A South African asking a few questions

[MODNROD]

Originally Posted by Precis

Buying, owning, licensing, operating, fueling and insuring a bike that has 70% of its performance outside legal limits gets old really quickly.
It costs nearly $2 every day, just in road tax, to own a bike bigger than 500cc.

I get stopped and hassled by The Filth far more on my bike

+lots.
It gave me the shites so much that I now ride a 250cc Piaggio scoot down the highway (a 125 scoot before that was a BIT small! ), and the hotrod 10sec old Vmax has cobwebs and dust.....literally.

Bikes here seem to be seen as anti-social and a money-spinning venture for the govt, rather than viewed as a reasonable commuting/transport choice.

[bla-bla black sheep]

With your vast country and long distances between towns/cities, I would thought the BMW 1200 GSA would be a popular touring bike with dirt road capabilities. Is adventure bike touring not a fav pastime?

With the amount of 4wd vehicles on the roads, surely the outdoors is a popular place for you Aussies?

I think a fully loaded 1200 GS/990R (which I will choose :-) ) riding across the country side, sharing the great outdoors with good mates must be an awesome experience.



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[bla-bla black sheep]

Originally Posted by Aquatic

If you make it up to the Sunshine coast, give us a shout. Die bier is koud!

.

Ag nee man, was daar gister. Het by Carounda (sp?) gaan swem


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[Dakar83]

Originally Posted by bla-bla black sheep

I think a fully loaded 1200 GS/990R (which I will choose :-) ) riding across the country side, sharing the great outdoors with good mates must be an awesome experience.

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It sure is! Check out OzBen's ride report
Ie http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10646560

[Aquatic]

Originally Posted by bla-bla black sheep

.

Ag nee man, was daar gister. Het by Carounda (sp?) gaan swem


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Oh well. Next time.
Ons is in Buddina. So 20min noord van "Caloundra".
Is julle op vakansie? Of op n "LSD"?

[bla-bla black sheep]

Vakansie. ;-)


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[PBee]

Originally Posted by bla-bla black sheep

With your vast country and long distances between towns/cities, I would thought the BMW 1200 GSA would be a popular touring bike with dirt road capabilities. Is adventure bike touring not a fav pastime?

With the amount of 4wd vehicles on the roads, surely the outdoors is a popular place for you Aussies?

I think a fully loaded 1200 GS/990R (which I will choose :-) ) riding across the country side, sharing the great outdoors with good mates must be an awesome experience.



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We're just soft I guess, might have to visit SA to HTFU.....

[Doc Rich]

Herman, am an ex SA living here in Oz and ride a 1200GS. I see tons of BMW 650 and 1200GS around Sydney, central coast (where I used to live) and now Albury area. Rarely a day goes by and I don't see one out on the road. Adventure touring is big here and the 1200 and/or 650 are great offroad tourers with the distances involved. Many of the dirt roads through the red centre are easy to cope with. I did a trip from darwin to Melbourne in 2008 - 4500km of offroad on a 650GS - perfect. Mates who road Suzuki 650DRs could hardly walk after the first few days, the saddles are so uncomfortable. And no I rarely commute on my bike - just not worth the hassle of gearing up for a 20min ride when it takes me less by car. Cheers R

[SharkEagle]

Hi Bla-Bla. Also an ex saffer. For me the weapon of choice is a DR650. As mentioned earlier, the 21'' front is a must for sandy riding. Also I can not immagine me with my 5'10 65 kg frame manhandling a 1200 up a mountain side where some 4x4 struggle to go. And yes, I am a boertjie, so not all saffers are massive. I would not mind commuting with a bike in Sydney but I drive a work vehicle loaded with about a ton of tools and spares. Have a great visit.

[PeterW]

Just a comment - it's just too hot to enjoy riding up in QLD at the moment.

