The Parade – Prague Harley Days/All American Festival – 2025
Saturday, August 30th, 2025

There are a number of unwritten laws in the world of motorcycle clubs.

Take Club vests, for instance.

Vests showing your allegiance, are the norm, we have them in HOG – but the style and colouring of the lettering is critical.
Red lettering on white, for instance, is the exclusive “property” of the Hells Angels chapters – and they guard that jealously.
To be frank, woe betide any other group that should dare to use that particular colour combination.

Other “patches”, as these things are known, are a territorial thing.
Even the totally innocuous HOG markings on my vest caused three members of another hardline club in New Zealand who noticed them, but not fully, to turn around at the first opportunity, race after us at breakneck speed – and then cruise casually by, as if nothing was amiss, once they had read them properly……

It is another one of those unwritten rules that usually only the more, shall we say, “outlaw‘ oriented clubs have a President.
In HOG we have a Director, currently Kamil Bernard for HOG Prague.

Why all this blab ? I hear you cry !

Well, at the big Harley Parade this year, which is the highlight of the annual Prague Harley Days gathering, we had not only a Director – but also a President too !

…… and not just ANY President, it was the Czech President, General Petr Pavel – accompanied by his wife, Eva Pavlová – mounted on a Harley of her own !

As a bit of background, Prague is currently beset by miles and miles of roadworks. Repairs to the carriageways are much needed, but our comedy mayor has also taken it upon himself to re-install a tram route that I can almost remember being removed – and this is taking years ……
As a consequence the “traditional” Harley Days Parade route has become impracticable to ride and the new one requires a lot more marshalling.
Having taken part in the parade on a number of prior occasions, Lucie and I volunteered to help HOG Prague’s Head “Road Captain”, Marcel Vavřík, with some minor street blocking.
Every intersection needed to be controlled and, as you can see there were a lot of them !

We were given position number “21”, the corner of Sokolská street and Fügnerovo náměstí.
Lucie was handed a resplendent Orange vest.
Power at last !

We went to our position and waited ….. and waited ……
Watched pots, according to the proverb, never boil – but we started to, because it was very sunny.

Lucie, ever the technophile, was watching the traffic on an App and, finally, it went red at the exit to the Výstaviště show-grounds from where the parade would start.

Výstaviště was not far away, but it seemed to take ages before the oncoming car traffic dwindled to nothing. I moved my Harley to block the road and Lucie gave me my presumed authority by standing in front of it.

The parade appeared in the distance, moving towards us. Motorcycle officers from the Prague Police, blue-lights flashing rode by. This was followed, very unusually, by some Police cars and a black limousine. Marcel rode by, followed by the Directors of Prague HOG and the Harley Davidson Club of Prague and, a bit surprisingly, quite a few more motorcycle policemen …..

Then, it became obvious why. Although we had not been told he would be there – and if you consider the current level of threat posed by Russia, it is easy to tell why that was, there was our President, General Pavel – cruising along in a bright red shirt.

Just to his front and right, there was his wife and our First Lady, Eva Pavlová, piloting her own, white tanked, machine and in a very distinctive helmet !

The President was gone in the twinkling of an eye, but it took about nine minutes for the whole parade to pass. There were thousands of Harleys, almost every one subtly or radically changed from stock, but all, no matter what pipes they had on, with that distinctive engine beat. They were interspersed, here and there, with machines of all makes and configurations, even a few scooters (!!) but all the riders were enjoying the twin sensations of a ride in the sunshine and being part of something bigger.

Once the entire parade had passed, we set off after it across the Nusle Bridge (Nuselský most).

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You can see the whole parade here on YouTube.

If you want to see the President, it is at about 45 to 50 seconds in.

 

He still has my vote !