CAPE TOWN – A modern day Macgyver traverses the Cape Flats selling rabbits on a wobbly bike held together by “elastic and wire”.
Jack Chopper, as he prefers to be known, hails from Manenberg but travels several dozens of kilometres by bicycle multiple times a month to deliver baby rabbits to pet shops.
TygerBurger caught up with the eccentric cyclist in Woodlands, Mitchells Plain, last week, while he was on his way to “Winners”, which is the name of a now defunct supermarket in Lentegeur.
He gave the paper an exhibition of his multi-coloured and multi-textured “bicycle”, while he stopped to catch his breath alongside Highlands Drive.
Any tie will do
The bicycle, which sports a shadecover, baskets, lights, a charger, reflectors and a dynamo, was built from scratch by Chopper — without any welding. Cobbled together with spare parts, it features star-spangled handles, a red fabric seat cover and two differently-sized wheels. It’s decorated with an old baby shoe and random labels and logos, including a Bokke emblem on the shade cover.
When asked how it is held together, Chopper, who has several jewelled teeth, said, “with elastic and wire”. TygerBurger however noticed several cable ties securing the shadecloth cover, white tape that looked suspiciously like gauze on the shadecover frame, a chain connecting parts of the bike’s back frame and even a pair of handcuffs which connected two of the frame’s bars — though TygerBurger was unclear if this was purely for decoration.
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A basket made of chicken wire and carpet was attached to the back of the shade frame and it bore several black baby bunnies — who had a fabulous view of the back wheel covered with a mudguard made of indiscernible material.
Animal lovers need not worry about their hydration. Chopper had threaded a water spout through the makeshift hutch from a bottle secured to the frame’s vertical bars.
Kokied confirmation
When TygerBurger asked if the bike was roadworthy, Chopper cackled saying that traffic officers once stopped him and jokingly asked him for his licence. Since then he decided to “fake it” and added a repurposed trailer license, updated with black koki pen, to the bike’s eclectic ensemble.
The chainguard also sported a licence plate drawn on in black koki but Chopper said that he had once had an actual licence plate on the bike but had lost it on one of his travels. The bike used to belong to Chopper’s 10-year-old son. His son surrendered the bike, Chopper said, “because it is too heavy for him”.
“With the battery, it’s almost 50 kilos,” he said. “This is a 1972 model,” Chopper added.
Chopper was not surprised by TygerBurger’s attention. He said he was frequently stopped by curious passersby some of whom have made videos of him and made him “famous on TikTok.”
Chopper said the bike is his mode of transport to sell his rabbits to pet shops in Gatesville, Lentegeur and the Town Centre in Mitchells Plain, all of which is more than 10km away from his home in Manenberg.
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