By: Dave Abrahams
Bass Lake, Henley-on-Klip – As a long-term biker, I’m use to looking down when I get into a tight spot and seeing exactly where my wheels are - which is why the most important tool you need for serious off-roading on four wheels is a guide you can trust – because he can see where your wheels are, and you can’t.
Our guide at Bass Lake Adventures was head honcho and adventurer extraordinary Alan Pepper, so I followed his instructions as closely as I could, and when anything went wrong – usually either stalling the little Suzuki Jimny’s engine or spinning the wheels into a hole of my own devising – I knew it was my fault.
But even my mistakes became a part of the learning process as Pepper guided me back down the slope (the trick is to pick just one mirror and use it, rather than trying to look over your shoulder) so that I could try again, hopefully more successfully.
Car companies such as Suzuki Auto SA are happy to sponsor off-road training for members of the SA Guild of Motoring Journalists, seeing it as a form of insurance for the SUVs in their press fleets - which is how I became one of a small group of media professionals gathered at Bass Lake Adventures, which runs a small fleet of Suzuki Jimnys and a lone Vitara.
Pepper first walked us through an informal but surprisingly detailed presentation, illustrated by quickly-drawn block diagrams on whiteboard. He pointed out that, since the advent of load proportioning valve - which are now pretty well universal – it was perfectly safe to use the brakes on a steep downhill obstacle.
Being able to hold your vehicle on the brakes and let it gently inch through the obstacle helps build self-confidence and avoid getting flustered, one of the major causes of mishaps in off-roading.
PICK THE RIGHT LINE
Going uphill, on the other hand, was a matter of picking the right line - which is why you always walk through an obstacle before tackling it – so that, as far as is possible, you avoid side-slopes and keep at least three wheels on the ground.
If a vehicle begins to slide sideways down a side-slope, he explained, and then slips into a ditch or gully, it could roll over on to its side – and that usually means a big recovery job.
Which is why we went up most of the obstacles on Bass Lake’s training route in a sort of zig-zag; it had rained heavily prior to our visit and there were deep gullies washed away on many of the slopes.
“Keep the gully between your wheels,” was Pepper’s constantly repeated advice – and yes, you need a guide whose signals you can follow easily and accurately to do that – to avoid either slipping into the gully, or having two wheels in the air at the same time, with consequent loss of traction
Going downhill – on badly eroded slopes too steep to walk on – was initially very scary, but technically simpler than climbing, since gravity obviated any traction concerns, allowing the driver to concentrate on inching down the obstacle on the brakes and following the guide’s signals.
Other than high and low range, the Jimnys that most of us were driving had no driver aids or locking differentials, which made them very good training tools. The bigger and more powerful Vitara, however, had both traction control and an automatic transmission, which made climbing obstacles mostly a matter of “stomp it and steer”.
TRAIL DRIVE
Fun though it was, I couldn’t help feeling, as I bounced and bucked up a couple of really nasty obstacles with the traction control growling in protest all the way up, that it was in fact the Vitara that was supplying the expertise, that I wasn’t driving as well as I had in the Jimny.
After the lunch break Pepper led us out on trail drive that culminated in a breakaway so steep and sharp that the only way to tackle it was drive on to the edge at an angle and allow the vehicle to ‘seesaw’ on to the left front wheel with the right rear at shoulder height.
After that it was almost an anticlimax to gently let the brakes off and allow the vehicle to make its own way down the rest of the slope, as was the final obstacle, a long stretch of muddy water about half a metre deep in places, almost completely overgrown with reeds, that was like driving through a tunnel.
By then we had gained immense confidence in the Suzukis but, more importantly, we had also learned that the key to successful off-roading is the much the same as in politics: pick your fights, and know who you can trust.