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Introduction – Adriaan Oosthuizen

I was 16 when my friend Francois parked a gold Honda SS 50cc at our back gate late one summer afternoon. From my outside room I heard the dup-dup of the four-stroke engine but didn’t recognise the origin of the sound. At that stage none of my friends had motorbikes.

‘Jissou, man!’ I yelled in surprise and amazement when I walked out.

Suddenly one of my mates had joined the small group in school who owned a motorbike. I wonder how many evenings we spent on that bike cruising the streets of Bellville. Sometimes there were three or four of us on the bike, going nowhere in particular. ‘Put your hand over the exhaust and then open and close it. It sounds just like a XT 500,’ Francois would say as we zipped around late at night.

That was where it all began. I guess the exhaust gases probably get absorbed in your bloodstream and that’s how motorbikes become part of your very being.

In matric I received a broken-down Suzuki PE 250 from a sleazeball who was trying to score with my sister. With the help of Francois and another friend, I stripped the bike down to the bare frame. We bored its cylinder capacity to 300cc and put it back together … though we were left with a few screws and bolts.

Holy smoke! When we kicked it to life in Iona Street, it was like we had let a monster loose in the neighbourhood. Its two-stroke power band was legendary and woke many people.

With this bike I crisscrossed the sandy dunes outside Atlantis many times. I steered it over the Cederberg and up parts of the West Coast, and I raced through Bellville without a silencer in the middle of the night. Once when I raced into our driveway and the rear wheel locked on my father’s front lawn, I knew I had gone too far. I was too big for a hiding, but his tongue lashing over the furrow I had carved in the lawn is as fresh as ever in my memory.

In the infantry during the Border War, I watched the mounted units and their antics with longing. It’s quite a sight to see 30 Honda XR 500s racing synchronised and growling across the veld.

During my student years at technikon I bought a second-hand XT 600 Ténéré with the help of my reluctant father. ‘Son, this thing looks dangerous,’ and ‘Please ride carefully,’ he admonished as we walked into Volkskas with my bank book.

Of course I didn’t always ride carefully, but that iron horse took me to places I had only dreamed of until then. I crossed the Transkei on it and covered all of Namaqualand. As a young nature conservationist in Springbok I alternated between motorbikes and horse riding. Both these animals take you places where you normally can’t go. Both inject shots of adrenaline into your veins.

Cameras and motorbikes

At the start of my motorbikes adventures I always carried a camera and two lenses in my tank bag. The big Canon EOS-1N with its battery pack and fast lens weighs quite a bit. I also had to protect it, which left little room for anything else. The items I wanted to use during the day, I had to carry in a rucksack.

But my cameras always went along. Just in case I saw something captivating. One of a photographer’s greatest fears is that you will miss ‘that moment’. I specifically used my film cameras as my digital camera would have been too expensive to replace should I connect with mother earth. And naturally I could not go without my little tripod, which fastened onto the back of the bike along with the rest of my baggage.

When I was travelling alone, all the equipment and my frequent stops to take photos were no problem. It was quite a different story when I was travelling with a couple of buddies. Not that they complained much, but it’s not just a matter of shooting from the saddle. You have to stop and take off your helmet and gloves, and then unpack the equipment and set it up. By the time I’d taken the photograph, packed everything away and dressed myself again, the convoy was on its second drink in the bar at Middelpos and the half-time whistle had already blown in the Springboks and All Blacks rugby match on television.

Before long it just didn’t work for me to go through this whole shebang, especially when I was in a convoy. Still, I couldn’t go without my camera. That would be like going through life without a pocket knife. The solution came in the form of a small, inexpensive digital point-and-click camera that could capture any moment without me even having to take off my helmet.

However, over the years my cameras were not only a dead weight. Many years ago, I once rode with Deon and Jan du Toit on a route that took us over the Prince Alfred Pass. I was on a BMW Dakar with a rear tyre that had seen better days and I had a whole bag full of camera equipment on my back. We were riding through Knysna’s dark forest when in a split second Deon was suddenly sliding on a turn. I thought it was because he’d accelerated, but it turned that it was due to water seeping from the side of the road and creating a thin layer of slick mud.

Deon stayed upright and I thought I would too. But no! He had knobbly tyres while I was on worn Snakeskin. In the turn I only touched the accelerator and landed slap-bang on my back. I might have hurt my back badly if it had not been for the camera bag that broke my fall that day. The cameras were fine, but I won’t elaborate on my knee, which hit the ground first.

* * *

I’m on the R355 in the Tankwa Karoo riding at a high average speed and standing up on my KTM like a jockey. A big smile suddenly stretches across my face … I experience the euphoria of feeling almost superhuman. All my senses are activated and razor-sharp. The scents exuded by the veld enter my nostrils.

The slightest change in the road and the accompanying handling of the mechanical monster between my legs leads to a higher level of awareness. The perspective from above is so different from when you sit. Every now and then I steal a quick glance at the dust cloud following me. There is something hypnotic about that dusty stripe.

I am on the hard jeep track in the veld and can see far into the distance. A longish bend in the road ahead, I twist the throttle and hear the revs climb to that mechanical scream I love so much. I admire the noise and the new mood of the motorbike. I have angered him and he tries to get away from me in the turn. I feel the rear wheel wanting to move out and the consecutive controlled slide through the bend.

Awareness is measured in seconds and milliseconds. As time ticks by slowly, I think of nothing beyond the impulses that my senses send to my brain. I have long left all my worries behind.

I see the road and I feel the motorbike. I experience enlightenment without meditation. I am part of the motorbike. I am the motorbike.

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