In a 21st Century culture that loves to organize conferences and summits to blow hot air around about raising awareness and inspiring social activism, you’d think folks would realize it’s fun and passion that bring different people together better than fancy speeches and public service announcements.
We’ve seen it countless times in the recent past. In the segregated American South, the first times young blacks and whites mixed in good spirits and friendship were at early rock ‘n roll shows in Memphis.
Long before America’s Civil Rights struggles, sports brought races together. Whites and blacks roared as Jesse Owens humiliated Hitler’s Aryan supermen at Berlin’s Olympics, while every kid anywhere in the country idolized Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano, Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams.
It’s not socio-political policy on a grand intellectual stage. It’s common sense. When human beings are having fun and reveling in something they have true passion for – an activity that brings them childlike joy, regardless of age – they tend to get along and forget their difference. To cling to any prejudices or bitterness would kill the party.
So, when dedicated riders swear a love of motorcycles and riding can bring people together, it’s not a glib cliche intended to sell leather jackets or plane tickets to Sturgis. If you need proof of that, you should’ve joined me in Margate for the 2013 edition of Africa Bike Week. That city would serve as the home for the African leg of Harley-Davidson’s worldwide 110th anniversary celebration.
On the road to Margate
The entirety of motorcycle-riding Africa descended on Margate – a small, tourism-themed town on the South Coast in the region of Kwazulu-Natal. I got into town a little bleary-eyed after a 14-hour flight from JFK to Johannesburg, a three-hour layover in JoBurg, a two hour flight to seaside Durban and a rental car drive to the Bike Week insanity of Margate.
My endurance haul across the Atlantic was made much more palatable thanks to South African Airlines. The Star Alliance carrier picked me up out of New York City and put together a quiet, comfortable flight allowing me to get some sleep en route – sparing me from what could’ve been potentially lethal jet lag heading to a country nine hours ahead of my home base in Los Angeles. South African Airlines also shuttled me on my shorter commuter runs from JoBurg to Durban, Durban to Cape Town.
Snagging a little rental car at Durban’s King Shaka Airport, I set out on the 150 km drive along the sunny, hot and jungle-spotted South Coast highway. Once outside the Durban city limits, it didn’t take long for the reality of life on the ground in Africa found me.
Lone hitchhikers walked the steamy highway – black Africans with they’re humble belongings stuffed into plastic shopping bags. They held out one finger, asking for a ride by quietly pointing in the direction they hoped to go. On occasion, they’d disappear back into the palm-choked side brush to hide from the afternoon sun.
While keeping my eye on the wandering pedestrians, I needed to watch the road ahead. Though I was on a smooth, paved two lane highway, I had to slow because a loan goat had stopped to sun itself in the center of my lane. Uninjured. Awake and alert. He simply wanted to enjoy an African siesta in the midst of my hot commute.
While I just had to slow to coast by little Billy, I was forced to flat out stop when local herdsmen led their small clusters of thick-backed, long horn oxen from the roadside to the nearest highway exit.
Before I could get the little Ford manual left-hand shifted into motion again, the first of several small European-made panel vans passed me by, stuffed to the gunnels with poor locals – perhaps the luckier members of the hitchhiking caste. I don’t know where they were going, but I hoped it would be better than were they’d been.
Once I exited into Margate, the coastal highway’s challenges gave way to a seaside town completely taken over by motorcycles. Every hotel was booked. Every open-air bar and restaurant sat packed with leather and denim clad riders downing beers while passing bikes revved their engines as both a greeting and salute.
With the streets choked, I had no hope of getting to my hotel on four wheels. I fought through the melee with painful slowness as pedestrian laws and crosswalks were not in fashion. I had the feeling both were probably mere suggestions during a normal weekend in this town.
Parking blocks away from the hotel, I walked back with luggage through the assembled throng, turning away kids looking to carry my belongings to the hotel for a few Rand. My first glances offered a hopeful sense of a South African melting pot – of post Apartheid cooperation encapsulated by blacks and white coming together to celebrate the freedom of riding. And there was some of that to see in the drinking holes.
However, it was clear there were more black Africans watching the parade than riding the bikes. The streets were lined with the poorer locals, some in tribal dress and dancing for money. The girls would cluster on corners, screaming with delight at the loudest engine revs. The boys would watch the hotter rides roll by with envy and desire. But, it was an mostly black audience for a predominately white parade. I was left to wonder if that would be my defining image from Africa Bike Week.
Rolling to a Better Future
I checked into the lively Margate Hotel, Harley-Davidson’s local headquarters for Africa Bike Week and #HD110. From the media room to the hotel bar, it was filled with a nearly 24/7 cacophony of music, laughter, rumbling idles and cocky burnouts.
As it was during my stops in Milwaukee, Auckland and Daytona, the highlight of Africa Bike Week would be a mass weekend ride. After my 22 hour trip, I needed to find my bed and get a little rest if I was going to stay upright in that saddle. But, because adrenaline doesn’t often care what you have up the next day, I found myself in the bar talking to Dave Abrahams – motoring journalist, veteran rider and member of the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists.
We discussed my observations of that evening – my fear that motorcycles might represent a continued racial or class divide, instead of serving as a sign of expanding equality.
“South Africa has roughly the same population as Australia,” Abrahams said. “But we have far fewer riders here.”
Abrahams blamed South Africa’s struggling economy and a general lack of disposable income across the board, but he also admitted the country’s black population – the racial majority in the country – hasn’t come to biker culture. They can’t yet afford the ride.
