’ ve been thinking a lot about bike adventures recently. In recent years my only rides have been here in NZ( and that’ s no bad thing). But with the absence of any funds large enough to head overseas, all my overseas adventure daydreams have been fulfilled with YouTube and Instagram content from the likes of Adam Riemann and others. One clip in particular of a superbike riding through sand sparked a memory of riding superbikes in Nigeria some 20 years ago …

WEST AFRICA Nigeria. It’ s not the first country you might think of when it comes to bikes. It is, however, infamous for being all-up-for stoning adulterous women to death, emails telling of fortunes waiting to be claimed and friendly Princes wanting to share their wealth. But not sports bikes. It’ s likely to be the last place you’ d ever think of for those. It was in fact the last place I was thinking of when my girlfriend at the time took a job there. Being the only option really open to me, I agreed to follow along. But instead of flying out to the third most populous city in Africa as she’ d done, I decided to take on the 8500-mile journey in my rusting hulk of a 1980s Range Rover. And that’ s how I found myself in Lagos; a city of 13 million

( now 17 million) that was designed for two. The streets of Lagos teem with Okadas, cheap Chinese copies of Yamaha YB100s and Honda Cubs used as bike taxis, offering affordable, but terrifying, transport for the common man. Apart from those knackered metal mules, sports bikes are nowhere to be seen and sports riding seemed a million km away.

A CHANCE MEETING I met a guy called Geoff in a bar in downtown Lagos. Geoff was a biker working for oil giant ExxonMobil, and this chance meeting opened a window for me onto the Lagos motorcycling scene. Apparently, there were big bikes, plenty of them, but the preserve of the well off few and they only came out at weekends. Geoff introduced me to Mikey‘ Bikey’, the local‘ fixer’ who bought, imported, fixed and sold all manner of bikes to these well-off riders. I was warned to keep an eye out when shaking hands with him, or he’ d have it away. The point was duly noted.

POWER BIKE RIDE Mikey invited me for a ride and to meet the riding gang at their hangout one Sunday morning. We arranged to meet up at Bob’ s Bar, a pokey but friendly, portacabin-sized bar in a military compound, 100ft from the razor wire and assault rifles of the heavily guarded

70 KIWI RIDER