Forty minutes before the plane was due to board, and 30 minutes from the airport, the plug in my rear tyre gave up. You get that sinking feeling, literally, as the rear end goes all squishy and you focus on getting the whole thing to the side of the road in one piece.

The urgent need was to get my wife Peter (pictured above in less stressful times) to George airport for the last flight of the day to Johannesburg; she had a connecting flight to Dubai that she couldn’t afford to miss. I was using the V-Strom on its brand new Mitas tyres, complete with the newly plugged rear, following its bolt-puncture incident just 24 km into its short life.

 

Our two-month-old bakkie (pick-up truck for those outside South Africa) was off the road: a woman pulled out of a side road and stopped right in front of me on a dual carriageway. I was fortunately sticking to the 60 km/h speed limit, so she wasn’t hurt; I merely felt the intense pain you get in your sternum when a seat belt does its job – but the bakkie would be off the road while the insurance industry did its thing.

The first thought after the tyre went flat was to have my wife take off her biking gear and stick a thumb out for a passing car. A police car heading the other way stopped and the female officer was very sympathetic, even offering to call her husband and see if he’d take Peter to the airport. He wasn’t answering his phone and, meantime, none of the seven or eight cars that sped past showed any sign of stopping.

Two bikers also sped past, wearing Renegades jackets, but a minute later reappeared from the opposite direction to see if they could help. I asked if they were heading to George, and they said yes. Would they take Peter to the airport? Of course! So she got her biking gear back on and sat on the back of a large black cruiser (I was too concerned that she should catch her flight to bother about the make, but I reckon it was a Harley clone from Honda or Yamaha). The other guy, on a Yamaha sports bike, took her heavy sailing bag and slung it over his shoulders like a rucksack, and they headed off. The clock was ticking; thank God for online check-in.

The cop gave me a card for a local breakdown service, and a guy with a bike trailer duly arrived within 20 minutes, loaded the stricken V-Strom and took me home again. Pricey, at R950, but you don’t have many options with a bike puncture, especially one this size.

Peter made it with 25 minutes to spare, and I was back in front of the TV set in time to watch Ireland defeat Scotland on their way to winning the Six Nations Rugby Championship and the Grand Slam. (You have to be a rugby fan to appreciate that feat, and Irish to know why it means so much, but well done lads!)

So thanks to the two Renegades for proving to be Samaritans as well – you saved the day. As for plugs in motorcycle tyres, I’ve never been a fan. I’ve just ordered a new rear boot for the Suzuki, having set a new personal record for the distance covered on a new tyre: 75 km! Prices have shot up in the few short weeks since I last bought one, so between the tyres and the rescue I’m out R3,000, or about £200. Ouch!

 

It was just a few days before my 64th birthday when I finally went all knobbly. Not my knees, happily – not yet, anyway – but my tyres. I’ve been a road rider for most of my life, hence the name of this blog, and it’s what I love. Smooth, tarred roads sweeping through beautiful scenery do it for me. But it wasn’t always so.

I cut my biking teeth on an old Lambretta at the age of 13, riding around the trails and fields of the land that years later would become the Belfield campus of University College Dublin. I’d buy other old bikes at a breaker’s yard in Dublin’s Francis Street, get them out to Belfield and ride them on those self-same trails or the few internal concrete roads. It was my only option: riding on the road couldn’t be done legally for another three years.

After I turned 16, it was tar all the way, apart from a jaunt on a friend’s Montesa scrambler and trying out Yamaha’s XT500 on a couple of trail parks when it first came out. But down here in Plettenberg Bay, you have only two options for road-riding: you head east on the N2 towards Port Elizabeth or west towards Cape Town. Take to the dirt roads, however, and thousands of kilometres of other routes become instantly available.

So when the road-orientated tyres on my 10-year-old Suzuki V-Strom 1000 needed to be replaced, I went for Mitas knobblies, with a 50/50 on/off road tread. They felt great, right from the off, especially on the dirt road leading down to our house – until I picked up a large bolt in the rear tyre about 700 metres from our house on my way home from having them fitted! Top marks to BF Motorcycles in Knysna for coming to the rescue inside 30 minutes (great service, when you consider that they are 25 minutes away). The mechanic said the plug he inserted should last, but he couldn’t guarantee it as the hole was so large.

That apart, the new tyres feel superb on Tarmac and light-years better on dirt. I suspect the tyres they replaced were the factory originals, their rubber hardened by time and five years in the desert climate of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

That was me sorted, but my wife has been hankering after a go-anywhere replacement for her old V-Strom 650. At 5 feet 4 inches, seat height narrowed her adventure bike choices somewhat. We found an almost-new V-Strom at a great price, but she said it felt top-heavy and the seat was higher than on her older model. Then we looked at a BMW F700GS, which seemed ideal in the seat height department but very expensive for a relatively low-powered bike.

What really get her interested, though, was the Triumph Tiger 800XC. We’d met a female fellow-traveller with one on the Eurotunnel train a couple of years back, and she swore by it. They even do a special 800XC Low, and we found one at the Triumph dealer in Edenvale, Johannesburg. It fit Mrs Peter like a glove, but sadly it was a rental bike and not for sale, and used ones are rare in South Africa.

I called around about 10 people selling Tiger 800XCs a couple of weeks ago, but they were either too expensive or already sold – mostly the latter. We were in Jo’burg for business for a few days and drove our bakkie the 1,300 km home, with one more bike to check out en route in Bloemfontein. Like all the others, it had the standard seat but looked good online.

It started to hail as we parked and dashed into Honda Wing Central – not too promising. But the bike was immaculate: three years old but it could have passed for brand new. It had an accessory sump guard and radiator guard, one owner, and 17,669 km on the clock. We hummed and hawed. The dealer adjusted the seat to the lower setting, but it was still a tad tall. We negotiated for a free Triumph accessory low seat, had the fork legs dropped a little in the yokes to help, paid the bill and rode out of the dealership an hour after entering.

I had the pleasure of riding the first leg to an overnight stop in Colesberg, and the bike was a revelation. It was so easy to ride, comfortable, surprisingly smooth and able to overtake at speed without dropping down a gear: just twist and go. It put a grin on my face, and on my wife’s the next morning when she rode the next leg.

These are great bikes. The tyres are also Mitas, also knobbly, and handle Tarmac with aplomb. I had to ride a few short sections of dirt, and the Triumph just felt completely at home there. We shared the riding the rest of the way home, feeling delighted with the new addition to the Rae collection. We’re still waiting for the new low seat, which should make the machine easier for Peter to manage. If not, we’ll go with a suspension lowering kit. Those dirt roads through the Karoo are beckoning.