to get there made it all worth it. I had a fantastic time just looking around. I had a great guide (Yes, I had a guide) show me around and thoroughly enjoyed it. Even had some tea with a Tuareg in his tent. He was fantastic company, and I was even invited to his village in the desert (Am sure it was part of his sales pitch, but still a nice gesture). Would love to have the time do do something like this one day. The rest of my day was spent recuperating and giving the bike a quick once over. Everything looked ok. Massive relief.
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| Caught in a sand trap |
The next day I was on the road with daybreak. This time I knew what to expect and wanted to try and do as much as possible before the midday heat struck. I also practised some riding on loose sand in Timbuktu, so I was ready to take on the deep sand with more confidence and try my best to evade the long big corrugation sections. It helped quite a bit, but on most long stretches there was no way of avoiding the monster corrugations. My bike still received a massive punishment. The deep sand had it's own pitfalls as well. It was very loose and slippery and I came close to falling many times. Usually I would loose grip on my front wheel and it would slide away to the point where you think 'oh shit, this is gonna hurt!!' but every time I was lucky enough to find just enough grip at the last second. Very, very lucky!! I also managed to get my bike thoroughly stuck in one of the deep sand pits. It struggled for more than half an hour to get it out, but only managed to sink in deeper and deeper. None of the tricks I was taught worked. The next step would be to take all my luggage off and try and drag the heavy bike out. Luckily a truck came by and the guys helped me out. This was the only truck I saw on the road for more than an hour. So very lucky. Again.
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| Trying to get out |
I reached Mopti about 6pm that day, Morton and Dominique waiting with an ice cold beer. Whoop whoop!! I was completely exhausted and shattered, but so happy that I tackled this road on my own. It is one off the best feelings in the world!!
This road was really bad, I find it quite impossible to explain it properly. It is easily the hardest thing I have ever done on the motorbike. Each time it was nearly 8 hours of hell. I am very impressed with how my bike handled everything. I nearly made the mistake of starting to think my bike is invincible, but of course it isn't and there was some damage Nothing serious. My one mirror was shaken off the stalk that holds it on. Literary broke from the vibrations. I found a couple loose bolts, and one off the nuts holding my subframe together came off with the bolt just barely sitting in the frame (Could have been serious if I didn't spot it). All in all not bad for what I put it through.
The road wasn't all bad either. I loved the isolation and scenery. It was so quiet at times that the only thing I heard when stopping for a break would be the slight ring in my ears. Not even a breeze rustling through the trees. Was fantastic!!
Photos are fantastic, enjoyed them with Eve last night, what an experience! Was great to talk to you yesterday. Snr
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