By: Séan Hendley
Pics: Black Rock Studio and everyone
If you have never been you need to make this a priority in your life. Suzuki as a brand in general is really going places and taking no prisoners along the way. This event is not just restricted to motorcycles or even just to Suzukis. If you own any road legal vehicle from a scooter, (Howdy Anand – I’ll tell you a bit more about him a bit later), to an Adventure bike, a superbike, a cruiser or custom, A Jimny or any 4×4, a hot hatch and even a mini SUV like the Suzuki Spresso you are welcome to join in the fun.
What is the weekend all about?
Primarily it is about the Suzuki Lifestyle and their products. However, absolutely everyone is welcome and made to feel part of the family. Strangers quickly become friends… and then teammates and end up doing all sorts of shenanigans they might never do normally – all in the name of fun of course. Case in point is Anand, whom I mentioned in the intro. A recent jovial transplant from India and now a true blue Benoni Brah who arrived at the Suzuki Weekend Away solo without knowing a single soul. No, not even anybody from Suzuki SA or any of their dealers. He saw the advert on our website, made a booking, paid his money and hit the road. But the ‘Bemoerde Triangle’, (Benoni, Brakpan, Boksburg), knows its own kind and Anand was soon welcomed with open arms by the Bikeshop Boksburg/Suzuki East Team and drafted into their team, even though he rides a scooter…. Or maybe because he rides a scooter. He rode solo from Farrarmere in Benoni to Alzu and joined the traditional Suzuki Mass Ride from there to Numbi Hotel in Hazyview. So don’t tell us you don’t have anyone to go with or that your bike/vehicle isn’t fast enough or cool enough or that your skills aren’t up to par, Anand has only been riding for a year or two – Don’t be a chop, be cool like Anand.
🎶Food, Food🎵…. Glorious Food♪
Friday night was a properly mouth watering braai, potjiekos, every kind of salad, breads, cheese boards, traditional South African puddings, more food than at our governments average lunch do. Breakfasts were a buffet affair both Saturday and Sunday with full continental as well as full cooked, sausages, wors, livers, omelettes, fried and scrambled eggs, every and any kind of pastry you can imagine and more than any reasonable person could or should eat. If you went hungry this weekend it was your own fault. Lunch on Saturday at the halfway point at Sabie Falls was catered by Numbi Hotel as well and was beef lasagne or a chicken pasta with salads and a bun, lots of bottled water and soft drinks and malva pudding and custard. And they even brought inn porta potties that were kept immaculate all the time and not a single scrap of litter was left behind, in fact the place was probably cleaner after the Numbi staff left than when they arrived to set up. The gala dinner on Saturday evening was a full roast carvery with just about every kind of meat, curry, stew, roast spud, vegetables, salads and….. OH MY GOSH, the pudding table, straining under the weight of chocolate eclairs, chocolate mousse, cheese cakes, trifles and and and…..
And the accommodation?
Well it’s the Numbi isn’t it? It really is quite nice with well appointed large rooms, air conditioners, wall mounted panel heaters, satellite TV, open wifi with strong signal and speed, big comfy beds and a massive bathroom with bath and shower and a large closet all in a tranquil setting under old, large trees and gardens. The staff are friendly and on the ball, even though they were stretched to the limits running backwards and forwards to the bar.
The activities:
The weekend is basically a big treasure hunt with everybody divided up into teams and a cool app downloaded onto the team captain’s phone. It works on GPS waypoints and as you get close enough to each digital checkpoint it opens up the next challenge for you to have a go at, and this is where things really get exciting and a whole lot of fun.
Firstly you have to decide whether you are going to follow the tar route or the adventure route, which surprisingly few people seemed to know about for some reason. Anyways, a couple of adventure bikes chose the adventure route along with a whole host of Jimny’s and one highly modified SJ Monster Truck fitted with a motor from one of Suzuki’s junior brands who they have graciously allowed to rebrand Suzukis as their own vehicles. The other one hundred or so bikes of every brand and description, as well as a couple a Suzuki Swifts, Grand Vitara’s, some Jimny’s and a lonesome 3 series Beemer all toured the mountain passes and tourist attractions in and around Hazyview, White River, Sabie, Graskop, God’s Window, Bushbuckridge and back to Hazyview.
