Mt Baw Baw MkII Sunday 21^st January, 2007

I woke early this morning to hear the sound of rain against my window, which, while being welcomed by the farming community and metropolitan garden owners doesn’t make for ideal motorcycle riding conditions. By the time I left for the meeting point at Berwick, the rain had stopped but the heavens were heavily overcast. Being an optimist I thought that it wouldn’t rain so the wets were packed in my bag.

With my GSXR 1000 at Mick Hone’s spread-eagled on a workbench, I left home on the shop’s courtesy bike, a Yamaha FZ6. I wheeled the bike out of the garage and hit the starter button. It burst into life with the thunderous roar of a sewing machine. It was so quiet in fact it didn’t even scare my cat sitting in the middle of my neighbour’s driveway. The bike’s main strengths were the brakes and comfortable ride position.

Halfway down the Monash Freeway it started to drizzle and I found myself in one of those “Should I pull over and put on the wets or press on?” situations. I did my best to ignore the rain but with it persisting, I pulled over and put them on. While hopping around under a bridge, Ian Payne, the ride leader for the day went by.

There is the a fair bit of road work being undertaken on the Monash at the moment and a substantial part of it is a mind numbing 80 km per hour, which in conjunction with my brain still being in Sunday morning wake up mode was a recipe for me missing the Berwick turn off yet again. I think I’ve only got it right once in about five times the club has met there.

At the meeting point Dave Ward, Lyn Duncan, Ben Warden, Paul Southwell and Ian Payne were there to greet me. Ian murmured a pre-ride talk and we all set off. I started this ride paying special attention to the first part of the ride route, as I am down to lead the ride to Reefton next Sunday leaving from Berwick as well. I’m filling in for Breht Emerson who is out of action after crashing.

The road was wet most of the way until we rolled into Powelltown where our one and only incident for the day occurred. Ian had a Collie run out on the road in front of him and he hit the dog square in the middle between the rear and front paws. How Ian didn’t drop the bike is a miracle. He says that he released the front brake just before impact thereby avoiding a front wheel skid on the dog’s carcass. I was following and had the FZ6 locked up and sideways trying to come to a halt in order to miss the now slightly less exuberant animal.

The ride group pulled over and Ben quickly door knocked down the street to discover who owned the dog. (A little boy, maybe 8 years old, answered the second door and said it wasn’t his dog. Then looked at his younger sister and said “Your dog’s dead!” …Ed.) Ian told me that the owner apologised to him for not having the dog properly restrained and no hard feelings were felt either way. The dog died near instantly at the scene. Dave Ward undertook the unenviable job of moving the dog’s carcass to the side of road to both avoid a future road incident and having the dog mashed into the bitumen. (The kids’ mother was most upset, picking up the dog and taking it inside. …Ed.)

Noojee was the next port of call where the sun came out and wet weather gear was removed. A preliminary inspection of Ian’s bike was undertaken and no major damage was observed, apart from copious amounts of dog excrement.. Paul Southwell kindly gave out health food bars to all before Dave Ward left for home. The rest of us pushed on up to the top of Mount Baw Baw. Ian was feeling a bit flat after running over the dog so I lead the way to the top. The road was damp in a few places but had more than its fair share of leaf litter. The main worry on this road is it not having a delimiting white line, a head on with another vehicle is something to look out for.

Lunch and a refuel were called for at Noojee on our return from the mountain. Ben and I discussed the route for my maiden leadership ride and the “baby boomers r us” clan complained about running out of puff. As I mentioned previously, the relaxed riding position of the FZ6 really came into its own.

We headed back home via Neerim. After corner marking the previous corner, I was last to come across the group stopped by the side of the road. Ben and Paul were walking like North Korean soldiers, pacing up and down the other side of the road. As I now know, it was the scene where a club member had a significant accident and a curbside ad-hoc investigation followed. We officially broke up here. However, we all headed home via the Princess Freeway and onto the Monash Freeway at the same pace with members pulling off at their respective turn off.

Cameron Stevens