I'm still getting out - at six in the morning, trying to be back by nine. Doing long days under these conditions is even stupider than riding at dawn. (Which is pretty damned stupid, dawn/dusk are prime roo time, they don't really like moving in the heat either)

I know RSA gets hot as well, but the current conditions typically only last a few weeks at a time, so I suspect a lot of riders are doing what I am - waiting it out.

Good bike choices - mostly road with a bit of dirt thrown in DL 650, more dirt than road, KLR or DR 650, maybe DRZ 400 with big tanks.

Comments on speed (traps) are valid, so a smaller bike is a pretty good choice, it'll go fast enough, will be a fraction of the price of a GS and all the above are quite a step up in reliability.

I'd suggest avoiding the long inland dirt hauls solo. Your call, but roads here can be pretty damned empty, probably a lower average population density than the RSA.

Comment: The 990 is a good bike, but not great for long hauls here unless you carry a lot of extra fuel. The DL again is near the top simply because of the insane range - near that of the GSA.

As far as "bike industry" goes, it's down quite a lot on what it was a few years back, but gut feel says picking up slowly rather than declining.

Pete

[crash n bern]

Originally Posted by Precis

You might also take into account the mind-numbingly stupid level of speed-trapping (and the ridiculously low speed-limits) that are over-zealously policed in this country.

Buying, owning, licensing, operating, fueling and insuring a bike that has 70% of its performance outside legal limits gets old really quickly.
It costs nearly $2 every day, just in road tax, to own a bike bigger than 500cc.

I get stopped and hassled by The Filth far more on my bike - and no, I'm not a Hog-riding pirate: in my scruffy diesel ute (bakkie): never; on my dusty ADV-bike: about once a month, on average.

If I have to go into the city, I tend to go by bike as I hate crowds & traffic jams - but Melburnian tin-top drivers are just as lethal as Jhb taxis - the difference is, Aus drivers aren't usually TRYING to kill you - they do so carelessly because they're either stoned, on the phone or dozing behind the wheel.

Industry-wise, if you're a factory-trained technician, you'll not battle to find a job. It might not always be exactly where you want it, but once you've got a name for yourself, you can shift aropund a bit.
Don't forget to watch out for dropbears!

Might be time to leave VIC. I was born there and lost my license before I was old enough to have one. Then when I got one lost it on the second day. Ended up moving to QLD and have kept it ever since. Apart from the odd RBT stop I haven't been pulled up by the cops for near 20 years years now. Might be since I stopped riding stripped down cop bait type bikes with no regard to road rules. Once I switched to a stock bike with saddle bags and a legal helmet I never got a second look. To the point that I have no qualms passing cops on the freeway if they're a couple of kays under the limit.
As for the speed traps, I commute on a Road king because it sits happily on the limit. I keep my SE for the back roads because it hates sitting on the limit and commuting on it becomes painful.

[PeterHOz]

Herman,

Have been in Aus for 13 years, so am not up to speed with what the riding situation in RSA are today. A couple of comments to add to the discussion.

Australia is a very regulated country. Unlike SA where the law is merely a suggestion on how one should act, in Aus they take the law very seriously. As a student in SA I used to ride between Cape Town and Bloem (original home town) on my Suzuki 650 typically in about 7-8 hours (1080km) with - average speed was about 30km/hr over the legal limit of 120km/hr. Doing that distance here will take you at least 13 hours (if you stick to the speed limits - which you would be crazy not to do).

Motorcycling does not give you a big advantage in terms of mobility over cars. The cost of ownership is no cheaper than a car. Toll charges are the same. Lane splitting and filtering is not allowed in NSW, although there will be a trial in the CBD starting in Feb 2013. In Sydney the roads are quite narrow and filtering is quite difficult in many places, even if it was legal..

They enforce the rules. The extensive use of speed radars, cops in unmarked cars, private contractors who speed check on behalf of the authorities and huge fines, think ~$800 if you exceed the speed limit by between 30 and 45 km/h as I would have done - on average - to complete that trip, and lost at least 5 demerit points. The number of demerit points that you lose then affect the insurance premiums you pay etc etc, so it all adds up against you.

