Nov

2000 Cape town Biker Festival

Chris on November 21st, 2007

I hope everyone that attended the fest enjoyed it as much as I did. I think this festival is going to get bigger and better (it’s the first time it was held).
We met Andre and Mariette, riding his newly resprayed Intruder in Kraaifontein at 8:30 after riding all the way from the Strand in heavy fog, unable to go faster than 80 km/h. I was very wet and cold by the time we got there. Mariette let me use her dry gloves as she joined Henesia in the car. I accidentily wiped my nose on the brand new gloves a couple of times before I remembered it wasn’t mine. Sorry ‘retta!

Then we stopped by Wolfs house to pick them up. They were waiting for us and we left for Killarney Hotel right away. At the Killarney Hotel Indicator and Di, The Shining, Axel and LadyHawk were waiting for us, ready for some coffee. There was a sign on the door that said “Next strip show - Friday 19th”. Damn, bad planning, we missed it! The Hotel was a lot bigger and better than it looks from the outside and we found a nice table and immediately started giving the waitress a hard time. She was running back and forth for coffee, breakfasts, toast, un-chipped cups and other things until we left, leaving her a nice tip.

Breakfast was a lot of fun and a lot of food and coffee. It’s been some time since some of us saw eachother and some new members (Andre and Mariette) were introduced and innitiated in the traditional IUB way (which involves the usual naked ride to the nearest cafe for cigarettes LOL). Once initiated, they fitted in nicely and ate their part of the food, well maybe Andre had a touch more than his share but what the hell, his a big boy and I wasn’t going to point that out. Then on to Killarney, 500 m down the road.
There were lots of people, many stalls, tattoo parlours, bike shops, food. We met a lot of people we knew and walked around the excellent venue, looking at people, bikes etc. It’s a huge event and there were more than enough to do, see’ eat and off course, drink.

A stunt riding display by Kevin Carmicheal (world champion stunt rider) had us all grasping for breath. Bike races were held on the short circuit all the while while other races were held on the main circuit.

IUBs, being a rather big group, didn’t take long to loose each other among all the people and the timing of bladder pressures. After a while everyone was walking around in twos and threes. Whenever you grew tired of your present company you simply went back to the beer tent, where IUB had it’s own table, grabbed another beer and there was always another group of IUB’s sitting there that you could talk too. Axel and LadyHawk didn’t waste much time in recruiting a new, unsuspecting, member while he was checking our bikes out (good PR people these two!) We were also joined by Gills sister and hubby and the table soon became very busy and noisy and Gill got down to talking them into joining up!

We had lunch here but we were sitting next to huge speakers and it was almost impossible to have a converation, so everyone drifted in and out of the tent.

IUB’s started leaving from around 3 o’clock, just as Clyde and Liesel was ready to join us, but being a couple of hours late our leaving didn’t seem to bother them and I’m certain they had fun too.

Pete and Linda had plans for the evening and George and Di send their regards to the group before leaving.

Sadly we missed a appointment with Axel and LadyHawk as we were waiting to be allowed to cross the circuit between races as Henesia didn’t feel like climbing the (bloody awful) bridge over the track in her condition (it would have been the fourth time) to get to her car. They kept us waiting for too long and we finally had to climb the bridge, managing a wave to Axel and LadyHawk on their way out obviously having waited for us and finally giving up and leaving on their own. Oops, sorry guys.