NIPPLES 5

A day off to let the rear ends recover, meet family and friends, and sample Mossel Bay’s best cuisine.
 
This isn’t a fine dining mag, but it wouldn’t be right to skip the place Clive treated us to lunch. Its name translates to Quay 4. It serves beer brewed by the local micro breweries. These beers compare with the good stuff you get in England, not the sour smelling mass produced lagers we get in the bottle stores in Joburg. I sample the local one, acknowledge it, then default to my preferred red wine, served, for novelty’s sake, in an enamel mug.
 
Quay 4 isn’t the usual steaks coming off a production line. Each dish is unique in some way or other. I opt for fish, done in foil on an open log fire.  
 
We are joined by extended family, plus rider Greg on a monster of a tourer. Greg’s Trophy 1200 is Triumph’s competitor to the likes of the BMW RT and LT series. I stop short of comparing it to a Gold Wing, because the Trophy, for all its bulk, will prove itself no slouch in the twisties. No doubt Greg’s capable wrists have something to do with that.
 
A good many rounds later, back to the hotel to prepare for tomorrow’s serious business of riding motorcycles. The mission: Blast through the bends to get to Knysna’s motorcycle museum, blast through bends to get back, and then do our share to deplete the Western Cape’s supply of vinho tinto; or red wine.

 
After brekky, the Tigers set off for the gravel while the tarmac squad sets its sights on Outeniqua Pass. You may think it’s the only pass in SA, I mention it so often. It’s nothing of the kind, but it’s such a spectacular ride when we Joburgers see it, which is once in the blue moon, we make a feast of it. Outeniqua Pass is the kind of road motorcycle advertising agencies comb for. Beautifully surfaced, excellently marked, and tighter than tossed spaghetti, Outeniqua Pass is kilometre after kilometre of switchbacks, curves and hairpins that bring out the beast in you. Without luggage, the Bandit feels positively petite.


 
One of the passes; probably where we RVd' with the Tigers. I was too cold to take notes.
 
The beauty of a multi-day trip is you get better with each passing day. On Day 1 you’re a bit rusty. Day 2 see smoother riding as you broach the seal on the vat of cornering juice. Now, a week into the trip, all are on form and in the swing of it. The Tigers impress, the KTM impresses, the RT impresses, and, I humbly submit, the Bandit impresses. The more I ride with the group the more highly I think of them. The combination of talent plus adultness makes for a group that does the business in the twisties, without any of the drama I’ve previously experienced with riders who have something to prove.
 
Meeting up at the rendezvous at the top (or bottom?) of Robertson''s Pass, the Tigers and Tarmacs set out for the pleasant trip to Knysna (English: “Nizena”; Afrikaans: “Ke-nace-na”). The route takes us into the Little Karoo, still a bit cold for delicate little me.
 
Here and there in the Karoo, I spot black kites in the sky. I hope they are vultures. There are, broadly, five families of vultures in Southern Africa, each distinguished by the shape and function of the beak. The whole vulture culture centres around one with a beak like a rip saw. The other four families may stake their claim to a carcass, but the party doesn’t start until Rip Saw arrives. As if aware of his grand place in the vulture kingdom, Rip Saw will swoop down dramatically upon the carcass, strut importantly, then proceed to use his saw of a beak to rip open the hide.

 

The magnificent Karoo is as the magnificent Karoo does. You can't see the vultures in the pic but they're there.


Unto Rip Saw belong the pick of the spoils. Only when Rip Saw has finished do the other four families assault the carcass. One family is bald and has a long beak, to drill into the flesh. Another has a short, serrated beak to rip away at the surface. One has a vise clamp of a beak that crushes bone. One is a jack of all trades. All five vulture families are totally inter-dependent, and all five are under threat from the stupidest superstition imaginable. It is believed that killing a vulture will enable you to connect with your ancestors. Seriously; you can’t make this stuff up. And it’s placing the whole ecology at risk, as vultures play a kingpin role in the ecosystem.
 
