Des Pistorius - update

If you have been reading my stuff I thank you, from the page views and the visitors log it seems as though there are quite a few people reading this and I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. Anyway, as I was saying; if you have been reading my stuff you will have read about the South African biking icon; Des Pistorius who passed through our area on the 8th of April.

We met up at the Phoenix bar, that famous biker bar in Vredenburg, and I had a long chat with Des, a long time biker of whom I have read a great deal but had not until then had the pleasure of meeting.

He was part of the way through an "Around South Africa trip" on a Vespa towing a trailer! It was fascinating chatting with Des who was accompanied by his faithful side-kick, Boswell the poodle and the next day he was continuing his trip.

I have just received this picture from Des with the message that he had completed his trip, 8469kms!

I had to enlarge the photo so it is a bit blurred, but there is Des and Boswell with the Vespa and trailer rig somewhere up on the West Coast and I hope that I can get some more details of the trip at a later stage.

It must have been one hell of a trip at no more than 80kmh but as he said at the time; "I've got all the time in the world." Keep on riding Des!

Stop Suffering! Don't worry anymore, come and be healed

Every now and then we get these flyers in our mailbox and I really do find them amusing; If you need to see the pamphlets bigger just click on them;

Apart from wondering where "Prof Adam" qualified there are a couple of other questions; such as item 1 "Do you have drops?" What the hell is that?!

"Do you need accident protection against your car?"

I just love "Penis enlargement, power & many sex rounds." and what about "Love beyond love (no cheating)"

Not to mention the fact that you may need to reduce your vagina!
It seems to be a bit of a bargain, the consultation fees are only R50 and they also work at night!

On the other side of the page we see that us guys can have a bigger and stronger penis 100 per cent! Cool, maybe R50 well spent!

On a completely different note next weekend is the fourth annual Polar Bear run and I must say I'm really looking forward to this one. We are meeting out at the Admiral bar in Velddrif on Friday night for a pre-ride discussion and then the run starts at 08h30 on Saturday.

We will be riding through to the West Coast Hacienda just outside of Graafwater for breakfast, then along the N7 to VanRhynsdorp, up the pass to Niewoudtville where we will visit the garage housing a large collection of classic cars and bikes and then from there to Calvinia where we will stay in the hotel for the night.

The weather is likely to be terrible! I think that Des is hoping for bad weather because the past three Polar Bear runs have been run in beautiful weather hardly deserving of the name! I will keep you posted and hopefully there will be lots of photos, stay on two wheels and just go where the road takes you! In the meantime I must go to West Coast Yamaha during the week and collect my new rain suit that I ordered, we'll speak soon.

Frank's 70th birthday bash

Frank's 70th birthday was celebrated at the Phoenix bar on Saturday and it was a party of note! He wasn't sure how many people would attend but he was thinking "about a hundred." His friends all got together to do the catering and although we hugely over-catered the food was great. I started things off with pots of fresh mussels, Monica and friends organised wonderful snack platters, they bought tons of boerewors and bread rolls and Janet made a pudding to end off with.

The people started arriving at 14h00 and it was a slow trickle at first but within an hour and a half the place was buzzing, the disco was pumping out biker music and the bar was doing a roaring trade. Frank is a very popular figure in the local biker fraternity and the crowd certainly attested to that fact.

We were kept pretty busy at first cooking the mussels and then a bit later I started braaiing the boerewors, we let the mob have a few drinks first and then Monica put the snacks out. It was a lovely sunny day so quite a lot of the party moved outside every now and then, especially when there were sounds of bike engines revving.

It was a wonderfully friendly atmosphere which carried on right through until 02h30 with people coming and going all the time. I think that the only person who was there from start to finish was Frank! We called it a night sometime during the evening after a thoroughly enjoyable time, my faith in the biker brotherhood rejuvenated - wonderful people!

I will post some photos when I get them, I didn't take any but Malcolm was doing a great job as photographer. If I am spared I hope that my 70th birthday will be half as good as Frank's, and in the meantime we keep on riding - see you out there!

Winter break, we get out on the road

In the middle of a harsh winter when I have been really battling with the cold weather, when the wind has been throwing up swells which keep us staggering around for six hours and the rain is forced into a horizontal stinging spray that blows the snot out of your nose, all of a sudden we have a weekend that is sunny and calm.

