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.