Eildon via Torbreck River – Sunday 21^st November, 2004

Where to start? Lots of things have been happening around here. My eldest son had an accident in my station wagon, which is still off the road. Next I bought an XD Falcon for my youngest son which I am trying to get ready for a road worthy so I can get it registered and he can drive it. But it will have to wait till I get my wagon back.

I have been having trouble with my bike blowing instruments and tail-light fuses. On Sat arvo I thought it might be over charging because of a faulty black box so I changed the regulator, but to no avail. I put the other one back on and look further afield. I checked the tail light: ok. So I checked the wiring around the instruments and bingo! Blew another fuse. I started checking the wiring and all the plugs, stripping back the insulation and checking more wires. Everything checked out ok, so I re-tape the wires and put it all back together and everything works fine. I also fitted a K&N filter.

Cliff rings and asks about the weather for Sunday and I tell him it will be a good day. So he tells me he and Danny will be coming that night with the bikes on the trailer and would be there at 11pm at the earliest. I told him that Julie and I would be going to a 40^th birthday and that we would be late home ourselves. We arrived home around midnight and Cliff and Danny still hadn’t turned up. Julie rung Cliff at 12.30 am, and they had just arrived at Geelong. I went to bed around 1.30 am. I just got to sleep and one of Daniel’s friends rang up at 1.50 am and woke me up. Wasn’t happy, Jan. I was over-tired and found it hard to get sleep; too many late nights. Can’t blame anybody but myself. Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day.

Cliff and Danny arrived at 2.30 am. I went back to bed as I had had enough.

I woke up around 7.45am on Sunday, a bit worse for wear. We all had brekky and got ready for our departure for Yarra Glen. The weather was looking better than yesterday. This weekend the RACV was having its Wheels and Wings weekend at Lilydale Airport. Along Victoria and Switchback Roads there were many cars heading out to the Airport. I passed a lot of early Porsche 356s, then followed a `37 Oldsmobile, a `38, a `47, a Corvette, Pommie cars including Morris Minors, 2 door, 4 door and a convertible. I was reminded of my first car, a `52 Morris Minor with a side valve 4 cylinder engine and a 4 speed gear box. A far cry from what is available today. I think everyone in the bike club would have had a great day at the Airfield without going for a ride.

The traffic was banked up for a couple of kilometres on Macintyre Lane where they were directing the traffic onto the airfield and a bit further, through the main gate. Once past the airport, it was onto the Melba Highway to Yarra Glen, also carrying a lot of traffic.

After fuelling up at the servo I headed across the road to the Café. A few people were there already including a couple of new faces: Eddie de Marchi on the Bandit 1200, and Rick Smith on the CBR600RR. I have to report that Rick is a fellow New Zealander. I reckon we will have to have a New Zealand versus Australia competition, there is enough of us!

Peter Weyermayr was leading the ride due to Greg Hales being unable to do so. Peter gathered everybody around, like some one feeding wheat to chooks, and told us where we were going. Martin said watch out when going over the Black Spur because it was muddy and slippery after the rain, plus there was a landslide. Ian volunteered rear rider, with Martin and myself to do the write up.

I was a bit slow getting my gear on and was last to leave. I had a quiet ride on the back road to Healesville. Heading over the Black Spur, the tempo picked up a bit. It was my first ride in a month so I was slowly getting back into the groove. There was a bit of traffic about and we had to stop for a couple sets of lights. The surface was okay. It had dried out leaving just some dust where they are fixing the road.

Through to Marysville where there were a lot of bikes outside the bakery and a lot of people in Marysville itself. Left turn at the roundabout and we ride past the golf course. I had to pull up and get an insect out of my eye after it flew under my helmet. Buxton, Taggerty and Thornton, taking the back road into Eildon, our first stop. I got fuel before going to the shop, the weather warming up. We were here for about half hour. Rick and Eddie seemed to be enjoying themselves. We might get two new members.

Tim Walker was on his first Club in 8 months. He was telling Ben and I that last week he stopped at set of traffic lights, but the person behind didn’t, swerving to miss him at the last moment. The car mirror clipped Tim’s bike mirror, continuing on through the red light. Poor Tim had the fright of his life. With no cars coming he took of after him and caught him down a side street and questioned the driver. The bloke said he had been working night shift and that he was tired. Tim was lucky the bloke didn’t run into the back of him.

