April Who’s News 2003
The MTCV Home Page has taken 274 hits during April and 15,837 since April 1996. We continue to generate new members via the web. Our ads in the bike magazines are also doing well. Check out the Visitor’s Page to keep track of the latest information and gossip.
Welcome to new member Will Surtida riding a Suzuki GSXR750. We wish him many happy and safe rides with the Club.
The Points System. The Club Participant of
the Year is based on aggregate points accumulated at 1 point per ride, an extra
point for leading or being rear rider, 1 point per magazine article (maximum 2
per magazine). It runs till the May AGM. After tallying last months points, the
final scores are: Ben Warden 113 (Blade), Ron Johnston 80 (Bandit 1200), Rob
Langer 75.5 (BM1150GS), Pete Weyermayr 72 (Blade), Liz Oliver 70 (Blade), Ian
Payne 57 (Blade), Geoff Jones 43 (R1), Mark Easterbrook 36 (Ducati 750SS),
Dianne Welsford 35 (CBR600), Tim Walker 29 (ZXR750) and Bruce Saville 29
(VFR800). All the top 10 places
remained the same, and in the ssame order except Greg Hales dropped off the
bottom and Bruce Saville joined. Congratulations to one and all. See full
spread sheet for last third of year elsewhere in the magazine.
Portland Trip via the Great Ocean Road, ANZAC Weekend, Friday 25th April to Sunday 27th April. Ron Johnston has booked hotel accommodation. See him with your $50 deposit; places are limited. He reports that there will be a BBQ on Friday and Saturday nights, weather permitting. On Saturday he plans to visit Mt Gambier. This ride went according to the above plan. Mick Hanlon dropped into see the crew when his ship berthed at Portland. There were a few incidents: Danny Kosinski bailed out on his bike on the GOR after negotiating a car park at high speed. Given he had everything dragging on the ground and was still running wide, the carpark looked a good option. Still unable to wash off enough speed, abandon ship or the cliff were his options. He bailed out. A number of other riders also joined him in the car park, but remained upright. Cliff Peters buried his bike into the bushes and sustained a few scratches to the screen, while Danny Hawker and Ron Johnston managed to pull their bikes up just in time. It was a classic lemmings approach to motorcycling. They all followed Danny K off the road!
Danny Hawker (relative of Cliff’s, of Christmas Camp, ZX9 fame) hit a wallaby while traveling at high speed heading south from Halls Gap towards Dunkeld. He held the plot together but his front fairing and mudguard and headlight exploded on impact with compression fractures to the side slab fairings. The wallaby stuck its head through the radiator and was dragged for 150 metres gouging lumps out of the bitumen, fur and guts producing a brown dust-like cloud. Bike left at Dunkeld, Danny okay.
Ron Johnston dumped his Bandit on the Great Ocean road on the last day just out of Anglesea smashing the right hand side engine cover and ingesting stones, munching the oil pressure switch, ignition coil pickups, timing plate, etc. The cases were also holed necessitating a complete engine out of the frame rebuild. Bob Martin Engineering will do the welding. Ron also plans to have the cams ground and welded up as all the hardening has gone, he noticed just before the ride. Various right hand side cosmetics were also damaged including fairing, brake pedal, brake lever, blinker, mirror. See full write-up next issue!
Club Treasurer and Public Officer Wayne Grant married long time partner Verity Mayo at 3.15 pm on Saturday March 15th. The wedding was held in the beautiful Rippon Lea gardens by the lake and the reception was held at Butleigh Wootten for 108 guests. According to Wayne, the reception centre suddenly closed its doors a couple of weeks later after the receivers moved in. Imagine the kaos it would have generated if they closed a couple of weeks earlier! We wish Wayne and Verity a long and happy life together.
Dave’s father, Richard Moore, is making a steady recovery from his broken tibia after crashing in Tasmania. Just before Easter he contracted a lesser internal version of golden staph (serious infection) and was readmitted to hospital for a few days while he underwent a course of antibiotics. He is back home now. The plate and screws can harbour the infection and must be monitored carefully. We wish him a full and speedy recovery. Meanwhile his bike has been repaired and is in the safe keeping of Dave.
The other casualty of Tasmania, Renzo Cunico, is similarly making steady progress. He broke his ribs and tibia just above the ankle. His daughter informs me that he threw his Panadeine Forte and crutches away and was doing push ups and sit ups on day one, has tried to go swimming, and is walking regularly, despite any advice to the contrary. She thinks he is putting on a brave front and is probably in a fair bit of pain considering the extensive chest bruising she observed. On a positive note, his insurance company has just paid out for the wrecked R1. We look forward to his speedy return.
On Wednesday, April 30, 2003, there will be a Motorcycle
Footpath Parking (MFP) meeting at the City of Melbourne. It is hoped
motorcycle community reps question the loss of more than 50 tree-side parking
bays in the City's CBD and try to stop widespread MFP bans across the State.
They will also question the policy to give power to council CEOs to introduce
MFP Bans and try to sure that that power shift is permanently off the agenda.
It is also hope to raise the issue of the use of on-street "dead
space" to park motorbikes and scooters where cars don't fit. Also on the agenda is the new ban on
motorcycle parking in front of Western QBE's HQ, Marland House, at 570 Bourke
Street - is it necessary or fair? Damien Codognotto
Dianne
Welsord’s weekend trip to Portland with the Club
was spoilt when electrical gremlins stopped her CBR600 from leaving the
Westgate servo. Danny Kosinski produced
a “spare” battery out of nowhere, enabling her to get home. It looks suspiciously
like her regulator/rectifier unit has failed.
The Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally (situated
near Beaufort) is being held on the 3rd and 4th of May.
For more details Ph.5349 5566.
There is a Motorcycle Show at the Ballarat
Showgrounds on the 17th and
18th of May. Ph.5342 0635
Historic cars and bikes are racing at Winton
on the weekend of the 31st
May and 1st June. Ph.9596 2777.
Kate Stewart has traded her babyblade in on a new yellow 2002 CBR600F4i and loves it. Expect to see her back riding with the Club on a more regular basis after being bikeless for some months.
For the really long term members, a bloke called Michael Chan walked in to my office today (Wednesday 30th) wearing his Oracle (IT) hat. He used to be an active member of the Touring Club both as a rider and on the committee back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. He is still riding GSXR1100s, his latest a ’93 WP model with 50,000 km on the odometer. He has married, has three kids aged Phoebe (6 going on 7), Spencer (4 going on 5) and Flynn aged one and a half. He checks out the web page occasionally. He may come for a ride someday, if time allows. He covets an R1 but house renovations ….