Daylesford Sunday 19^th January, 2003

CBR929R	Ben Warden	GSXR750	Will Surtida
CBR1100XX	Aaron Karmiste	R1	Mario Ibeas
CBR1100XX	Laurie Knight (1^st ride)	R1	Enzo Cunico
CBR1100XX	Martin Hastie (rear rider)	R1	Tim James
CBR600	Anthony Cook (1^st ride)	R1150GS	Rob Langer (leader)
CBR929R	Ian Payne	RF900	Andrew Symes
CBR929R	Craig Morley	VFR800	Richard Kilburn (2^nd ride)
CBR954R	Darryn Hutchinson	VTR1000	Ross McCurdy
CBR954R	Rob Jones	XJR1300	John Scholes (3^rd ride)
GSF1200	Ron Johnston	ZX6R	Orlando Iluffi
GSX1300R	Wayne and Joanne Nimmo	ZX6R	Darren Curry
GSXR1000	Dave Nimmo	ZX9R	Dave Hives
GSXR1000	Ray Walker	ZX9R	Jutty Knight (1^st ride) - Ray's cousin
	27 people, 26 bikes

Talk about a family day, we had nearly all the possibilities: wife, father, uncle, cousin, son. We only needed a sister and brother to make it complete.

I geared up for what I thought would be a very hot ride and left home to head for Whittlesea with the skies not too clear, possibly filled with smoke from the bush fires. When I arrived at the Mobil fuel station at Whittlesea, only one other rider, John, on his XJR1300, was there. I topped up my fuel and soon the bikes started to come, like a swarm of bees, 25 bikes in total. (We picked up Dave Nimmo in Daylesford, making 26 riders for the day.) As you may have noticed by the list of bikes, we had three “Birds” for this ride, two blue and one red. I finally had the chance to see what they look like in flight.

At Rob’s break down of our route speech, he said our first stop would be at Broadford. I volunteered to go rear rider to try and put some more easy (running in) kilometres on my new Bird. At this point I had only 700 kilometers on the clock: 500 kms from the Xmas camp at Porepunkah and 200 kms from the day before with Carmen, riding to Kinglake and the loop to Healesville. (At Kinglake we bumped into Di doing another ride). Carmen decided to have a rest after our Saturday’s ride, so I was minus my pillion.

Ray was disappointed that I didn’t have the cameras mounted on the Bird to get some more film footage like I made at Porepunkah. I think he was planning something special.

We left Whittlesea at 10.20 am and proceeded up the pass around Kinglake West and along to Flowerdale. The traffic was light and the breeze was still cool, although looking at the very dry, open grassland, especially around Strath Creek, made you more aware of the drought.

I can now appreciate what my Bird looks like from behind as I was following Laurie most of the way. He told me later he could now appreciate his son saying how mean the front view is because of mine.

After Strath Creek it was up the hill climb to Murchison’s Gap. I enjoy this smooth, twisty section of road but you still have to have your wits about you. Then on through the tree lined roads and across the Hume Freeway to Broadford. Craig and Ray stopped for leak, thinking the rest of the group were just up the road, at the first stop. But, as the group hadn’t stopped, I waited at the corner for them, and then it was a catch up ride to the rest of the group. (My easy running in kilometres idea went out the window.)

The group reformed at Pyalong where some filled up their bikes. Rob was keen to get a move along, and, as most of the riders were getting on their gear, he was off. Aaron, on the red Bird, was not far behind. This was until the first bend. I didn’t see it, but from an eye witness account, Aaron slid on some wet cow shit just dropped by a truck along the length of the bend. Front and rear tyres let go and his Bird went down, doing a pirouette on the left side as Aaron slid alongside, covering his leathers in brown shit. After hosing off both Aaron and the bike, the damage was his pride, the bike’s clutch lever, engine cover, exhaust and fairing. I waited for him to check if the bike still ran. It did, but he decided to call it a day.

Off we went, minus one Bird. From here we did some back roads (not sure of the exact names) and ended up in Kyneton for more fuel and lunch. Darren Curry disappeared at Kyneton - he accidentally headed off down the Calder. After 20 kilometers he turned around and came back, but then headed for Daylesford, while we had lunch in Kyneton!

Ben collected some money from people paying their memberships. Even Dave, who’s been riding with Club since 1996, paid up. We also had some first timers. Hope to see them again.

After lunch we were off on some bumpy, narrow roads, doing loops around Malmsbury and Daylesford. On our first loop through Daylesford, one rider dropped off, calling it a day. (I am not sure who it was.) The rest of us continued on. Some riders were comparing each other’s bikes by swapping for some sections of the roads. I counted at least four changes of rider.

Aaron, with his girlfriend in his car, was at one of the corners during one of our loops around Daylesford. He reported that he had got home okay and had changed his clothes!

The weather was starting to warm up and so was the traffic. To make matters worse, Mr Plod extracted a contribution from John (XJR1300). I consider this one booking relatively lucky because I noted at least four police vehicles during the afternoon.

I waited for John before the next corner, under some shade, because, as most of the corner markers were aware, it was hot in the bike gear under the sun. On a few corners I had to wait till riders stopped talking or put on their gear. Anyway, John, after finishing with his contribution, went straight past me, possibly not realising I was waiting for him. By the time I caught him and we got back onto the route, the ride was getting stretched out.

My next mistake was with the next two corner markers. When coming onto the Freeway after Myrniong the corner markers thought we were stopping at Myrniong, so we did a uee and then another uee, finally discovering at the Bacchus Marsh exit that some of the group went one way for fuel, with the rest continuing down the freeway to Melton.

I got to Melton about 15 minutes after the rest of the group to find they were having a chin wag about the day’s events. This was the break up point, so some riders used the freeway, myself included, to go home. Others took the back roads through Diggers Rest to get to their homes.

Thanks Rob for the ride. I believe we all had a good day and it didn’t get as hot as I thought it would. I did, from door to door, 420 kilometres. I believe the ride was close to 340 kilometres in length. I have now run in my Bird with over 1000 kays on the clock, not all at run in speed.

Martin Hastie (CBR1100XX)