Yesterday, 6th Dec was St Nic's day and alond with some other members of the Kent branch of the UK Suzuki owners club I rode up to Oostende in Belgium for the St Nic's motorcycle rally, an annual event held there. rather cold and wet to start with (up at four AM) but it is December so warm sunny days are a tad unlikely.
The Dutch-Flemish tradition is to give presents on St Nic's like we do at Christmas. The "rally" centres around the arrival of St Nic on a fishing boat and his immediate transformation into a biker. the city is full of his helpers in the same middle-ages type costume, street artists, unicyclist jugglers etc. We few english were intrigued by the fact that they were all "Blacked-up" in the manner of Al Jolson! something that would probably be very frowned upon in more PC areas. All the black helpers are call "Peit" and, get this, they by tradition take-away the naugty kids whereas the old boy rewards the good ones with presents. that must be about as UN-PC as anything gets. I think it all goes back to the middle ages, St Nic was actually a Turkish bishop so he and his flock would have been "Moors" according to middle-ages Europeans. the old boy himself is a bit like santa with red coat and beard but carries a bishops crook and wear a mitre on his head, even when hacking around the city on his motorcycle!
I suppose there were five or six hundred bikers involved, mainly Belgian, dutch and germans with a smattering of us Brits, at one time the event used to attract a couple of thousand bikes but despite that it was great fun and well run.
As for the P-C thing, well you'd never get away with it in UK, it would probably be an offence of some kind under the race relations laws but there it is seen as "harmless fun". I do wonder about the kids though, Be good and St Nic will reward you, be bad and the black Peits will take you away might send a strange message to some young minds. Old tradition or lunatic racism ? who am I to judge :o
The rally part consists of charging around the city for a while ignoring all road markings, traffic lights, crossings etc. the event is very well marshalled by local bikers and Police motorcyclists who get very much into the spirit of it. That in itself is great, must be a bit like driving in the Monaco grand-prix and something that is a rare opportunity. At the end St Nic distributes presents to local kids and the bikes get delicious onion soup and a sort of custard filled sweet roll, some kind of local thing that really did hit the spot.
lmao st nics celebrations are an old fam tradition here as well cal lol.
Sounds AWESOME!
Danke, sehr nett