Cape Town – Each year, on the first Sunday in November, bikers from all around the Western Cape gather at a predetermined place for the quietest, most restrained run on the calendar.
It’s the annual memorial run to the Bikers Church in Brackenfell, to pay tribute to the riders who have fallen during the past year, and to try to bring comfort to their loved ones – because mainstream biking is, above all, a family, one with old-fashioned ideas about loyalty and community spirit.
But this year the weather threw them a curve ball, with torrential rain and gale-force winds that made riding a motorcycle an endurance test. Of the hundreds of bikers and their families who packed the church, only 36 arrived on their motorcycles and, looking around, it was easy to spot them.
They were the barefoot ones, their sodden boots, socks and gloves hanging from the heating panels along the walls.
Pastor Ian September took as his text the resounding final verse of Romans Chapter 9: “Whomsoever believeth on him, shall not be ashamed.” For ashamed can also mean disappointed or deserted.
It’s easy to ask, “Why him, Lord, when we need him more than you do?” It’s easy to be angry and to lose your trust, September said. But don’t allow your tragedy to steal your faith in the Lord, he encouraged those who had lost friends and loved ones.
He knows the depth of your feelings; He’s been there. Trust Him in all circumstances and you will not be forsaken, September concluded.
ONE PAIR OF HANDS
Paul de Bruyn, vice-president of the Motorcyclists Association of the Western Cape, thanked all the bikers who had turned out to honour the fallen riders.
“But what do we take away from this outpouring of emotion?” he asked. We should take a sense of responsibility to the road, he said. One of the bikers’ favourite songs of worship, he pointed out, was entitled “One pair of hands”. That also meant the hands on the handlebars.
“Motorcycling is dangerous,” he said. “We all accepted that risk the first time we slung a leg over a bike - but we can minimise that risk by taking responsibility for our own safety.”
David Frost, deputy director of road safety management at the Western Cape department of transport and public works (and also one of the soggy 36) said that 64 riders – all male – and two female pillions had died on Western Cape roads between 1 November 2014 and 23 October 2015.
More than two-thirds were between 30 and 50 years old, he said. Of those fatalities, he went on, by far the majority had occurred at weekends, in built-up areas where the speed limit was 60km/h.
Stanley Paton, Cape Town president of the Christian Motorcycle Association, read out the names of the riders and pillions killed on Western Cape roads in the past year. That list is on the video below, backed by footage of the 2014 ride.
As he read out the names, representatives of their families and clubs came to the front; each was handed a single red rose. Pastor September asked that they be blessed with closure and “the peace that passeth all understanding”, before the two plaques, bearing the names of fallen riders going back more than a decade, left the church, each on the back of a quietly rumbling motorcycle.