Geoff Jones ZZR600 (Leader) Paul Tallents YZF600

Gregory Hales TL1000S Ben Warden ZXR750 (Rear Rider)

At half past seven in the morning I glanced out of my bedroom window and thought "do I really want to go for a ride today?" The weather didn't look all that flash, the sky was filled with dark grey clouds and the wind was blowing a gale. I had breakfast and wasted a couple of hours, looking out the window constantly to see if the weather was improving. Eventually I was conned by a brief show of blue sky so I donned my gear and headed off for Whittlesea.

I arrived at Whittlesea at 10.15am to find I was the first to arrive but very shortly after up rolled Geoff. After a few minutes of discussing the weather and contemplating our sanity for wanting to ride on a day like this, two other die hard riders arrived. Ben and Paul were keen to ride, and as it seemed apparent we were all that were interested, off we went.

Our route took us north west through Wallan and on to Romsey, where we headed north to Lancefield. By this time I starting to think that even though I'm on the largest capacity bike I'm by no means on the fastest. The buffeting wind and my limited experience in these conditions made this section of the ride hard work and a touch scary.

We turned west and worked our way through Springhill and Little Hampton to arrive in Daylesford at about midday. We decided to stop for fuel, lunch and a break to stand in the intermittently shining sun and try and thaw out. Daylesford turned out to be the busiest town in Victoria where parking for motorcycles was even a challenge and the footpath had to do.

We continued the afternoon by travelling along the Midland Highway for a short way then around the outskirts of Ballarat and on to Snake Valley our westerly most point, them continued on to Linton for the trek home.

A brief afternoon stop allowed us to discuss the possible routes home. This part of the ride brought us some more wet roads, some dry roads and a quite violent hail storm. All this rain made the 3km section of dirt, I mean mud, a little treacherous and even though I was only in second gear I nearly lost the front end (and I wasn't the only one was I Ben?)

The final run into Werribee along some of the straightest roads I've ever seen turned out to be a very quick run. The fuel economy for the day as Ben mentioned was not one of the best ever experienced.

The ride was completed at 3.00 pm or thereabouts. Anyway I got home to Warrandyte at 4.00pm after riding around 450km's for the day.

I wish to extend my thanks to Geoff for leading and coming up with a run that had an interesting mix of road types. (I hope it's dry next time)