10th Annual Polar Bear run, a party of note! Part one; the journey

Bike runs are not all about charity work, sometimes we have a fun run and this one was just that, a fun run and a party of note. The Polar Bear run was, and if you have been reading my stuff you will know this, started in 2008 by Des and Dan as a winter getaway when their businesses were quiet and it became an annual run. 

I was pleased to be invited to take part in the tenth annual run because I was on the first seven runs, I missed the '15 and '16 runs due to family commitments and then I went last year too so I have done eight of them now.

Saturday was a lovely day for a ride, it is still winter heading for spring with the first of the wild flowers starting to bloom but it was a cold day as I rode through to the Velddrif meeting point. 17,5 Celsius on the readout as I pulled into the garage forecourt, lots of guys already there.

Some new faces but most of them I knew and a couple of guys like John and Dan who were also on the very first run, apparently we were to be a group of 24 this time. Greg had asked me to be "Road Captain" for this run and we discussed our route, Dan would be leading the "Stoff-moffies" - the off road riders on a separate route and we would meet in Gouda.

The "Stoff-moffies" on their run

First beverage Darling brewery

We headed down the R27 at a comfortable 120-130kmh, holding it back for the older bikes, stopping briefly to regroup at the Darling turnoff and then visited the Darling Brewery for the first beverage of the day.

From there another short hop through Malmesbury and into Riebeek Kasteel and the Garagista Craft Brewery.

I am not a huge fan of craft beers so I was looking forward to a regular beer at our next stop; the difficult to find Hermon Hotel where we gathered in the sunny beer garden enjoying a chat, no train to catch, it was not far to our final destination; the Porterville Hotel and we had all afternoon to get there.

By then some of the guys were getting a bit itchy, wanting to ride a bit faster so we set off for the 20km run down to Gouda in a somewhat less organised group, some of us opening up a bit and at our first stop/go at the turn off a bunch of us disregarded the "stop" sign and went through anyway, pulling to the left for oncoming traffic and eventually finding the "Bike Forge", a biker oasis in the dusty little town.

The Bike Forge is a bike shop run by Freddie and his lady friend Toni, he buys and sells bikes and parts and does renovations and then also runs a pub for bikers passing through, it is a wonderful place to visit especially if you are a biker and we spent rather longer there than we intended.

My old friend had a Kawa just like this

A lovely CB500 an a Katana

Every schoolboy's dream bike 

1100 Suzuki Katana

Time to go, 30km to Porterville but first the traditional roadside cheese and wine party which most of the guys decided to forgo, either heading straight for the hotel or in some cases staying on at Bike Forge for a bit longer.

The cheese and wine party became a feature of the run after Graeme pulled a bottle of wine and a small block of cheese from his pannier and shared it with his buddies at a roadside stop on the first run in 2008.

So far so good, it had been a most pleasant day with a good bunch of guys, we rode on through to the hotel and got booked in - part two of the story will be about the party that night that raged through until the early hours of the morning when we got kicked out of the bar.

(Click on the pictures to see them full size.)