They may look like Hell’s Angels but riders of Steel Wings club are not about beer and bluster, writes Swapna Prabhakaran
On Sunday mornings they gather like outsize flies at their favourite Pretoria pub, Greenfields. Then the whole swarm – usually about 30 riders – takes off down the highway out of the city on its weekend leisure run.
Watch the jaws drop. A brown station wagon begins to overtake. The woman is openly staring and the three kids have their faces plastered against the window. The driver is trying to watch the road and sneak quick glimpses at the chrome-edged, leather-clad spectacle.
“It’s easy to guess what they’re thinking,” says Richard Proudfoot, Harley man and leader of the pack. “We only ever have two reactions. Either they’re scared of us or they’re wishing they were us.”
In this case “us” is the Pretoria chapter of Steel Wings Harley Davidson, a clan of mean-looking, hard-riding men on machines that sound like rockets and glisten like jewellery in the sun. The women ride perched on “softail” seats behind their men, arms around waists, legs encased in denim and boots.
It is a sight to inspire awe, if not fear. Each member of Steel Wings wears a leather jacket, a tattoo or two, Harley sunglasses and a helmet that makes them look like stormtroopers.
But lift off that helmet, and you’re likely to be looking at someone quite ordinary – perhaps your accountant or your family dentist. Every Sunday they ride somewhere different – a quiet pub or a picnic in the mountains – and it is a form of relaxation after a busy week. “Some of us are lawyers, some are bankers, some run their own businesses, some are doctors,” says Proudfoot. “They wear suits and ties all week and on the weekend they put on their leathers and ride.”
What keeps them all together as a club is their exclusive attitude to their alternative lifestyle. Steel Wings Pretoria has about 70 members, most of them white and Afrikaans, a large majority of them male. These Sunday rides give them an opportunity to spend time with like-minded company, to share a few drinks, make some rude jokes and have fun.
It’s a social club, but Steel Wings does have its rules. On the road, no one is allowed to speed – they keep each other in check. Every rider conveys traffic signals and messages to those behind through a set of hand signals. Two members of the group are labelled wardens and they act like shepherds, keeping the pack together in traffic.
But surely there are less dramatic ways to relieve stress, some less expensive way to forget all those weekday hours of adding up numbers or removing tartar from teeth? The cheapest motorbike in South Africa costs over R50 000, making this a very costly weekend hobby. Why a Harley? “Well, if I have to explain to you why I do this then you probably would never understand anyway,” says Merl van Niekerk. She is a secretary “who can’t afford a Harley yet” but she rides with Fritz Titeo, her boyfriend.
What can’t be put into words is the adrenalin rush, the sense of power and the freedom of it all. It is something to be personally experienced.
For some riders it’s a chance to spend time with their loved ones away from the city. Wynand Roux has two daughters and he takes them with him on alternate weekend rides. This week, Annari (7) has come with him. “This gives me a chance to spend time with each daughter alone. I like seeing her away from Pretoria, away from her sister or her mother. It gives me a chance to get to know her alone. I get to know her better,” he says.
Steel Wings also fund-raises for good causes. Every now and then, they are hired to pitch up at formal gatherings and show off their machines. They’ve been to everything from weddings to official openings of new businesses.
“We expect them to give us money for showing up there with almost a million rands’ worth of motorbikes,” Proudfoot says. That money then gets donated to the SPCA or a muscular-dystrophy centre. This goes some way towards dispelling the hardcore, drugs, sex and rock’n’roll image one associates with motorcycle gangs. But Proudfoot insists that most people, in his club at least, are “gentle” souls. “That’s just an image Hollywood created,” he says. “Sure, there are some Harley riders who are mean, but they’re not as mean as some of those Japanese riders who come to the rallies.”
All the Harley riders have a sense of pride in their machines, and most know how to fix their bikes themselves. There’s an open disdain, bordering on scorn, for any other kind of motorbike – especially the Japanese models or “rice-burners”.
Titeo’s Harley, a massive black creation with ape-hangers (extended handlebars), is emblazoned with personalized touches, like all the other bikes. On one side, a large sticker reads: “On the eighth day, God created Harley Davidson.” On his helmet, a small yellow sticker says: “Rather herpes than Honda.”
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