Out in Africa but not alone

Try to imagine if you can, what 400 BMW GS bikes gathered in a single location looks like and sounds like. The bark of 1100, 1150 and 1200cc boxer twins; the whine of the 650 singles; and the rasp of the 800s – this was the scene that greeted the former gold rush town of Leydsdorp when the fifth African GS Challenge transformed it into a hive of all things ‘GelandeStrasse’.

Created in 2004 and held at the Country Trax BMW off-road rider academy in Amersfoort, the BMW GS Challenge (formerly known as the Great African GS Challenge) has proven to be an immensely popular formula. It has seen growth in every year of its occurrence until last year, when organisers decided to limit the number of entries for environmental and logistical reasons.

After being inaugurated and run by Deon Meyer every year (who had to step aside due to increased work commitments linked with his phenomenal success as a best-selling author) the 2008 event was organised by a new team, this one being headed up by BMW Motorrad events manager Cora Forssman and marketing manager Rob Barnes.

In South Africa, this particular GS Challenge is the meeting point for hundreds of BMW GS riders, who come from all over the country to camp in a central location over four nights. Participants then depart on a designated route each day, take in amazing scenery, stop for lunch in quaint locations and get to ride their GS bike in the testing African off-road environment for which it could well have been designed. On return to the camp, participants relax, tell tall stories and generally take advantage of the hospitality laid on by BMW Motorrad.

Then they get up and repeat it all again the next day, and the next! In fact it basically just boils down to being an amazing opportunity to get away from the office and camp and ride in the dirt with new and established friends every year.

Like last year, riders were given the option of three levels of difficulty: green, orange and red. Cunningly, event organisers increase the skill level slightly each day so that the route you’re riding on day three is somewhat more technical than the route you rode on day one, but by then you’ve acclimatized to the off-road conditions, and probably won’t even notice. You’re a better rider for it though…

Leydsdorp is stationed roughly halfway between Tzaneen and the Kruger National Park, so riders either set out west into the forest plantations or east towards the dry, somewhat barren landscape of the park surrounds. Conditions ranged from gentle dirt roads through lush forests, to hot, dry and sandy riding with participants having to negotiate steep rocky ascents and descents, thick sand-filled riverbeds as well as the usual washaways, water hazards and even angry buffalo!

Through the tenaciousness of the event organisers and the graciousness of the local farmers, the participants often entered state forests and private farmland, which is normally off-limits to the general public. Some of the routes didn’t even qualify as a road – more like a single track through the bush, and this is one of the many experiences that gets under people’s skin and keeps them coming back year after year – the opportunity not only to ride in spectacular surrounds, but to get ‘off the beaten track’ and explore places which they’d normally not be able to ride.

Of course in addition to the day’s riding, there were the usual afternoon activities happening back at the camp. At any given time, there were riders lying on the couches provided, enjoying a few cold drinks and talking about the hills they’d mastered and the ditches they’d narrowly avoided, while their friends waited their turn to tell their tall tales.

Additionally, there was the annual ‘skills challenge’ happening every afternoon, which consisted of successive elimination rounds held each day to separate the skilled riders from the highly skilled riders. After navigating a range of nasty obstacles designed to find any flaw in your off-road technique, the participants who made it through to the final round on day three faced a square dust circuit where they had to run to their bikes, put on full rider gear and then chase each other down from opposite ends of the circuit, keeping in mind not to touch the tape or tyres which demarcated the corners.

After being dominated by the young guns for the last two years, it was 46-year-old Kim Gibbings who walked away with the BMW G 650 Xchallenge – not bad for 20 minutes of work spread over three days! Mark van Rensburg picked up a Rally suit for second place while Andre Serfontein won himself a helmet for coming third.