“We see many black South Africans come to motorcycles through these very inexpensive Chinese-made scooters,” Abrahams explained. “They’re called Styrofoam Cups because, when they break down, you just crumple them up and throw them away.”
That disposable attitude fits with what what Abrahams described as a tendency for South Africans to be rough on their toys.
“Maintenance is a dirty word in Africa. You have to remember that this country was populated by tribesmen, and then settled by Dutch pioneers. In America, you have that Wild West, frontier spirit, and it’s much the same idea here.”
“South Africans tend to use something up until it breaks. Then you get a new one. The idea that you buy a motorcycle and customize it, care for it and maintain it over the years is fairly new here.”
Before we parted ways to our rooms, Abrahams was reassuring. While Apartheid was a thing of the past, its effects were taking a while to undo. There was progress underway, and I might see the proof the next morning.
“There’s something about the idea of freedom and rebellion in motorcycle culture that works well in South Africa. This is now a country and a culture that exists because South Africans broke the law. They broke the law to fight Apartheid, and they broke the law to defeat it.”
“Mark my words,” Abrahams said. “You’ll see riders without helmets tomorrow. There’s a national helmet law in place here, but many riders won’t obey it – and it’s not likely to be enforced. When you have a country based on breaking the law, biker culture fits well.”
I rolled out of bed at 7 a.m., catching a few fleeting rays of the sunrise over the Southern Hemisphere’s Atlantic. The mass ride wasn’t set to start until 10 a.m., but I hadn’t flown some 14,000 or so miles just to ride a motorcycle. There were notes to write up and photos to take.
After downing the biggest breakfast I’d had in weeks to make sure my strength was up for what would be a long, hot ride, I donned my gear and headed out to the rally point.
The excellent and friendly crew out of Harley-Davidson’s Cape Town-based African HQ set me up with a mighty Road Glide, complete with bags and complete stereo system so I could find an African FM radio station. Suffice to say, it’s not easy finding a good classic rock station in South Africa.
After a short rendezvous outside the hotel, assembled media joined Harley-Davidson staffers and rally organizers for a ride to the formation grounds. Bill Davidson (Vice President of Harley-Davidson’s Core Customer Marketing, head of the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee and great grandson of company co-founder William Davidson) was on hand to lead the parade. The locals swarmed him with autograph and photo requests while arriving motorcycles took their place on the starting grounds.
It was on those very grounds where I first found the signs I’d been searching for since my arrival. In every other place I’d been on this worldwide tour – Milwaukee, Auckland, Daytona Beach, Berlin – I’d seen the collective love of riding motorcycles bring different people together regardless of age, race or politics. Assembling more than 2,000 riders at the parade grounds finally revealed that possibility in South Africa.
I saw riders ranging in age from 8 to 80. While white riders may have made up the overall majority, there was a healthy racial mix riding good-looking machines. All of those bikers mixed and mingled openly around their machines, at refreshment booths and in merchant tents set up to sell shirts, books, patches and anything else bike friendly. Whatever growing pains South Africa still faced almost 20 years since the fall of Apartheid and the emergence of free elections, they were put aside that day to enjoy a warm autumn day and a ride along the seaside.
That sense of openness and inclusion even extended to the motorcycles participating. At a majority of mass biker rides, Harley-Davidson rules the day. In Milwaukee, you might expect that since the town is the company’s ancestral home. At New Zealand’s mass ride weeks ago, the 1,000 or so participants rode H-D bikes almost exclusively. But, in Margate, there was an eclectic mix of makes and models. I saw Triumph, Ducati, Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and BMW. There were touring bikes, cruisers, sport bikes and even scooters. Some were off the line, while others showed off countless hours of custom enhancement. As long as you brought two wheels and an engine, you were welcome.
Bill Davidson led the mass ride out of the parade grounds and along a slow, winding route through Margate and along coastal roads toward Shelly Beach and Port Shepstone. The two by two procession was so long that the front end I rode in met the tail end coming the opposite way on the road back.
As I saw during the ride in Auckland, thousands of locals lined the streets to wave and cheer on the endless stream of motorcycles. Some passing bikers waved back, but the preferred return greeting was the loudest available engine rev.
I joined in happily when I saw kids of every race standing shoulder to shoulder with each other to enjoy the show. I realized then that I was seeing the future of South Africa from behind my tinted visor. By the time those children are our age, they will never have known of a segregated Margate, Cape Town, Johannesburg or Durban. They’ll just know they were friends since childhood and worked to build a freer country together.
HD110: Check out John Scott Lewinski’s other stops on the Harley Davidson 110 World Tour:
Berlin: #HD110: Harley-Davidson Rides Music and Motors to Berlin; Apr. 8, 2013
Daytona: HD110: Bike Week 2013 ‘Breaks Out’ in Daytona; Mar. 18, 2013
New Zealand: HD110: Harley-Davidson Celebrates 110 Years in New Zealand; Mar. 6, 2013
Milwaukee: Harley-Davidson Kicks Off Its 110th Anniversary; Sept. 16, 2012
Special thanks to the following sponsors and benefactors for making the HD110 World Tour possible: Harley-Davidson, Crave Online, IndieGoGo, Meguiar’s Car Care Products, The Iron Horse Hotel – Milwaukee, The Langham Hotel Auckland, Auckland Motorcycles and Power Sports, Hilton Daytona Beach, Hotel Casa Camper – Berlin, South African Airways, Margate Hotel, Protea Hotel President – Cape Town, Milwaukee Harley-Davidson, Todd Hall, Steve Harpst, Burbank Boxing Club, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Carla Gehrig, Eric Rogell, Traycee King, Joy Sapieka and Nicholas Kearney.