It was unbelievable! Clear sky, no wind and temperatures up in the low to mid twenties celsius. Saturday was lovely and actually we didn't do very much but I said to Janet; "Tomorrow we are getting the bike out, we have to go for a ride!"

When Sunday dawned and I could hear the birds fighting over the nearly empty feeders in the back garden I actually entertained the idea of staying at home and having a braai. It was only whilst we were in the spa bath having our usual discussion over a couple of glasses of JC LeRoux sparkling Sauvignon Blanc that we decided we were definitely going to hit the road.

After the bath and over the sounds of Janet's hair dryer I phoned Frank to see if he wanted to join us but all I got was his voice mail, obviously he had had another late night at the Phoenix, I left a message telling him about our intentions but did not expect to see him.

We ended up riding down to Capetown, a lovely cruise almost within the speed limit, I actually let a couple of cars overtake me - that's how relaxed and laid back I was feeling! We enjoyed a beer or two at the Viper lounge which was doing a pretty brisk trade and that's where we met Linda. We strolled over to the "Ocean Basket" for a very enjoyable, leisurely lunch and after saying goodbye to our friend we headed back.

We stopped to get a photograph overlooking Table Bay and the iconic Table Mountain, which is on the list of the "New seven wonders of the world", as usual I was going to take a photo of Janet and then she would take one of me, but a kindly passer-by offered to take this shot of the two of us.

The ride home was great, we stopped to have a cup of coffee with Dave and Nicky, he is my brother who lost his left leg as a result of a bike accident on the way home from the first Polar Bear run and who is going to join us on the run at the end of this month, he will be travelling by car but I know Dave very well and it won't be long before he is on a trike.

As is usual after a Sunday run we pulled into the Phoenix bar for an A B F to end off a perfect day, I did tell Janet on the ride home that I have now officially given up raising a hand to other bikers on the road. As you would expect there were plenty of bikers out and about and I have always just raised a hand in greeting and to acknowledge the bond between us, the common love of motorbikes and of being "on the edge", but not one responded and about halfway home I just ignored the rest. So if you are Capetown bikers reading this you will now know that the rider on the big red machine will no longer be greeting you. Pity about that.

I get to play with Megan

Not a hell of a lot happened this weekend, really the weather has been atrocious and it is damn cold! I did manage to get out on the bike today and went for about an hour and a half ride, but it was only 13 degrees celsius (55f) and there were still some seriously heavy rain clouds hanging around.

The roads were still wet from last night's rain and the fields are lovely and lush and green, there is plenty of standing water and the small farm dams are almost full again. Four months ago when I rode through to the Buffalo rally in Mosselbay the wind was teasing up dust devils in those same fields.

Two bike related events coming up this month; on Saturday 16th Frank is celebrating his 70th birthday at the Phoenix bar and that should be one hell of a jol. He is anticipating having sixty to seventy friends and family there, there will be a disco and we are providing boerewors rolls and snacks with the help of Monica from the bike shop and I'm sure many others will help.

Then the last weekend of the month sees the fourth annual Polar Bear run, this time up in the mountains to Calvinia. One thing is guaranteed, it's going to be a bloody cold run! I know that Des is hoping for rain, the past three runs have been in beautiful weather so we shall see what this one brings.

There is also a chance that a friend whom I haven't yet met; Nancy from Capetown will bring a group of bikers up to the west coast so that I can show them around, I hope that comes to pass.

On Friday afternoon at the Phoenix I walked in on Megan and her boyfriend playing pool so I put my coin on the table to play the winner, that turned out to be Megan who plays a pretty good game. I managed to beat her inspite of the distraction!

Afterwards I insisted on these photos, I don't know about you but I reckon as you get older it's great to get photos with sexy young chicks! If you enlarge the photo, which I am sure you will just to get a better look at Megan, you will see that Danny was just about to throw a beer keg at my head!

Then he walked in with this bloody big dog! I mean really?

A nice laid back weekend, but I have had enough of this cold weather - I'm really looking forward to summer but it's still a long way off. Stay safe everyone, keep the rubber side down.