The Foreign Residents in the TRNC – TFR
30 Minutes with the Secretary
Meeting with Ali Yüksek,
called “Jawa Ali”, a biker legend…
by Ralph Kratzer
Subsequent to my article “Harley Owners Group established in North Cyprus“ a few days ago (to remember please click here) I had an interview with an extraordinary Turkish guy, Jawa Ali, in the premises of the Bikers Club in Girne.
Of course my first question was where did his nickname come from.
Here is the story:
In 1984 Ali came back to his hometown Trabzon (Black Sea Coast) after years of residence in Germany – we will come back to that later – and one of the first things he did was to look for a motorbike. Popular in these days was the original Czech motorcycle brand Jawa… he bought a small 250cc bike, sat on it and was back again only two and a half months and 11.000 kilometers later! He travelled through the whole of Turkey with
his little bike! But he couldn´t get enough! Only one year later in 1985 he went on tour again…. one year after that he followed his brother – who came from Germany by car and wanted to go back there after a holiday in Turkey – with the motorbike and he again made a week long tour through Turkey. So, within 3 years, he not only had more than 25,000 kilometers on the clock but he had seen the whole of Turkey!
But to come back where his nickname came from: in those days he was a member of a bikers club in Trabzon and two of the members had the name Ali… one drove a British BSA and he had the Jawa, so to make a difference between the both the club gave him the name “Jawa Ali”… quite simple!
Ali, born 1956 in Trabzon, went to Germany in 1977 and stayed there, with a few interruptions, until 1983. His wish was to go abroad for studying but of course he had to do several jobs in Germany to survive and pay for University. In 1983 he had to do his military service in Turkey, so he went back to the land of his fathers and has never been back to Germany since then.
Of course one reason for that decision was that Ali met his future wife in Turkey, who is a native Cypriot and motorcycle fan as well as her husband. The both had quite a lot of motorbike tours together and still share the same hobby… (what an enviable man!). In 1993 the couple decided to marry and relocate to Cyprus where Ali´s wife has been working as a teacher since then.
As I knew of his paintings from the exhibition at the Bikers Club event one week ago I asked the studied Chemist how he came to painting.
Ali said he had the talent for drawing since his school days, he made drawings and pastels for a long time, but since he retired 2 years ago, he started to create oil paintings. The subjects of his paintings solely have to do with motorcycles….
He also deals with articles for the magazine “Yenidüzen-Adres” writing about biker tours and technical topics (for more info click here) and he is organizing tours and events all year round.
The father of two sons (in his own words: “I didn´t have the time for more….!) has planned further exhibitions of his paintings from 15th to 20th April 2013 at Honda Motorcycles in Lefkoşa and from 6th until 11th May 2013 at the Atatürk Cultural Centre (Atatürk Kültür Merkezi) Lefkoşa.
P.S. And of course, during the years he changed his bikes to a bigger size! At the moment his choice is a Honda 1300cc PanEuropean…