Aus is now very risk averse - unlike RSA where the law basically does not protect you against your own stupidity, in Aus you cannot rely on a simple signed indemnity form as the "duty of care" obligation on the provider of services cannot basically be signed away. For example, try to go horse riding and the costs are exorbitant because of the insurance premiums and then you would most likely not be allowed to gallop etc. Ambulance chasers thrive in NSW. The historic view that Australians are rebels and hate authority is from a bygone era.....

All the above makes riding motorcycles considered a crazy past-time for most Australians.

But, my feeling is that I have come to a much safer country (and love it here - no way I would go back). The country certainly does not have the "Wild West" feel of South Africa, but one still at least has to have a little excitement in one's life - and I have chosen Adventure riding as that outlet. I prefer to stay away form the cars etc. by taking the back roads (mostly deserted and unsealed) and can enjoy myself that way.

I meet the nicest people in this way and get in touch with people who are not driven by greed and possessions.

In short - Aussies are more risk averse than the average South African, most of whom struggle to understand how anyone can even think of living in Jo'burg. The country is organised and everything works, corruption is almost non existent - hence the respect for the law.

Unfortunately (in my view only perhaps) the acceptance and laid-backness of the average Australian has allowed the authorities to get away with drafting laws that inch-by-inch is making motorbike riding more and more difficult, more expensive and less attractive and in the utopian bureaucratic world will eventually be eradicated from Australian society for it's own betterment...

I trust I have not insulted anyone in expressing my views, which are subjective and my opinion only.....

Ride while you can...

[PBee]

I would say good and correct observations Peterhoz.

57 years born & raised Australian am I & I do remember the good old days
where you could do pretty much anything......

As you state, those days are long gone. We've copied every thing bad about the Litigious nature of the Yanks but without any of the good things.

Our Politicians have used Culpability as a byword for make more cash.

[K88]

Originally Posted by Precis

I get stopped and hassled by The Filth far more on my bike - and no, I'm not a Hog-riding pirate: in my scruffy diesel ute (bakkie): never; on my dusty ADV-bike: about once a month, on average.

25 years ago I was pulled over by a cop in Wodonga while riding my DR600. Before he could say anything, I accused him of victimising me because I was riding a bike - I said that I'd never been pulled over for a random check while driving my car, but was always being stopped by the police while on the bike. He spent the next ten minutes apologising, denied that there was a conspiracy against riders, then said goodbye and drove off - without checking my bike, which was unregistered. Wouldn't happen these days though. Two weeks later another cop pulled me over and he did check,

Originally Posted by Precis

If I have to go into the city, I tend to go by bike as I hate crowds & traffic jams - but Melburnian tin-top drivers are just as lethal as Jhb taxis - the difference is, Aus drivers aren't usually TRYING to kill you - they do so carelessly because they're either stoned, on the phone or dozing behind the wheel.

Ja, ek stem saam! Two weeks after I moved to Melbourne I was cleaned up by a driver swerving into my left lane while indicating right - put me off the road for six months. I asked him why he did it, and he said he didn't know.

[BergDonk]

Originally Posted by K88

25 years ago I was pulled over by a cop in Wodonga while riding my DR600. Before he could say anything, I accused him of victimising me because I was riding a bike - I said that I'd never been pulled over for a random check while driving my car, but was always being stopped by the police while on the bike. He spent the next ten minutes apologising, denied that there was a conspiracy against riders, then said goodbye and drove off - without checking my bike, which was unregistered. Wouldn't happen these days though. Two weeks later another cop pulled me over and he did check,

For the first time ever I got pulled over for a random check, and not RBT. I was in my ute with trials bike on the back. After he did the check of licence and vehicle he wanted to know more about the bike. Turns out he was a trail bike rider and had a 450 KTM.

He was general duties on his own in a Rodeo or similar somewhere near Kilmore a few months ago.