Place: Marsabit
Tunes: She Wants Revenge, Eisbrecher, AC/DC, many others
In the morning all is good. Apart from the road.
Ruts and rocks.
Loose gravel and rocks.
And of course corrugations.
Sand and corrugations.
There are people living here even if there is nothing to live off from.
Some puddles, mud, rocks in surprising places and too much speed.
This will not improve the resale value of the BMW.
Nor will these pictures, but what would I not do for this blog.
Hmmm. Can you fix it?
The road aroung the crash site. Does not take much, does it? It was worse than it looks.
How much longer did we have left?
Pasi's rear tire is really taking some damage from all the bouncing around. And this is after only about 150km of the rear shock going.
Another little mishap. Pekka also broke a rear shock and as you bounce around without one, these things can happen.
Pekka's bike on a pick-up. Will he ever see the bike again as the helper boy is already fitting on his helmet?
What?
So it begins. A test of man and machine that will separate the men from the boys and the adventure overlanders from packet holiday-goers. The worst road in Africa. The highway to Hell.
Getting into Kenya was easy and the gravel starts 100m after the customs office. This road has been called the worst road in Africa and it lives up to its reputation. Today we will try to go from Moyale to Marsabit (250 km).
The road is essentially a gravel road from hell. There were rocks, a bit of mud, some rocks, a bit of soft sand, and more rocks. And a lot of rocks of all shapes and sizes mixed up in sand and mud. Some were loose and some stuck up from the ground like spikes, ready to throw you around or to mess with your front tire. The corrugations were the worst bit. They are everywhere going all the way across the road and ensure that you cannot ride for one meter without feeling that your bike is in a cement mixer. For most of the time, you can only ride in a rut of sorts. Switching one to another, better one is sometimes very difficult as there is a steep rise between the ruts and there are always a lot of loose rocks around.
This road is relentless. It gives you no rest and it does not let you go for one second. There is nothing out there to give you a break and you must focus all the time. You feel like you have gone for 50km and check the GPS to see you just made 10km.
We have some very good off-road riders with us but no-one can be too complacent here. You can drive through at 120 kph and it would probably be smoother than going slow, but that takes some balls and a shitload of experience. Some Paris-Dakar racer probably could do the 250km in two and a half hours, but on bikes we ride, no way. Or you would need to be even more manly AND professional than we are and that would be nearly impossible.
Google will find you many descriptions form this bit of road if you are interested.
Not that far in I had a crash. Too much speed over some muddy puddles and the "other side" of the puddle was apparently a rock sticking from the sand and threw my front wheel up and the bike in a 360 degree spin and me thrown off it about 5m in the air. My head hit the ground first and without the helmet I would be dead. Still, I was on my feet about three seconds after I stopped moving to turn the bike power off.
Everything in front of the handlebars is now completely smashed. The screen (or the oil canister thing), the lights, the instruments and the plastic frame holding all of the above in place is now "history".
This is completely ok, as now I can go faster as the front of the bike is lighter. The panniers and the space-frame holding the panniers on the bike are completely ¤%”ked up. The left pannier is almost completely smashed up, but at least in one piece. The lid definitely does not fit anymore.
I don’t think I can advertise this bike anymore as being “almost new, never ridden in the rain” as 99% of bikes get advertised in the UK. The helmet also took some damage, but without it I would now be dead. The sun visor and the flip-up visor thing is gone. I can still wear goggles with it and it's ok. Probably there's less "buffeting" now that the sun visor is gone. If you are going to crash you should do it properly and I think I can tick that box and still be able to continue.
Shortly after my crash, Pasi broke his rear shock. The gas cylinder just had enough and broke. The spring is still working but it looks like a comedy bike bouncing all over the place after every bump. And there are some bumps on this particular road.
From here we proceeded at 25-30 kph just to make this joy last longer. Apparently Pekka also had to drop from the (off) road racers group as he also broke his rear shock. After we loaded his bike on a land rover, we continued our limping on and managed to get to Marsabit in one piece. When we got there the rest of the damage became clear.
Peter, our illustrious leader dropped the bike but no major damage.
Ari, our off-road guru also did the same and later broke his Wilburs rear shock, which was supposed to be the best piece of suspension in all of our bikes. The Wilburs did not have a back-up spring so he is now in the pick-up lorry crew until Nairobi with Pekka.
The adventures they had were on par with ours on the next day but this is my blog, so too bad for them. The racing group had one front tire puncture in the meanwhile but we rode past them as they would drive past us.
Despite all this drama, the road from Lalibela was much worse than this road from hell. This road is like running a cross-country marathon. The Lalibela road (the second one) was like riding through an army obstacle course on an overloaded motorbike.
We celebrate surviving today with some Tuskers in Marsabit but not more than one. This is really just another day in the office for us pro’s. Arrangements are made with some local business people to ship some limping bikes to Nairobi on a lorry. 05:30 wake up tomorrow.
