A ride I will never forget

I only ever owned one bike.  It was a BSA Golden Flash 650 which I bought second hand from a police sale.  I think I liked its throaty twin exhaust snarl more than anything else.  Besides there weren’t too many choices in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1965.  The Matchless 500 single was one that comes to mind but its kick start lever had a a habit of retaliation which many a painful ankle can attest to.

I had been in the country for a couple of years, so at the age of 20 thought it would be a good idea to …. …. ride my recently acquired machine to visit my parents in Durban, South Africa, some 800 miles away.  No sooner had I set off than anxious moment number one confronted me.  At the end of a long straight stretch of road I saw two elephants ambling along the bitumen.  “How does one ride a motorcycle past two elephants?” I asked myself.  “You don’t” I replied.  So after half an hour of slowly getting closer I decided it wasn’t such a bad situation after all.  The elephants turned out to be two very timid cows.  Yes, I was a bit nervous to say the least as I had already experienced a few recent run-ins with pachyderms.  They were everywhere.

I made the border post with South Africa on the Limpopo River at Beit Bridge without further ado and then started to relax and enjoy the ride.  Speed cops were very few and far between and the speed limit was more than I cared to reach anyway.  I did mange a steady 70 miles per hour though.  My safety gear consisted of denim trousers and jacket, leather boots and gauntlets topped off with the helmet of the day, a leather covered cork cap, including peak, with straps that split either side of my ears and buckled under my chin.  I had tied a small cardboard suitcase to the pillion seat with some rope as I had no proper panniers.

My second anxious moment arrived unexpectedly and very suddenly.  The back wheel started to waggle left and right under me.  Inexperienced as I was at this motorcycling lark all I could think of doing was to hang on for dear life and allow the speed to drop off as quickly as possibly.  About half way through this nerve wracking moment I thought it would be a good idea to apply some brakes.  I must have grabbed too much of a handful because within a second or two I was sliding along the middle of the road with my helmet scraping off the paint along the centre line.

I chose my crash site well because while I felt myself beginning to slow I opened my eyes and saw, for the first time, the narrow bridge approaching me.  That wasn’t too bad but the VW Beetle on the bridge became more of a concern.  I clipped the front wheel of the car with my helmet pretty much as we both came to a stop.  The young couple helped me regain some semblance of dignity and in fact very generously put me up for the night when they returned an hour later from a shopping trip.  In the meantime I manged to pump up the back tyre using the air system from a passing truck.  The rubber valve had blown out causing a sudden deflation.

I continued my journey the next day with very bent handlebars and slightly bent front forks, a smashed headlight and bent gear lever.  I still had about 500 miles to go but my speed had been reduced now to about 40 or 50 mph.

Anxious moments three and four arrived quite early that morning.  I had just refuelled at a very small town and had a travelled couple of miles when the back tyre developed another puncture.  This time I stayed upright and parked on the verge to await another good Samaritan.  I removed the rear wheel ready for transportation to the small town when a Scotsman turned up in a Ford sedan.  He very kindly drove me back to the town with my wheel and suitcase on the back seat.  He was preparing to journey a thousand miles across country to the west coast.  The same gentleman returned me with new second hand tyre to my sorry looking Golden Flash then left for parts unknown.  It was then that I discovered I had left my suitcase in his car.  Woe is me I thought.

Before replacing the tyre another VW turned up to give me a hand.  They were popular cars in South Africa.  The driver was a local farmer but he only had one leg.  I discovered this as we motored away from my stranded machine.  He hooked his walking stick under the door handle with the other end on the accelerator pedal.  It was now either flat out or stop so I spent the next couple of minutes trying to reduce my heart rate.  Luckily it was only a short drive.

My Scottish friend was still at the service station thank goodness so all turned out well.  I was soon reunited with my bike, luckily with the aid of another local, and set off once more into the wilds of Africa.  Although relatively slow, the rest of the journey was uneventful.  Apart from the very end that is and a most uncomfortable riding posture developed through steering with badly bent handlebars.

It was dark when I arrived in the little town where my parents lived.  It was also raining steadily and the road was wet and slippery.  I couldn’t have been travelling at more than 20 mph when a car drove across in front of me from one side of the road to the other for no apparent reason.  The fact that I had no lights might have exacerbated the situation.  Well, I hit the back door midships causing a fair amount of damage to the panel and paintwork.  I reversed out of the dent I had caused, exchanged some unpleasant verbal abuse with the driver before calling my Dad for some sustenance and a warm bed.

Two months later and a day before I was due to leave for Rhodesia again, I got my bike back from the garage.  It was great to see it fully repaired.  I had absolutely no trouble with the bike on the return journey but it did rain.  It rained for all of the three days it took.  It rained so hard that many parts were completely flooded.  On one occasion, in the same area as the one legged farmer, I couldn’t see the road for the flood.  Cars were stopped at either end of a mile long stretch of water.  I could see the markers along the edge of the road so gingerly entered the water, opened up the throttle to keep the water out of the twin exhausts and safely negotiated the hazard.

By now I was completed saturated, having no proper rain gear, but was happy as Larry to finally reach my destination.  I sold the bike a year later when my girlfriend (now wife of 42 years) said she preferred a roof over her head on the open road.