Mirboo North via Willow Grove Sunday 18^th April, 2004

Martin Hastie Honda Blackbird (rear rider) Rob Langer BMW (leader)

Nigel Hellyer Kawasaki GPz1000RX Rhys Williams KTM620

Ron Johnston Suzuki Bandit Joel Haley Yamaha R6

Summary: door to door 500 kms, cold and a little wet, lots of leaf and bark debris on the roads, one puncture. Trevor Harris kindly dropped off the emergency Kit at Yarra Glen.

It's Saturday night and the rain is falling, posing the big question "Is it going to be a good day for riding tomorrow?" Only time would tell.

I got up early and drove to Pentridge to retrieve the bike, immediately having second thoughts about going on the ride. But I wanted to get some more kilometers on the bike before the next 12,000 km service. Incidentally, Red Wing will be removing the aftermarket 4 into 1 exhaust and putting the stock system back on. This is because when I had the 4 into 1 installed I wanted it to be noise legal, but to get it legal we had to change the baffle to the point where the bike lost nearly all bottom end power which was especially noticeable riding two up. The revs needed to get off the line made the front wheel lift, which made Carmen very nervous.

I put on my wet weather gear and headed off to Yarra Glen via the ring road arriving at the servo at l0 am finding five riders. Rob indicated the route would be via the Black and Reefton Spurs to Warburton for morning tea at about 110 kms. Next stop Traralgon for lunch, another 110 kms. We left at 10.15am and, because of our small group staying together most of the day, we spent little or no time stopped at corners.

By the time we got to the Black Spur the weather pattern was set for the day: cold, overcast, but not wet. The cold was getting to Ron and he had to pull over outside Marysville to water the vegetation. He waved me past only to catch up at the Reefton Spur turn off where Rhys and I had stopped. Rhys removed a twig stuck in my radiator, then off down the Spur. You had the option of either a closed visor resulting in fogging up and considerably reduced vision, or opening the visor slightly and freezing your eye balls.

Next we rode on to Warburton where we stopped at The Bakery for hot food at 11.45am, the odometer reading 109.6 km. Rob made us feel jealous when he told us how warm his hands were. He had his electric grip warmers turned on. His new BMW had only 500 kms on the clock and looked new and very snazzy.

Off to Trafalgar via Powelltown and Willow Grove arriving at 1.20pm for a total of 211.7 kms from Yarra Glen. We had lunch and I filled the bike up with 14.72 litres of fuel.

We left Trafalgar at 2 pm heading for Mirboo North. I was impressed with the exhaust note and performance of Rhys's KTM through the twisties. Someone should tell him he is on a dirt bike; he leans it over more than some people do on their road bikes. That single cylinder thumping away resonates pleasantly off the trees.

The pace was still quite quick until we got to the 3 kms of gravel on the Arawata Road; great for the dirt bikes but a bit hard on Ron's Bandit and my Bird, both slipping around on the corrugations and ruts. Hallyston has bad memories for me as that was where I had my slide and incident with the white post. Just after coming through the gravel my Bird did a similar slide which I tried to tell myself was the wet roads or loose stones. But it was neither, just a lousy puncture.

Rhys returned when he couldn't see me in his mirrors to find me attempting to get mobile again with the First Aid kit. A light rain was falling. After much effort we were unable to find the puncture - so with the hand pump we put some air in the tyre and proceeded to the Warragul some 30 kms away. I was able to ride approx 10 kms slowly at a time before it got too hard to go around corners. I then stopped to put more air in the tyre.

Ron came looking and found us about 10 kms south of Warragul, which we duly arrived at some time after 4 pm to find the rest of the group having coffee. At the first servo the air compressor was stuffed so onto the next one where we all tried to fix the puncture. The First Aid kit had the tools and plugs but no glue - an empty tube was in the kit. Luckily Rob had some but he couldn't get the plug in, so Rhys used the rope plug and it survived the rest of the trip home.

I left the group and rode the 100 plus freeway kms home in case the plug failed and hence I could get to a servo easily. Rhys kept me company till just after the Berwick turn off.. I got home 6.16 pm.

Ron was going to contact me should any other newsworthy events happen to the others who took a more scenic route back to Melbourne. He didn’t so I presume the others survived okay.

A very special thanks to Rhys for sticking by me for the 30 kms riding on a flat tyre, Rob and Rhys for the puncture repair, and Ron, Nigel and Joel for assistance at the servo.

Martin Hastie (Honda Blackbird)