Hops and Beans Restaurant in
Midstream Estate, Brakfontein Road, Midrand

With the sun shining and over 33 bikes, the group met and left the dealership on a ride of over 148 kms to the Hops and Beans Restaurant in Midstream Estate, Brakfontein Road.

Just a small note to wish Graham Smith great and safe mileage on his new baby…the 110 CVO Couch he has been waiting for……a long while.

The route was indeed a lovely one. The pack left the dealership (on time I might add) heading out in the direction of Fourways, down Cedar Road on the way to the Lion Park. At the T-junction, you might not believe this, we had a group of marshals, wait for it…of superbikers... who held the traffic back for our pack to ride safely over the T-junction and then to turn left on our way to the road leading to Lanseria. That was quite something….so please next time you speak about superbikers remember (not the Alamo) but what they did for us. I was very impressed. Wow!

Then we took the road to Kromdraai, where we have not been for quite a while and we received "a mouthful" from a motorist shouting at the group because he had to wait a little while to be able to get on the road. Hello….duh….it was a stop street for him and he had to wait for all the traffic to turn. Amazing…another 4x4 driver that thinks the world must stop for them…..go figure! (Dennis D. had the following comments to make "... a menopausal male driving a 4 x 4 and towing what turned out to be a horse trailer, started ranting and raving at me about why he does not support "Think Bike." The poor clown was just about climbing through his window screeching and trying to get his message across - something about transporting horses. Thank the powers above that there is absolutely no road construction going on in Guateng that could possibly have held him up for a few more minutes on his frustrating ride home!)"

From there we went via the satellite road to Amazingwe and then carried on to Midrand via the old Harties road, passed the Mint and headed straight into our brekkies place (Hops and Beans, the Bistro franchise) in the Midrand Estate. Plenty of flags of all the countries represented at the Soccer World Cup coming our way and a centre piece of South African flags on display.

The food was lovely (or so I am told) and worth every cent. People enjoyed themselves and the ride that was led by our Knight in shining armour (Kevin - the pace setter), followed by our fearless leader Al “President” Clegg with ever so "yellow" shining Marshals in between. The Biker Buddies on duty were Leandri and Elvis (the "not so Pelvis") Herman. Closing the pack and doubling up as sweep and photographer was yours truly (Arthur Porra Rama).

All in all it was a lovely and pleasant long ride with lovely sunshine, good food and good friends. At the end of the ride we had a surprise. Mike Nourse was waiting for us ……in his car.

Cheers guys and thanks for a good ride
Arthur