Strathbogie Ranges Sunday 7^th July, 2002

Ron Johnston, Bandit 1200 (Leader) Pete Weyermayr, Honda 929

Liz Oliver, Honda 919 Enzo Cunico, R1

Orlando Iluffi, ZX6 Rob Langer/Kirsten Anderson, BMW, R1150 GS

Ben Warden, Honda 929 (Rear Rider) 6 bikes, 7 riders

Another half reasonable day, considering it had been raining all week. Here we were, all gathered at Yarra Glen waiting patiently. The Original Café was closed and poor old Rob had to go walk about to get a coffee fix. Just as we were about to leave the owners of the shop turned up, and apologised for being late the reason being they had to rescue a kangaroo which had become tangled in a fence. Orlando had turned up on his ZX6. It was good to see him because he hadn’t been out riding with the Club since his accident at Licola. He had to wait six weeks for his bike to be fixed, a bit longer than normal considering it was mostly cosmetic. Orlando said he would only go as far as Yea.

The usual route to Healesville. Left into Chum Creek Road and head towards Toolangi. A nice piece of road, especially since they resealed upper half. At Toolangi, right onto the Highway and past the Glenburn Pub carrying on till we get to Devlin Bridge where we turn right and head for the hills. The road has lots of twists and turns with a good up hill climb. At Woodbourne, turn left. This part of the road was only sealed last year and is quite good. From here it is a bit of hard and fast riding. At Murrindindi, left turn again and head towards the Highway and Yea. Along here I came into contact with a low flying magpie and that was the end of that. I got to the Highway to corner mark and decided to look at where the Magpie hit. It took out my headlight. Not impressed: the damn thing won’t be doing that again, deceased estate…. Pete, who was following me, said the bird sort of fell out of the tree and found its wings and did a fly past with severe consequences…hit the bike and shot into orbit, up and over the bike. We carried on to Yea where Orlando departed due to other commitments. Then onto Yarck, our first stop, a welcome one due to the cold weather; at least it wasn’t raining… Hot drinks all round.

We left Yarck out through Gobur and had a nice climb up Mount Budd where we turned into Top Road/Creightons Creek Road through to Euroa where we got fuel and went across the road to the Jumping Jumbuck. We all sat outside and had lunch, soaking up the cool weather.

From Euroa we went to Strathbogie. The road through here isn’t too bad: rough and ready, narrow and twisty, up and down, but otherwise okay. You have to watch for the moss on the road in places as well. Strathbogie to Marraweey and onto Violet Town, but turned back on to the Hume down to Euroa. Then we picked up the Euroa/Mansfield road to Merton. It’s a boring bit of straight road out of Euroa, but a good climb up Wheelers Hill and across the top. Some of the road has been recently resealed and is excellent to ride on.

We regrouped at Merton and then headed down the Highway to Alexandra and up Mount Pleasant where I had to stop and check the map. Then we carried on to Acheron, Taggerty, Buxton and Marysville. This surely must be everyone’s favourite bit of road. I didn’t waste much time getting to Marysville. We didn’t stop here, thank god, because there were hundreds of skiers and snow boarders from Lake Mountain.

Marysville to Healesville where we finished the ride, but not before going over my other favourite piece of road, the Black Spur. We did 360 kms for the ride. So much for the early start. We didn’t cover as many kms as I thought. Looking at the map it looked a long way but it wasn’t. There were no incidents and I hope everybody enjoyed themselves, even if it was cool.

I rang Peter Stevens about a headlight and was quoted $167.00. I thought you beauty, and Julie went down the following week to pay a deposit on it. But I received a phone call asking whether the headlight round or square. I told the man it was a square one, and he told me it would cost it would $338. Silence!!!! When I got my breath back I told the man he had better get one because I needed it. Can’t get any money out of a dead magpie…..

Ron Johnston Bandit 1200