Bruce reckons its okay living away from home, having moved in with his girlfriend. Good to see him on the bike when he’s not on the buses.

Time to mount up and head out to the Torbreck River. Cliff and Danny follow Peter and that was the last I saw of them. The first few kilometres in, the pebble mix chip seal was crap. I had a bit of trouble in a few places. The grip was better when we rode on the black stuff, though on the first couple of corners I ran wide. Being on the wrong side of the road, I gave a P plater and myself a bit of a fright. I carried on without any problems, arriving at the river and bridge. It was getting really warm, to the point of not wanting to wear leathers.

A large Vic Roads road sign indicating that the Government had spent $50,000 on the road to make it safer for motorcyclists had been pulled out of the ground. “Is that all we are worth?” someone quipped. It was time for photos. A couple of people dragged the sign up vertical and Ben took photos of us. Ben’s camera was full so he had to delete a few. In the meantime, Bruce took some on his camera.

Time to head back to Eildon for lunch. I was following Danny, Cliff and Ben. Ben got ahead and I was following Cliff at the time when, braking into a corner, suddenly there’s a bang and the front end went sideways. I don’t know what I hit but it gave me a fright. The rest of the trip out was okay, apart from when we were on the white stones, with a lot of loose stuff about.

Eildon. Time to get rid of my leather jacket and cool off. Everyone enjoyed the break, talking and catching up. Just before we left I noticed a stick jammed between the sump and frame. When I pulled it out, it was about 8 inches long and the thickness of my thumb. I would say it got flicked up when I was behind Cliff.

After lunch it was up and over Skyline Road. I like this road, like everyone else I suppose, but you have to be careful because it’s very unforgiving with no margin for error. Cliff and Danny were following me up the hill and I let Cliff pass near the top. Danny was still behind me on the downhill side. Not far from top, hugging the shoulder on a tight left-hander, the bike went sideways from underneath me. Another fright, feet gone, hanging on, saved. Phew! I kept going, the incident making my heart beat faster.

On to Alexandra, corner marked, then onto the Molesworth road. What a road! It has to be everyone’s favourite. Things got wound up on this road, with a bit of low flying. On to Yea and a slow ride to Junction Hill. Pete certainly wasn’t in any hurry. Paul Southwell and Bruce Saville and I passed Peter on the way up and I chased them down the road. The others didn’t seem to bother and just followed Peter. I played a bit of cat and mouse with Paul and he dropped back so I ended up racing myself for a little while, speeding up, slowing down, waiting for some others to catch up. Bruce caught up and I chased him for a bit. We finally arrived at Kinglake West.

There were lots of happy, smiling faces including Rick and Eddie. Paul Grosser was worried because his fuel light had come on and he reckoned he had only a few kilometers left in the tank. He was hoping there was a servo nearby. He must have made it to Whittlesea because I haven’t heard anything since. We broke up here.

Thanks to Peter for leading the ride. There were no incidents and the weather was good. Thanks Ian for rear riding. I hope everyone enjoyed themselves.

Friday 26^th November

I came home from work about 5.30pm and the kids next door were playing their DOOF DOOF music, or head banging shit. I don’t mind so long as its in moderation. They played the crap all night, didn’t let up. I went to bed at 12.30am and it was still going, no let up, so I thought I will deal with it my way instead of ringing the cops.

It’s 1am sat morning, I get out of bed, go to the shed, wheel out the bike, remove the muffler and push the bike behind the house and back it up to the colourbond fence and start the bike up; bloody noisy with just the 4 into 1. I revved the shit out the engine and even held it on 12,000 rpm on the rev limiter for a short time to drown out the stupid bloody music. It did the trick.

My son Alister said, somebody out the front yelled out, come on old man, and they started revving the hell out of a VN V6 Commodore, but it was no match for a free revving 1200 cc engine at 12,000 rpm. You should have heard it! I fixed the problem. Within half an hour they had shut shop and pissed off.

Peace and quiet at last. I wheeled bike back into shed, put the muffler back on and went back to bed. It’s the second time I have had to do this, except I didn’t take the muffler off the first time. It might not be the right thing to do, but it gets results. Guaranteed. And you don’t have to worry about the cops.

Ron Johnston Bandit 1200.