The participants in the annual Durban- Johannesburg Commemorative Run are there for the sheer joy of motorcycling
Gavin Foster
It’s hard to get an adrenalin rush riding a 65-year-old motorcycle for more than 600km at a speed of 60kph, but there are other compensations. You get to see more of the countryside, you get to smell the grass, and, with a little luck, you get to Johannesburg on time. You’ll also more than likely end up with grease under your fingernails and oil on your trouser leg but, hey, that’s what the DJ’s about.
For many, the Durban-Johannesburg (DJ) Commemorative Run is a family occasion. This year Beverley Edwards beat her mother and four-times winner Sheila Stead into second place in the women’s class on her 1929 250cc BSA, while her father, Barry, finished up in fourth place overall among the two-wheelers.
“I’ve done 11 DJs now,” says Barry ruefully, “and have picked up second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth places, but never managed a win.” Barry’s made an interesting geographical observation over the years. “They seem to move Jo’burg further away every bloody year,” he grumbles.
The DJ that the present-day event commemorates was a flat-out road race between the cities, held from 1913 to 1936, when it was banned because of rising speeds and mounting traffic on the roads. The quickest racers used to finish the race in just over six hours, and the risks were immense in the days of dirt roads, poor brakes and suspension and no crash helmets.
Nowadays the DJ is a regularity trial, limited to bikes built up to 1936, with the riders being given a route schedule and a timetable to stick to. To make things interesting, speedometers and rev counters are not allowed, so competitors have to estimate their speed carefully to arrive at the various checkpoints on time. Every second too early or too late costs a penalty point and, incredibly, the top runners typically arrive in Johannesburg within three minutes of their scheduled arrival – take a lesson, South African Airways (SAA).
Talking of SAA, one of their jumbo pilots is a regular competitor in the DJ, and the habits acquired during 37 years of flying cost him a couple of hundred penalty points this year.
“I was reading the speed, distance and time tables as we do in flight plans, and read my speed off the wrong line,” says Don Hackland, an enthusiast who has more than 70 motorcycles in a private museum at his Pietermaritzburg home. “I went past the leading lady at a helluva rate of knots and she laughed and asked me what speed group I was in. I was doing about 60kph instead of 38kph.” Hackland became interested in the DJ when he found out that his grandfather had ridden the race in 1914. “We still have his medal at home.”
Hackland reckons that his 1928 BSA Sloper is harder to pilot than the Boeing 747-400 he’s used to. “There’s no autopilot,” he says, “and nobody to bring you tea!”
Another rider with links to the original DJ is Stuart Anderson, who rides the AJS that his father-in-law was given brand- new as a 21st-birthday present in 1929.
“When the first commemorative DJ was planned 30 years ago, he asked me if I wanted to sort it out and enter it.” Since then Anderson has done about 15 DJs on the bike.
“I get a bit bored with the slowness of the rally itself, so the years that I don’t enter I go along on my Harley. I ride ahead, park off and have a rum when I’m bored and then catch up again.” Anderson’s uncertain what mileage his bike has clocked up in the past 71 years. “The old man used it to work every day, throughout his working life,” he remembers. “He also acted as a marshal on it during the original DJ race days.”
Margot Collins of Randburg is another with a close tie to the 350cc 1930 Ivory Calthorpe that took her to 71st place overall this year.
“There are only two of them in the country, and my late husband rebuilt them both,” she says. “There were no parts available but he was an engineering genius.”
Her husband sold the bike, but after he died five years ago she remarried and her new husband bought it back for her.
In 36 years’ time, when the DJ is 100 years old, the Grand Prix bikes contesting this year’s World Championship will have been scrapped, or will rest in museums somewhere.
But in South Africa, the century-old DJ bikes will still be lining up for the run to Jo’burg. And quite probably, their riders will bear many of the names that graced this year’s entry lists.