Tunes: She Wants Revenge, Eisbrecher, AC/DC, many others
In the morning all is good. Apart from the road.
Ruts and rocks.
Loose gravel and rocks.
And of course corrugations.
Sand and corrugations.
There are people living here even if there is nothing to live off from. 
Some puddles, mud, rocks in surprising places and too much speed.
This will not improve the resale value of the BMW.
Nor will these pictures, but what would I not do for this blog.
Hmmm. Can you fix it?
The road aroung the crash site. Does not take much, does it? It was worse than it looks.
How much longer did we have left?
Pasi's rear tire is really taking some damage from all the bouncing around. And this is after only about 150km of the rear shock going.
Another little mishap. Pekka also broke a rear shock and as you bounce around without one, these things can happen.
Pekka's bike on a pick-up. Will he ever see the bike again as the helper boy is already fitting on his helmet?
What?So it begins. A test of man and machine that will separate the men from the boys and the adventure overlanders from packet holiday-goers. The worst road in Africa. The highway to Hell.
Getting into Kenya was easy and the gravel starts 100m after the customs office. This road has been called the worst road in Africa and it lives up to its reputation. Today we will try to go from Moyale to Marsabit (250 km).
The road is essentially a gravel road from hell. There were rocks, a bit of mud, some rocks, a bit of soft sand, and more rocks. And a lot of rocks of all shapes and sizes mixed up in sand and mud. Some were loose and some stuck up from the ground like spikes, ready to throw you around or to mess with your front tire. The corrugations were the worst bit. They are everywhere going all the way across the road and ensure that you cannot ride for one meter without feeling that your bike is in a cement mixer. For most of the time, you can only ride in a rut of sorts. Switching one to another, better one is sometimes very difficult as there is a steep rise between the ruts and there are always a lot of loose rocks around.
This road is relentless. It gives you no rest and it does not let you go for one second. There is nothing out there to give you a break and you must focus all the time. You feel like you have gone for 50km and check the GPS to see you just made 10km.
We have some very good off-road riders with us but no-one can be too complacent here. You can drive through at 120 kph and it would probably be smoother than going slow, but that takes some balls and a shitload of experience. Some Paris-Dakar racer probably could do the 250km in two and a half hours, but on bikes we ride, no way. Or you would need to be even more manly AND professional than we are and that would be nearly impossible.
Google will find you many descriptions form this bit of road if you are interested.
Not that far in I had a crash. Too much speed over some muddy puddles and the "other side" of the puddle was apparently a rock sticking from the sand and threw my front wheel up and the bike in a 360 degree spin and me thrown off it about 5m in the air. My head hit the ground first and without the helmet I would be dead. Still, I was on my feet about three seconds after I stopped moving to turn the bike power off.
Everything in front of the handlebars is now completely smashed. The screen (or the oil canister thing), the lights, the instruments and the plastic frame holding all of the above in place is now "history".
This is completely ok, as now I can go faster as the front of the bike is lighter. The panniers and the space-frame holding the panniers on the bike are completely ¤%”ked up. The left pannier is almost completely smashed up, but at least in one piece. The lid definitely does not fit anymore.
I don’t think I can advertise this bike anymore as being “almost new, never ridden in the rain” as 99% of bikes get advertised in the UK. The helmet also took some damage, but without it I would now be dead. The sun visor and the flip-up visor thing is gone. I can still wear goggles with it and it's ok. Probably there's less "buffeting" now that the sun visor is gone. If you are going to crash you should do it properly and I think I can tick that box and still be able to continue.
Shortly after my crash, Pasi broke his rear shock. The gas cylinder just had enough and broke. The spring is still working but it looks like a comedy bike bouncing all over the place after every bump. And there are some bumps on this particular road.
From here we proceeded at 25-30 kph just to make this joy last longer. Apparently Pekka also had to drop from the (off) road racers group as he also broke his rear shock. After we loaded his bike on a land rover, we continued our limping on and managed to get to Marsabit in one piece. When we got there the rest of the damage became clear.
Peter, our illustrious leader dropped the bike but no major damage.
Ari, our off-road guru also did the same and later broke his Wilburs rear shock, which was supposed to be the best piece of suspension in all of our bikes. The Wilburs did not have a back-up spring so he is now in the pick-up lorry crew until Nairobi with Pekka.
The adventures they had were on par with ours on the next day but this is my blog, so too bad for them. The racing group had one front tire puncture in the meanwhile but we rode past them as they would drive past us.
Despite all this drama, the road from Lalibela was much worse than this road from hell. This road is like running a cross-country marathon. The Lalibela road (the second one) was like riding through an army obstacle course on an overloaded motorbike.
We celebrate surviving today with some Tuskers in Marsabit but not more than one. This is really just another day in the office for us pro’s. Arrangements are made with some local business people to ship some limping bikes to Nairobi on a lorry. 05:30 wake up tomorrow.
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