Chapter 4 - The Bikes Perspective

My name is Totally eXeLent. I’m a Honda XL500S. In white, you know the colour of champions…

Totally eXeLent

I started life in my native land of Japan, now a distant memory, o, maybe 20 years ago, which is a lot for a bike like me. Assembled by eager little Japanese hands, I was soon loaded into a container with some family members and shipped off to South Africa.

I remember standing in the showroom in Cape Town for 3 days when this fat farmer with short pants and a beer gut walked in, sat on me, felt me up and disappeared. Just as I thought I’ve escaped a life of creaking suspension and that number 12 vellies kicking life into me on early mornings, I was loaded onto a dirty bakkie and carted off to a wine farm in Stellenbosch.

I spend years doing faithful service and in the end grew quite fond of old Sakkie de Kock. He changed my oil now and then and even took me to town when I felt sick where I could recuperate in the bike shop. Some of the things I heard in the bike shop made me feel fortunate to have such a loving caring master. I even remember Sakkie washing me once, early one Sunday morning after he accidentally threw up on me after a rugby match at the neighbours house the previous day.

Then one day Sakkie bought a young new model home on the back of his bakkie, and I was relegated to standby duty, which I didn’t mind. Soon I was just being ridden when the young one went to town for repairs. I got quite fond of some of the chickens roosting on my seat.

Then one day, master Mark, who’s started working on the farm the previous summer, came in and loaded some stuff onto my back. I liked Master Mark, he was always nice to me, even lubed my chain once or twice, and we got along well. Then we left on an epic trip. It was the longest trip I’ve ever been on, we even had to fill up with petrol along the way at what I later found out was a called a garage - it’s the same as the fuel tank on the farm but people have to pay for it. I saw the weirdest things. Cars with lots of people in it, other cars with small wheels and seats with people in it in the back doing insane speeds. I even heard music coming from one. I was blown away.

Then, after we rode for about half an hour, I was really tired because I’m not used to all the excitement, we got to Bothasig. I must have covered a hundred kilometres that day. In Bothasig I was parked in a proper garage. I liked Mark. I never knew he had a wife and kids. After about a week I started to realise this is my new home. Master Mark took me on short rides, sometimes with his children on the front. We even went to an event called the Toy Run and I never knew there so many bikes. I couldn’t believe my eyes at some of the bikes I saw. It made me feel slightly old.

Then just as I was settling in at my new house, another person I never seen before came and sat on me, bouncing up and down, then started me up and rode around the block. I didn’t know what was happening. Then I saw him and master Mark shaking hands and this time I was loaded onto the back of a bakkie and taken on a long, long ride.

This person rode me a lot, I hardly ever had chance to catch my breath. We went riding in the bushes in Gordons Bay, even went over the mountain on a train track, which was frightening. Every day I had to ride to what I later found out was Goodwood where he’d park me with some other snobbish bikes, all shiny and new, before disappearing into a building only to reappear again hours later. All day long I had to stand in the sun, with the new bikes making fun of me. Even in his garage there was this shiny new bike that only got ridden over weekends. We didn’t get along well and I was always blamed for the oil puddles on the floor even though I’m old and find it difficult to keep my bodily fluids in.

Now I wasn’t as young as I used to be and the long rides was slowly but surely taking a toll on my sensitive crank. I’ve had a bad crank for years. I tried my best but it wasn’t long before I had to put an end to this madness. So I had a breakdown. I wasn’t taken to a motorcycle mechanic as usually happened. My engine was ripped out and a new cam was fitted, but that wasn’t the problem so when I was started I left him in no doubt as to how unhappy I was. Again my engine was removed and this time send to a mechanic, who, thankfully found out my crank needed replacement. In about two weeks my engine was back and I felt better than ever.

Then one day another person I never saw arrived with another bakkie. On the back of the bakkie was another bike, a red one. It didn’t look much better than me and was also an on/off road so I we got along well. The red bike was taken off and I was strapped onto the back of the bakkie and carted away. I later found that this kind soul was master Mark’s brother and that his home was also my new home!

Tags: Richtersveld Adventure