900ss'ing in
900ss'ing in
Picked up a little consultation job in Kuwait, where I was retained to do some Urban Park design in four distinct meighborhoods in Kuwait City. Although I needed to come up with three design concepts for each of the four parks in 14 days during the last couple of weeks of January, I for sure was going to make some room for play in the fast rack schedule. It was also an opportunity to visit a new (to me) country and to maybe ride a bike where the temperatures were more appealing than the alpine clime that is, & always seems to be, Jackson, Wyoming. After arranging my travel & work schedule I emailed the owner of the local Ducati dealership, Jafar Behbehani, to see if there were any bikes to rent in Kuwait. He replied almost instantly that - no bikes are not rented in Kuwait because of licensing, registration, and insurance problems but as his guest I could rent a bike for $60.00 per day.
Cool! I had visions of riding out into the desert alone amongst the camels & thumbing my nose at Sadam across the border. In anticipation packed my helmet, gloves, boots and jacket.
After settling into the business of park design & getting a feel for my schedule I gave Jafar a call to see if I could rent one of his bikes on Friday (the Arabic Sunday). "No problem. Where are you staying? The SAS Radison? Well that's perfect. I'll deliver a bike to you Thursday night if you'd like. We have a little bike club and we've been meeting every Friday for the last 15 years except during the Iraqi invasion at the SAS Radison for breakfast. We then spend the day riding. If you'd like, you can ride with us, Insha'allah. What would you like a Monster or a 900SS? As my guest there is no charge since my SS needs to be run anyway"
Jafar is a Kuwaiti that fell in love with riding years ago as a college student in the US. His nicely laid out dealership exists not for the money but because he likes to ride and deals in Ducati, BMW, and Triumph . A diverse bunch of professionals of varying nationalities, ages, and bikes makes up the bike club. A 996, Superlight, 900sssr, Hayabusa, Daytona, a couple of Harley's and BMW K1200LT's, 1100 GS, 926RR, my borrowed '00 900SSie and a few cruisers of varying makes took off in unison after socializing for an hour or so over breakfast. Took off slowly though since it had started to rain for the first time in months. It takes little imagination to guess how slippery the roads were after some time between rains as we motored out of the city.
Even though I had planned the ride before I left Jackson & had been looking forward to seeing the country from a different perspective, my enthusiasm was waning over the week for actually mixing it up on a bike with the Kuwait traffic. The drivers could well be some of the worst in the world and are certainly the worst in my experience. The white painted lines on the road which indicate lanes in most parts of the world are advisory only in Kuwait it seems. Tailgating, weaving, abrupt lane shifts, and vehicles merging without even bothering to look for traffic are the norm. Dodging these bozos on a bike, when they don't even seem to acknowledge a truck bearing down on them, through about 12 miles of Kuwait City 4 lane highways before getting out into the open desert; seemed an almost suicidal task. What I had envisioned to be a solo experience now changed happily into a group ride where there really can be safety in numbers.
Our route took us out into the open desert west towards Iraq (well now that's not too hard since Sadam's kingdom lies west and north of tiny Kuwait) into the sun and out of the rain. Since the terrain is as flat as can be and there would be no reason other than aesthetics or boredom relief to put curves in the road; the roads are straight as an arrow. The open desert was surreal with wind drifting fingers of sand across the tarmac, Bedouin tents in the distance, shepherds tending small herds of goats who feed on what? vegetation, camels bounding across the road, solitary robed figures walking in the middle of nowhere coming from some unknown place and heading - where?
South to Al Waffra, an agricultural area that thrives on deep sweet water wells. There we stopped to check out an informal park/zoo and down some pops and fresh roasted corn on the cob. The park was filled with picnicking families and their kids. Think what you will about Harleys but one can't deny that they are kid magnets.
From Al Wafrah we headed east towards the Gulf coast skirting the northern Saudi border across wide open stretches of highway where I had a chance to break from the group along with the BMW GS to put a few high speed kilometers on the 900. It was great topping out the engine for long stretches along a flat open desert highway where the visibility was so good you can see potential problems miles in advance. Sorta like the high deserts of the US but without a hint of vegetation and absolutely no terrain relief.
We stopped again at the coast where we met up with Jafar's son who was dirt tracking his KTM and a few other riders that weren't able to make the breakfast meet. The hot spot was a couple of picnic tables set up across a busy 2 lane from a Burger King where all sorts of wheely insanity was taking place. Our group just watched as 4 wheel ATV's, dirt bikes, & a few squids on their sportbikes vied for the best wheely along a highway that was choked with cruising traffic consisting of BMW's, Ferraris, Porsches, and the classiest SUV's. Did I mention that Kuwait is a very wealthy country? There was only suprisingly one injury do to a wheely bike/SUV altercation while we were there but no deaths which was a good thing since I was told that someone dies every couple of weeks doing their show off bit. I guess they feel the need to make up for the lack of curves in the roads. Me - I refrained.
Late in the afternoon the northeastern sky (the weather direction) started looking pretty ominous, the wind began to pick up substantially and got a bit nippy even for me. After a short discussion about riding into this potential crap we saddled up and rode straight through it on the way back to Kuwait City. No problems but with the erratic drivers, the sand, the dust and us being blown all over the place: none of us fell asleep during the ride back.
All in all I had a great time, made some new friends, got to ride amongst the camels and had an superb experience even though I didn't get the chance to thumb my nose at Sadam. Now I am really looking forward to exploring more of Kuwait on a bike in my future visits - Insha'allah (God Willing)