Harley bikers rev up in celebratory EL festival
THE high-powered throbbing, burbling and roaring of hundreds of motorbikes reverberated on East London roads yesterday morning as more than 500 motorbikes of all shapes, sizes and sounds took part in the mass ride from the Esplanade to Gonubie Hotel to mark the end the annual Harley-Davidson Africa Bike Week.
The motorbiking extravaganza, which came with stunts and rock shows, even coincided with superbike racing when the third round of the 2018 SuperGP Champions Trophym was held on the East London Grand Prix track.
The biker party kick-started on Thursday evening with music performances that carried on until Saturday evening.
It came to a grand finale as bikers paraded through the metro on their highly-tuned, sculpted metal machines, enjoying scenic views during the 19km ride, before returning back to the beachfront for the closing ceremony.
Family members, friends and supporters of the riders could be seen waving and cheering for their favourite bikers along the route from the beach front to Gonubie.
East London bike-lovers came out in droves and joined the mass ride. Billy Gerretsen said he was addicted to the “different experience of riding a bike on open road. I prefer riding bikes to cars, and today’s mass ride solidified that”.
Adrenalin junkie Zozo Mkutu, from Amalinda, said he developed a love for bike riding in 1977. “It’s my second year participating in the mass ride and it was awesome.”
Speaking to the Dispatch, Africa Bike Week organiser Carl Frayne said this year’s event was the best one in the Africa Bike Week’s history. “This year was our tenth anniversary, and this was by far the best Africa Bike Week we’ve had.”
Frayne said over 20 000 people had visited the bike festival on the Esplanade since Thursday, triple last year’s figures. “The first year of bringing an event into a new city is quite a gamble, because you’re never sure how it’ll fit. We were able to take lessons from last year’s Africa Bike Week and work on delivering a great event.”
He said the weekend had been incident free, save for an FMX biker who broke his wrists during a bike demonstration.
Frayne said the biking event would “definitely be back again in Buffalo City next year. We’ll announce the new dates soon”.
● An East Londoner also walked away as this year’s winner of a brand new 2018 Harley Davidson Street 750 bike. Out of 10 000 people who registered on the Africa Bike Week website, Stacey Moore’s name was selected at the lucky draw that took place on Saturday evening. Moore, who was in Jeffreys Bay when she got the call that she’d won, told the Dispatch that she was “still in shock over the win. I’m an avid bike lover. I got the biggest shock last night. I can’t wait for the bike to arrive”, she said.