This is the kind of “culture” we are called upon to respect. We don’t.
 
Dropping down to sea level we cruise with picturesque beaches on our right and magnificent Cape mountain ranges on our left. We head into Knysna, the touristy seaside resort town trying its best to maintain a stiff upper lip in the face of lockdown’s murderous assault on tourism.
We head for The Motorcycle Room, a private museum. 

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The Motorcycle Room, Knysna, Western Cape

The Motorcycle Room isn’t specifically dedicated to vintage, veteran, or exotic motorcycles. It’s more a memory-lane trip of the bikes you and I have ridden, or ogled, since we were know-all teenagers. Many are what we sixtysomethings took dead seriously in our teenage days in the 70s, as “fifties”; 50cc motorcycles (we weren’t about to call them mopeds!) “Mine got 65 up that hill…!” “Ah, that’s nothing, my brother gets 80 passing the stadium...” Shovelful after shovelful of wishful, adolescent taurus faeces. I look with amusement at a Suzuki AS50, which entered production in 1968. We took them so seriously! There are real bikes, of course, such as the Yamaha RZ500, Ducati 748 and Honda CB-X, a gaggle of BMWs and miscellaneous Jap Fours, and some downright bizarre once-offs such as a motorcycle made up of an engine bolted into a structure of copper plumbing vessels.




Now here's a little His-&-Hers pair to get excited about...

At Knysna we bid goodbye to Tall Paul. His mission is complete; he has delivered the BMW R1200 RT to the coast, and it is ten minutes away from its destination.

Departing Knysna, trip leader and Triumph diehard Clive sets about the serious business of salvaging Triumph’s rep after the savaging it took when I test-rode a Tiger some months ago. I found it lacking, if not downright insipid. I confess to having contemplated parting with the Bandit to acquire an adventure bike. Five minutes on some seller’s Tiger cured me of that idea.

Clive isn’t leaving the damage unattended. Pressing the key of his Tiger into my hand, he relieves me of the Bandit. Clive is a giant of a man, and it’s comical to see him dwarf the Bandit like your Mum on a scooter.

I dutifully, and curiously, mount Clive’s Tiger, a circa 2011 model 800. Thumbing it into life, the rather nasty exhaust note assails my delicate little ears. The exhaust note will prove the sole criticism I have of the bike. Clive’s Tiger disproves everything about the one I rode previously. This one accelerates like a motorcycle, pulls like a motorcycle, and corners like a motorcycle. I hope to give it a try on the open road to see how it performs at speed, but Clive has a vertebra issue and has to sit upright. Even the Bandit’s semi-upright seating position, fine for me, is too much of a forward lean for Clive. He acknowledges the Bandit, but requests his own machine back.

Kudos to Clive; his mission is accomplished. His Tiger is everything the previous one I tried wasn’t. At dinner I will ask him what he’s done. The answer will be he fitted the loud exhaust, plus a fibre air filter, and went up one tooth (more torque, less speed) on the back sprocket. It certainly worked. Either the one I previously rode was a dog, or Clive found the formula for transforming a duck into a swan. (Mixed metaphor – Ed.)

Yesterday it was Quay 4. Today it was Knysna’s Motorcycle Room.

And tomorrow, we ride to Nieu Bethesda.

Nieu Bethesda is a village in the Karoo, and is accessed only by dirt road. We tarmac jockeys knew this when we signed up. It is for Nieu Bethesda we were warned to set off with a new battery in the bike, and to have the cooling system serviced, for Nieu Bethesda winter temperatures plumb the lowest you’ll find in the chilly South African interior.

Up to now it’s been plain sailing (Paul’s front rim issue and my nail in the rear tyre aside), but tomorrow’s leg is set to separate the men from the boys.

Next: MOSSEL BAY TO NIEU NETHESDA
 
Regards
Stan L
South Africa