Daylesford Sunday
14th January, 2007
|
Ron Johnston |
Bandit 1200 |
Adam Ruchotzke |
Honda VTR1000 |
|
Renzo Cunico |
Honda VFR750 |
Trevor Harris (leader) |
Yamaha YZF1000 |
|
Cameron Stevens |
Suzuki GSXR1000 |
Lyn Duncan |
Suzuki GSXR1000 |
|
Ern Reeders |
Honda CBR954 |
Stewart Forster |
Yamaha R1 |
|
Ben Warden (rear rider) |
Honda CBR954 |
9 bikes, 9 people |
|
After passing the leading rider for the third time, Trevor thrust upon me the responsibility of doing the write up, as a correctional measure.
New rider, Adam Ruchotzke,
joined us today. He rides a VTR1000 (yes another Honda) and has recently moved
from
Stewart Forster, a previous long-term MSTCV member, revisited the club
today. I’ve ridden with Stewart many times with another club and it was good to
see him come along. Stewart has near encyclopaedic knowledge of all the back
roads in
Trevor gave the pre-ride talk outlining the planned route for the day.
Then we headed off from Whittlesea to Flowerdale, Strath Creek, Trawool, Pyalong
and Lancefield for the first fuel and refreshment stop of the day. A bit of
marital divorce talk and suggested chick pulling techniques was entered into. Lyn
Duncan left the group at this point.
The next stop was Daylesford where some visited the bakery for a second
lunch and others just hung around the bikes at the roundabout at the top of the
main street. Stewart Foster bade us farewell and set sail for home. Ron headed
off to Clunes. After leaving Daylesford Trevor missed a couple of turns and U
turns were entered into. Ern got a bit a frustrated with this and continued in
another direction. The group was now three riders down but the fun continued as
we found our way to Woodend and Romsey.
Heading off on a bit of a tangent, here’s a bit more about my GSXR 1000
K6. In short, it’s a missile. I’ve put 9,000 km on it but it hasn’t all been
trouble free. The engine and brakes are sensational. But it’s a pity that Suzuki
can’t build a clutch for the 1000cc sports bike. I’ve it had back to Luke at
Mick Hone for Suzuki Australia’s recommend clutch fix which rectified the
problem temporarily but now the slipping/gripping problem is starting again.
I’m not sure if I’ll pursue this with the bike shop or not.
The other problem has been with the immobiliser. It intermittently
fails to disengage when I insert the key thereby rendering the bike unstartable. The bike’s booked this Thursday to get a new
ignition barrel, two keys, a new petrol cap and a new pillion seat lock. They
are all keyed alike. Hopefully this will rectify the problem. I read in a forum
that the pillion seat lock can’t be replaced by itself and a whole new seat
cowl has to be installed. Time will tell. I’m glad to see Suzuki are paying for
all this and not me. I was joking with Lyn on Sunday that my aim is have a
whole new bike, piece by piece, over the next two years.
I’ve also slight dented the front rim and chipped the very outer. Fellow
motorcyclists have been consulted. Options include replacing the rim at ($900 fitted);
get Bob Martin to straighten and weld the rim ($130) but it will still need
respraying; or do nothing. Paul Southwell suggested colour-in the shiny silver
chip black with a permanent marker which I’ve opted for.
Getting back to the aforementioned missile like capabilities of the
GSXR, yet another problem has occurred. I’m constantly corner
marking which is what happened on this ride. The solutions for this are: (i) fit the bike with some Metzeler
tyres; (ii) sell the bike and buy a smaller capacity bike, maybe a 250cc Suzie;
and (iii) my least preferred option, buy a Honda. J
Finally, there were no incidents to report. The break up point was at
Wallan where we saw Ern ride past down the Highway. The official ride length
was 390 km. A big thanks goes to Trevor for leading
and Ben going rear rider. See you all on a ride again soon.
Cameron Stevens