Kibo150, once bitten twice…
Safety and Gear
15 June 2020
GXT Helmet: 17,000kms down the road
27 June 2020By Morris Njue
FATHER'S DAY ADVENTURE - A Chance Encounter, A Fulfilling Day: Once bitten, twice....nonsense!! 😃... So I went for the Kibo 150 (old model) again...the raging adolescent bull elephant had grown on me and today i was bored and needed some brutish act of engineering to push through some rugged unknown track i had decided to explore.
I went on a random excursion, on a road that was familiar. Then, 20kms down the road, someone or something told me to take the next right, instead of forging forward into the known... I stopped briefly to check Google maps to have a picture of where i was headed in general...the road looked very sketchy, but i had the power of a defiant tank under me and immediately gave up on the maps and said, "to hell with it... Its father's day!!" 😂
So i let the boisterous cluster of heavy metals and petrol plough through the sand and bumps in the best way it knows how; 'speed and power'...with a touch of stupid. Soon enough, i was greeted by new scenes, high hills and steep slopes. I continued into the motions of it all, until once again my right foot hurt like a mother trying wrestle the little beast to slow down from turn to turn and valley to valley.😉
Eventually, i came to a T-Junction with very familiar looking signs.... I had been on that "new" road before and all of a sudden, i knew my way back immediately... I was to go left.... But something told me to take a right...and this is where the day became magical.
Once again, i trudged on, winding down more roads and getting thrown about on rocks that were left jutting out by the unfinished work of a grader. About 6km along the road, a tired looking, sweaty boy hailed me down desperately! So i came to a stop and enquired what he needed. He said he needed a lift to the next village/shopping center to "boost" (his words) his journey home. I told him to hop on and gave him my bag to carry.
The KIBO 150 pillions excellently. In fact, the added weight got the beast down and settled onto the road like fudge to teeth!😁
I felt gear 4 loose grunt and 3 struggle to take up the slack from 2. However, once again, i worked up a rhythm and got the elephant to cooperate and was flying along like a bat outta hell! So, yes, if you want a Kibo, you will need to develop an understanding with each other...or a memorandum of under-gearing! 😃
The boy is Simon... He told me he was a student at Shimbahills secondary school and i disclosed to him i was a teacher, as two bumps that were not there before materialized from the ether, making me brake feverishly...but we hit them good...and the Kibo laughed at our panic and near complete dismount from the clinically designed, precarious perches they call a seat, as it accepted gear 2 and ripped by, unmoved by the villagers' efforts to slow it down.!! 😃
Simon explained he was headed for Matuga. From the hills we were at to Matuga was a 3hr walk, using panya routes. It was 4pm. Curfew is at 9pm. He would have to walk an additional 5km from Matuga to his home. He did the walk in the wee hours of the morning to Shimbahills because his grandfather there had hurt himself attempting to repair his house. He had to go there and help then later take him to hospital, then walk 6hrs back to his mother.
As he poured out his story to me and the threat to his life became clear, because the area they live in has the infamous "wakali wao" gang of blood thirsty boys, i decided to get him home. The pace i was keeping was sufficient to get him home in time and get me back home before those hoodlums waylay me too on my way back. I settled into a rhythm as i tried my best to manage the added weight as he pointed out new directions to a new road i never knew existed! 😃
To summarize, i got him home in time. His mother made me wait as she ran to get some maize and Cassava for me to take home...i was happy... Very happy...in the end;
Adventure Bikes come in many shapes and sizes, all with different capabilities. The unbeaten path offers tons of new stories and opportunities to make your day worth while. The need for adventure must be in you though; you have to have the guts to go where few dare go, and the compassion to know that an adventure defines your humanity in more ways than one.
The Kibo, simplistic in its design, seems wanting, but, life is about the struggle; working with what you are given and making the most out of a seemingly dismal situation or opportunity. The people at Kibo have improved their product with the 2018-2019 models (tis what i have seen and heard) and maybe will make something else even better. All i can say is, maybe it was God working in mysterious ways, but i enjoyed this day.
1 Comment
Good read.
I find myself off the beaten path quite often and it almost always ends up being a good “memory made”
Good read.
I own a Yamaha crux 110 with 10K+ Kilometers on the Odo from last year September.