Time for a Cape Town Summer Harley-day

You Cannot Head off on a Harley Without Looking the Part

The Cape Harleyday motorbike tours start in Stellenbosch, where you are kitted out with such quintessential gear as a World War II-style black beanie helmet, genuine Hard Rock Café leather jacket and complimentary Stars and Stripes Thomas Jefferson Bourbon bandanna. After all you cannot head off on a Harley without looking the part.

Take the bike for as little as one hour or as long as 10 days along the coast and through the mountains staying in well chosen guest houses and cruising the sights at leisure accompanied by a tour host and back up vehicle. Obviously a motorbike licence is a pre-requisite for the front seat, as is being over 25 years old, but passengers without these qualities are provided with an experienced driver, while they sit back and live their dream as I did.

You cannot be in a hurry when riding a Harley - it is the antithesis to the 'cool dude' philosophy - so we slid into a cruising speed of little more than 100km per hour. Any faster than that and the 'Fat Boy' whose enormous engine is mounted straight onto the frame, started vibrating to a degree more than this girl could take. Never more so than going down hill which was unavoidable when traversing the stunning Franschhoek Pass through the granite mountains of the Winelands. A stop in the valley for a stiff brandy proved necessary to regain composure before continuing.

Once tried, the Harley experience is not to be forgotten and it certainly fulfilled my aspiration to be a biker's bimbo even for one day.

The author of this article is Carrie Hampton - she can be contacted on email: carrieh@iafrica.com

Copyright © 2002 Carrie Hampton. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of the author is prohibited.