An estimated 1500 riders turned out for the second annual Biker4Bandanas Run in aid of the Sunflower Fund, hosted by the Air Force Base Ysterplaat Motorcycle Club on Sunday 13 October - approximately double the attendance at the inaugural event in 2012.
They were there on motorcycles of every size and shape, from a 110cc Modenas Kriss, to a 2293cc Triumph Rocket, from little pocket rockets to imposing tourers and dual-purpose bikes.
POTENTIAL DONORS
And each rider put his hand in his pocket to come up with a R50 donation, every cent of which went to bolster the Sunflower Fund’s campaign to recruit volunteers for the South African Bone Marrow Registry, a database of potential donors, their blood already tissue-typed in the hope that one of them will be a perfect match for the next person that needs a bone marrow transplant, due to the effects of life-threatening blood disorders such as leukaemia, marrow failure and aplasia.
Old friends were greeted over the sound of live rock music, several hundred litres of coffee and cold drinks were quaffed, boerewors rolls and pancakes eaten, while a number of riders took advantage of the hosts’ offer of a no-limits blast down Ysterplaat’s main runway – which resulted in at least one heat-seize but no casualties.
SHOWING THEM WHO’S BOSS
Then it was time for the mass ride, which took the riders, club flags and banners proudly flying, on a 65km loop that brought them back to the base for a party that went on for most of the day - and reached an appropriate climax when the curators of the SAAF Museum showed all those noisy bikers just exactly who was boss by revving up the four 36-litre V12 Rolls-Royce Griffon engines of the world’s only airworthy Shackleton long-range reconnaissance aircraft, each delivering 1460kW through 12 unsilenced drainpipes.