Ever since Dom, his brother PJ and I began trawling the streets of Secunda, our home town in Mpumalanga, for some sort of attention on our manly iron stallions, we dreamt of taking part in the annual Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. The ride is a fantastic initiative by Triumph to raise both money and awareness in support of male prostate cancer and mental health. It gives participants the opportunity to do something they don’t usually do when mounting their motorcycles, dress to the nines!
As the years wore on, there always seemed to be something that got in the way of us taking part in the event. Sometimes we simply spaced on the event all together until after it had taken place. We would swear at ourselves, then swear to ourselves that next year would be the year and move along. To be honest, I think that any hesitation we felt was due to the fact that we always wanted to do it as a team, a unit. Until this year that had seemed to be one of the main problems, geographically speaking. But no more! So when the event sprang to my attention on opening what I had almost considered a redundant Facebook account a couple of months ago, I sprung into action. Immediately I followed the link, donated my $20, and forwarded it on to Dominic who wasted no time and did the same.
We were rearing to go! And then disaster struck as some cake with a face cut me off while I was doing some less than kosher lane splitting in traffic. I braked hard, skidding into the curb and flying over my handlebars. Luckily the damage to my body was minimal, a few roasties and a tasty scar on my abdomen. It wasn’t my self but rather my Comanche that I was concerned about. A dent in his tank, a bend in his handlebar and a jammed-in-place gear shifter put him a little out of commission. I couldn’t bear to see him looking so bent out of shape, pun intended. A few days later my old man assisted me and we cautiously bent the shifter more or less back into its original position. He could gallop again.
Put it down to shell shock, to be honest I was a little shook, but I was convinced that I didn’t have a ride for the now fast approaching DGR. In the meantime, Dominic had made some moves, quite literally. He moved all his things from his parents house in Secunda down to Cape Town. He has officially become a permanent fixture here in Cape Town, and found himself with two motorcycles. His pride and joy, a Honda CB550 café racer he built with the help of his own old man, dubbed Little Wing would now also be gracing the deserving streets of our mother city. He thus graciously offered up his own Harley Davidson Sportster, Thunder Iron to me for the DGR, the day was saved.
Although I had ordered a new set of handlebars, and a few other extra’s to give Comanche a bit of the love he rightfully deserves, they were taking an age to arrive (Covid ladies and gentlemen). In the days leading up to the DGR, I decided to take the wounded old boy for a turn to pick up some bread and milk, and during that short ride I just knew I couldn’t do it to him. He had served me well for nearly ten years, and now, at the cusp of a ride I had always seen the two of us doing together to abandon him? No way José.
And so on the day of the ride, Dom rocked up on Little Wing, and wouldn’t you know it he brought our newest member Seanus along too on his Green Pig. Sadly, the route was ‘ride only’ this year (I repeat, Covid ladies and gentlemen), but we decided to latch onto a fun group that go by the handle VintageRideOut on Instagram after finding out that they had a lightly organized ride together along the route laid out by Triumph ending with seafood and beer at Deus Homestead in Hout Bay. We met up with them at Triumph and got a little too stuck into admiring the Triumph motorcycles, especially the Scramblers, ohhhh boy, and before we knew it they were already off.
We hustled to get our helmets and gloves on, hats tucked away and engines revving, we took off after them hoping to catch up with them. As we dropped down onto the gorgeous but ludicrously congested Victoria Road on Camps Bay’s beach front, we noticed them coming towards us, in the wrong direction. But why? We figured they just weren’t in the mood to do the rest of the route, which entailed continuing along the sea front along Beach Road in Sea Point, past the V&A and back up past Triumph. When we hit Beach Road it quickly became apparent why they had turned around. They were aware of the rally taking place along this road in support of Palestine, we weren’t. Cars were at a standstill, so we cut up toward the mountain and crafted our own DGR route. We did fly back past the now closed Triumph dealership and arrived at Deus a little let down and rearing for a beer. After a Guinness or two all was right with the world again and we were happy to find the folks of VintageRideOut with a little space for us to share in.
We are already looking forward to next years’ DGR, which will be organized, and where our motorcycles will be fitted with some new crash bars (for me), sissy bars (for Dom) and maybe even a long range fuel canister specifically for Harley Davidson Sportsters, all custom made by our lovechild, Bronco Iron Company. Let’s see what the wee engineer can come up with.
Leave a Reply