Last night we had the closing ceremony for the Harley-Davidson Rally in Abha. As the organizer, Ahmed Halawani, had been unable to attend, the jovial Jeddah Chapter Activities Officer, Mohammed Bawazir officiated with host Jamil Ayas, the G.M. of Harley-Davidson in Jeddah. Although this Rally was inevitably in the shadow of the flamboyant recent Rally in Lebanon, there was nonetheless a great atmosphere and everyone who attended enjoyed riding in a part of Saudi Arabia that they would not otherwise have visited. This morning, there are 19 bikes still in the car park. Some bikes will be trucked back to base, two bikers are taking theirs on their trailer to Riyadh, 3 bikers are riding all the way to Jeddah and three of us are going on two bikes on a leisurely ride to Jeddah with a night stop in Al Baha. Three bikers who left at 5 am are Frenchman Patrice Ligneul and brothers Farid & Sami Bukhari who are half Saudi, half Indian. They are from Dahran and have been biking together for 3 years. Patrice started biking at age 18 and now aged 60 was the senior biker of the Rally. The Bukhari brothers (both with a mischievous sense of humour) first learned to ride their Uncle's motorcycles in Mumbai when in their early teens. All of them love biking for the sense of freedom it gives them, and although Patrice jokingly described Harleys as “agricultural”, they all love the HOG biking for the social aspects. Sami had a particularly interesting bike, an original Police Harley-Davidson Road King, complete with Police insignia. We leave at 8.30, and manage to get lost in the hotel car park. We proceed to a mountain top that we think is Jebel Al Soodah, but 8 kms later it comes to a dead end at a chilly 2750m at a compound full of huge Cell phone pylons. We eventually get to Jebel Al Soodah, and then take a phenomenally steep road with tight hairpin bends down the mountains to Rijal Alma'a. It is first gear all the way down, and the best ride of our 17 days biking. When it joins the Muhayil road, there is one of the last remaining ancient villages tucked against the mountainside on our left. It should be protected. In Abha, we were sad to see so few remaining traditional houses left. Down in the valley, it is a hot ride all the way to Mikhwa where it is 105F. Because it is Friday, there is little traffic up the escarpment road to Al Baha and altogether it has been a fantastic day's biking. Tomorrow is our final leg to Jeddah. __
