HOG-warts: Skeleton Coast Rally 2022

Shiny Object Syndrome in the Roaring Twenties – impressions of the Harley Davidson Skeleton Coast Rally in Swakopmund, Namibia, May 2022.

When you travel you sometimes stumble into events that others travel thousands of miles for.

Which was literally the case for this one, the Skeleton Coast Rally 2022 hosted by the HOG chapter Namibia.

HOG, in case you don’t know, does not have anything to do with Harry Potter’s abode, or some squeaky animal, it simply stands for Harley Owners Group.

As the Namibian HOG chapter was calling, HOs from all over the place paid heed and, well, drove thousands of miles, for example from South Africa, to coastal Swakopmund, the Brighton or Chatham of Namibia.

Straight Outta Easy Rider: Karl-Heinz

Now as you can see here I do love machines of all kinds – especially if they do not only follow function but also form.

Which is clearly the case for most Harley Davidson motorcycles, so I just had to check them out (after the hills had been alive with the sound of thunder for some days already).

What did I expect? Bikes, beards, bellies, beers. And some Lynyrd Skynyrd to go along.

What did I find? Yes.

Harley Davidson Skeleton Coast Rallye 2022

Harley Belafonte: Island in the Sun

So here are some impressions, and at the end you may admire the beauties and their private parts (speaking of the Harleys, not the owners) in a little gallery. Enjoy!

Skeleton Coast Rallye 2022

(I had only access to the open doors day, so no riding pics, sorry)

Hate to work, love to ride? I can second that! Also, “when in doubt throttle it out” could be a great self-help motto. Got problems? Vroom, vroom!

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If you are coming to a Harley meet-up as a vegetarian, well… there is always Hot Glühwein (it was about 24 °C/75 °F outside, just for reference. While the Swedish sip ice tea in this heat to cool down, Namibians need some Glögg in this cold to heat up). As for the Bradwurst – I can only hope that Brad was okay with him (or maybe his Wiener) being turned into a sausage.

My homie don’t jiggle, jiggle… or does he?

At a Harley meet-up, even the ATMs are requested to be on wheels:

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What I also found out:

there are a lot of different types of HOs

There are those for whom your average wheeled walker is just substandard:

There are those who never ride alone:

There are those who are tough on the outside but soft at heart:

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There are those who can always say, “Harley has my back!”:

There are those who talk chop:

There are those who have been to more places than others:

There are those who love understatement:

There are those who let their Harley ride on two wheels:

There are those who follow the old rules and want to leave life as a smashing pumpkin:

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And there are those whose bikes carry meaningful messages (and broomsticks):

So what does “Gou-gou leen se moer” mean?

According to google translate, “soon borrows her nut”. Not exactly a Pulitzer-worthy translation, so I asked some Afrikaans speaking locals.

“Well, it means something like ‘quick borrowing is bad/a swearword'”, which did not make more sense to me. They explained – it is not seen as a good thing to ask “may I just borrow this quickly”, the reason being that the owners of the thing-to-be-borrowed-quickly are afraid they will never get it back. So presumably it means something like “Quickly borrow this ? My ass!”

Then they added: “Here we have a ‘rule’ that there are two things you never lend to someone else: your wife and your bike.”

I will refrain from judgment here. And you? Better refrain from asking any of the locals if you can quickly borrow their Harley.

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So here is the gallery – enjoy mean motors, wicked vintage, and shiny shiznit (click on the pics so see them fullscreen/with captions etc):