Pyalong Sunday
10th July, 2005
Honda 929 Simon
Trubiano Yamaha R6 Joel Haley
Honda 929 Ian
Payne Suzuki GSXR1000 Danny
Hasnat
Honda 1000RR Paul
Southwell Suzuki GSXR1000 Lyn
Duncan
Joel and I arrived almost at
the same time from opposite directions at the Donnybrook Plenty road
roundabout, and rode the almost, always policed, five kilometres to Whittlesea
Caltex.
Ern and Rick were there already
chatting and Paul had just finishing fueling up. Today Paul was testing a
prototype fairing mask, designed to eliminate stone chips, which, by the way,
was a complete success, and it didn’t end up wrapped around his visor.
Simon arrived quietly. Paul
was just about to dial our leader, Ian, when Ian and Danny pulled into the
servo. Ian had just found out exactly how many kilometres he gets on reserve,
which caused his delay. Ian had a funny story about Danny whizzing past while
he was paddling his way to the servo. We engaged in bit more chatting and
catching up before getting on the bikes and heading up through Kinglake West
and Flowerdale where the roads were pretty wet.
We turned off to Strath
Creek, the roads now dry, the countryside of a more open type. Past Broadford
race track, then right turn onto the Sunday Creek road from near the centre of
Broadford township which took us up to the Pyalong-Seymour road and then on to
Pyalong, our first stop.
Les Leahy wandered over. He
had parked his bike further up from the café where there is now seating. He
thought he might have a bit of a wait for us, but he was only there 10 minutes
before we arrived which was good timing. It was pleasant to catch up with him.
He discussed a three day weekend planned with Tom and Andy (MSTCV members) at
Albacutchua. Other members may remember a Tom and Andi organised camp for dirt
bikes there many years ago. There were herds of emus and kangaroos, more
dangerous than usual because most of them were blind from some disease. It is
dessert riding there, and they Tom and Andi are using it for a sort of training
ground for a new rider invited along.
No need for fuel as we head
off for our revised lunch destination of Kyneton. We started out on
Just as we are pulling up
for our lunch stop, I saw Paul pointing to new guy Rick’s bike as he is rolling
into the parking spot, leaving a trail of bright green fluid. It didn’t take
long for Rick to assess it was definitely coming from the overflow. I would
have been pretty surprised if it was a stone hole in the radiator given Ian’s
choice of roads which had been really clean and gravel free: just the way I
like it. And great fun.
Our lunch spot had the riders
evenly divided, four seated inside and four seated outside soaking up the sun.
After a nice, warm and lengthy lunch, a democratic decision was made. We would
refuel, then retrace out morning route. But only as far as Lancefield it seemed,
where we continued south to Romsey, then east on to the
A special thanks to rear
rider Ern who spent the whole day at the back of the ride. Also to Ian, our
radar detector, out at the front the ride.
Lyn Duncan (Suzuki GSXR1000)