 |
| The wheels used for this adventurers’ pilgrimage up Sani Pass was (from left) a 250 cc Honda, a Yamaha XT250, a 300 cc Big Boy scooter and a 125 cc Suzuki. |
The Midlands is full of
ageing adventurers who use their wheels to escape from their successful lives at
every opportunity. ALWYN VILJOEN met two of them.
WHEN asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory
famously replied, “because it is there”.
Sani Pass has become South Africa’s own Everest. Just by being
there, it annually attracts hundreds of people up its steep twists, pushing the
limits of anything from 50 cc scooters to a sedan towing a caravan.
Four men who recently completed this adventurers’ pilgrimage
included the 85-year-old Ian Barclay, his two sons Charlie and Johnny (both in
their late 50s) and his young mate Mike Hallowes (67).
Hallowes always had road bikes, but after a few close calls in
Pietermaritzburg’s traffic on his BMW touring bike, his wife Penny gave him the
classic biker’s choice: her … or the Beemer.
“I called a guy who has been after me for the bike for years and he
drove through that night to fetch it — before I could change my mind,” Hallowes
said.
He then became a responsible citizen as best as a former biker
could and had all but forgotten about the thrills and spills of two-wheeled
transport when Barclay called.
Howick’s twinkly-eyed octogenarian wanted help to choose a
scrambler to reward himself for reaching his 85th birthday.
“Now I own two bikes again, a 300 cc Big Boy scooter and a 250 cc
Jonway Explode that is very similar to the scrambler Ian chose,” said
Hallowes.
Barclay said he was no greenhorn on Sani. The last time he rode up
three years ago, he fell awkwardly so that the exhaust pipe “braaied his leg a
bit”.
 |
| C'mon lads, what's keeping you! Ian Barclay on Sani Pass in 2013 at 85. |
Asked why he would again risk his ageing bones on a young fool’s
errand, Barclay shrugged. “The whole trick is to know how to fall. You have to
be planning how to get up even before the fall. It will still be painful, but
the planning is half the fun.”
This time round, the “ballies” only dropped their bikes twice each.
Barclay’s falls “don’t count” as he has a dicky knee that cannot operate the
rear brake, and “everyone knows you cannot go down Sani without a rear brake and
NOT fall”, said Barclay.
Besides, he said, Mike’s two falls were much more spectacular. “He was actually standing still when his foot slipped on the loose gravel and he fell ‘uphill’, a rare type of fall on Sani. He lay there so long my one son worried he might have died. Then, just as he got back on again, his other foot slipped and he fell again. We did try not to laugh.”
Besides, he said, Mike’s two falls were much more spectacular. “He was actually standing still when his foot slipped on the loose gravel and he fell ‘uphill’, a rare type of fall on Sani. He lay there so long my one son worried he might have died. Then, just as he got back on again, his other foot slipped and he fell again. We did try not to laugh.”
 |
| FROM LEFT: Mike Hallowes, brothers Charlie and Johnny Barclay with their father Ian, to date the oldest biker yet to go up Sani pass with 85 winters behind him. |
Mike said he wasn’t “just lying there”.
He was actually counting his blessings, comfortably stretched out on his back between the folds of the majestic Drakensberg on a mild summer’s morning, on his way to have a coffee with mates at South Africa’s highest pub.
He was actually counting his blessings, comfortably stretched out on his back between the folds of the majestic Drakensberg on a mild summer’s morning, on his way to have a coffee with mates at South Africa’s highest pub.
Long time adventurer
Hallowes blamed Barclay for inspiring for this kind of thing.
In 1952, in the depression after World War 2, England was in much the same crisis as it is now, with few jobs and fewer prospects for adventurous young men.
In 1952, in the depression after World War 2, England was in much the same crisis as it is now, with few jobs and fewer prospects for adventurous young men.
In his mid-twenties, Barclay, who then earned about £7 a week,
bought a clapped-out 1925 Morris Oxford for £10, fixed it up a bit and then
drove it from London via the Horn of Africa to then Salisbury in Zimbabwe, where
he became a successful tobacco farmer.
The little Morris ran for another 40 years and is now “back in a
museum in England somewhere” after he sold it to an antique dealer.
“He also built and flew his own microlight using only the handbooks
for training,” said Hallowes.
“I was not totally untrained,” said Barclay. “I had been building
model aeroplanes since I was six after all; and I was the spotter in many recce
flights during the Rhodesian War. Because I always got very airsick if I did not
hold onto something, the pilot let me hold onto the yokes and I learned what
happened if you pulled and pushed on them.”
He said the microlight’s handbook advised that one had to practice
flying by doing “bunny hops”. But a pilot friend told him that was very
dangerous, as a gust could throw his light aircraft sideways with no room to
manoeuvre. “He said I either had to get up there and fly, or not. So at six one
morning I put her in full throttle, gently pulled back on the yokes and off I
went.
“That first flight was quite successful really. Of course the
landing could have gone a bit better, but I only went slightly into a ploughed
field,” said Barclay.
Penny Hallowes told Witness Wheels she had no
problem with her husband having replaced the big BMW with two smaller
motorbikes. “I am so proud of them when I see how much fun they had. The joy is
in the moment,” she said.
