Good run for a bad breakfast

Sunday morning dawned bright and calm with the promise of a lovely day, we met at the Engen One Stop as usual for our monthly breakfast run and chatted over coffee while we waited for others to arrive. Janet had other things to do and had elected to stay home, I was loose on the land and itching to ride. Just the quick 20km from home to the garage had been enjoyable and there was more to come.

 I don't often feature in my own blog, here chatting with Frank - picture by Gerrie Pieterse.

By 09h30 there were only ten of us on seven bikes and that looked like that was all there was going to be so we saddled up and hit the road. The R27 to Capetown has unfortunately got the speed restriction in the form of the gantries every 20km so we kept our speed down to around 130kmh and just had a steady cruise in our usual staggered formation. It was pleasant nonetheless and I tootled along happily.

What we did notice was literally hundreds of bikers heading up our way, many large groups passed by including several large groups of Harley riders, what were we missing? Later I was to discover that there was a Harley festival on at Club Mykonos, though by the number of other makes we saw it was not restricted to Harley.

We had planned to have breakfast at the bush pub near Melkbos but had heard that it was closed for renovations, Div decided to check this out and if it was closed we would carry on to the Viper Lounge.

 It is still closed but we were informed that it would re-open in two to three weeks, anyway after an hour on the road some people need to smoke and this provided an ideal opportunity. By now we were feeling the heat, it was going to be a scorcher.

Proceeding onwards we turned right at the Melkbos traffic lights and followed the coastal road down to Marine Drive and through to Table View, immediately I felt the drop in temperature along the coast, welcome relief!

I haven't been to the Viper Lounge for many months so it was good to be there again, the place was quiet obviously because the Capetown bikers were all heading up to Langebaan so we had no trouble getting a seat, it was 10h56 so they did not refuse us our much needed beers!

We all placed our breakfast orders and settled down, there's always eye-candy at the Viper Lounge; here in the form of a huge Victory cruiser with a rather attractive blue and white colour scheme.

We waited and we waited, the place still wasn't busy so why the long wait? We were informed that they had run out of sausages (??) so Div went over the road to the 7/11 and bought a packet which he gave to them.

 (Picture by Gerrie Pieterse) It was well after midday by the time the food started arriving and I was so happy to get mine that I made a smiley face!

I was a bit premature though, it was cold! Also most of the people had by then eaten most of their food and their toast hadn't arrived, pretty much a disaster, I hate to think what it would have been like if it had been busy! Anyway we still had a good time together but I think we'll choose a different venue for breakfast next time.

The general consensus was to stop at "Vlakvarkgat" on the way home for an ABF so off we went, we got pretty much separated by the heavy traffic on Marine Drive on the way out and I found myself alone on the R27 and travelling way too fast, perhaps I'll find out if those bloody gantries are active or just an "eye-blinder"?

I stopped in a lay-bye for a leak and also to allow some time to pass before going through the next gantry and saw 35 degrees on my dash, on leaving the pub a little later though it was up to 37,5 and still there was no wind, a portent of things to come? We're barely out of Spring so how's Summer going to be?

It was a good day out with good people and we have had good breakfast at the Viper Lounge in the past, maybe this was an off day so we'll give them another chance later on.

The Meeulanders will be handing over the proceeds of the tin run held last week pretty soon so I'll let you know how much was collected, in the meantime stay safe and keep the shiny side up!