Saturday’s hilarity began with everybody dashing around Hotel Numbi’s grounds looking for the little Suzuki mannetjie who had been in the pool during breakfast, and then surreptitiously disappeared. The next challenge was to take a picture of some kind of bug on your bike and I watched bemusedly as a bunch of bikers running around chasing butterflies, or digging up worms or placing tiny bottles of shots on their bikes to get the picture…. Uhmm, Jaaa…. Okay? Most bikes and even cars had them splattered across the front from the trip up…. Just saying, but I suppose that is all part of the fun.
Then it was hitting the road and following cryptic clues through the lowveld and generally making an arse of yourself while trying to decipher what the heck we had to do. If your Treasure hunt App didn’t work properly because of an I.D.10.T. OE from the biological interface unit there always seemed to be somebody on hand, usually younger than 15 years old to sort your issues out for you and get you back in the game. For the ladies, the organisers always made sure there were clean ablutions at each stop – for the men…. Well, this is forestry country – Pick a tree Bro.
The games were also very cool and well run from Laser Clay Pigeon Shooting, (which our team achieved a perfect score in), to a blind Mix ‘n Match thingy that we had to complete in under 3 minutes. Our team only needed 17 seconds 😉, our closest rivals did it in 18 and 24 seconds respectively. The rest were finding a particular digital needle in a digital haystack and taking a fun pic with it and submitting it on an app with the idea of achieving maximum points for the day to win first prize overall. JMD Suzuki in Kempton Park took overall honours – at least they were from the East Rand. The biggest crowd travelled all the way from Richards Bay with Jaco and Belinda from Richards Bay Suzuki. The whole event culminated in a nail biting quiz during dinner where prizes were up for grabs. It was a raucous happy ending to a really spectacular family oriented event, just a clean wholesome fun, great camaraderie and excellent organisation and catering at a beautiful hotel in a glorious part of our gorgeous country.
The organisation and the organisers were on the ball. On the ride up on Friday there were two small spills, but the medics were on scene within minutes checking for bumps and scrapes while Suzuki SA vans made their way to the scene to do the recoveries.
I was a little bit surprised that only 5 or 6 Suzuki dealers attended with their customers, where were the rest of the dealers? An event like this is such a great marketing tool, why not take advantage of it? And wouldn’t it have been great if Suzuki’s Marine division was included? We went all the way to Inyaka Dam near Bushbuckridge….. just for a photo? A bit of paintball or laser tag target shooting on the water from the deck of a boat would have been amazing. Just an idea….. for next year maybe??
EVERYBODY NEEDS TO GET THEMSELVES TO A SUZUKI WEEKEND AWAY
– it truly is a ridiculously good holiday, a lifestyle event and is growing bigger and bigger each year. So if you want to get in without having to go onto a waiting list, (which is going to happen very soon – I can promise you that much), then get hold of Suzuki SA and chat to Mbali or Kyle now and book for next year’s Suzuki Weekend Away asap.
This has to be one of the best organised and perfectly executed and most fun Petrol Head events we have attended in recent memory. We were invited along by Jannie Jordaan and the team from Suzuki East/Bikeshop Boksburg and if you want a new or pre-owned motorcycle for a sensible price, because it is truly the best way to experience this event and ET, then you need to get down to Bikeshop Boksburg/Suzuki East. They have a vast selection of premium pre-owned motorcycles of all brands, sizes and styles as well as a full array of the latest offerings of new Suzuki including the new 8-R and 1000-GX. Both of which were officially launched this weekend.
Stefan and Don will tell you all about that in another article on this site. Keep an eye out for that, it looks like they had way too much fun on the new bikes.
