Daylesford
The
weatherman promised us “early rain clearing up to be warm and dry 26o”.
But the sky wasn’t showing any sign of rain. What the heck, just put on the
gear and go, I thought.
As
I left home, I was thinking about the article on tyre pressures Ben put in the
newsletter some editions back. Tyres lose pressure just being stationary, so
when coming onto the Ring Road giving it a bit of a squirt and the back of the
bike stepped out, I thought I must check the pressures at the servo.
At
the servo I was surprised to find Nigel waiting. The Buell had been repaired
and he was mobile again. More riders arrived including a few new faces and some
old ones that hadn’t been on a Club ride for quite a while including Hans
Wurster, former Club President.
Ian
gave the briefing saying he was taking it easy as his neck was in pain from a
twisting injury he sustained while moving a wall air-conditioning unit.
We
left the servo and headed up the road to Kyneton via Wallan, Kilmore and Lancefield
for morning tea.
Ben
was being a gentleman and letting a man and his young daughter come out of the
bakery and said to the young girl in pink “After you sir”. The father quickly
replied “This is my daughter”. We all had a little chuckle.
We
discussed the sheep episode, where Ian had his hand on the horn while praying
the stray sheep would not run into his path. Then Nigel commented on his riding
style: I enter corners quickly so I can exit faster. Whereas my style is a bit
different: slow in, fast out. So when following me, Nigel would come up quickly into corners
but lost momentum mid-corner and I would pull away coming out of them.
I
asked Ian how his neck was, after following him for some time. For a bloke with
a sore neck, his rhythm was very smooth, particularly at the speed he was
travelling. Speaking of sore necks, I was surprised Paul didn’t have one. At
one of the corners, while doing the corner marking duties, he was so engrossed
in watching the young ladies, he didn’t even notice
the rear rider appear.
Next
it was off to Daylesford where Paul had to do some quick talking to drop the
infringement down to a three pointer. The local officer liked the look of his
bike and picked him out of the bunch.
After
lunch the lead and rear riders changed and we headed to Diggers Rest for the
break-up. It is a little demoralising to be going along at the pace we were
going and have an R1 pass you on the back wheel. I think his front tyre covered
10 less kilometres than the back tyre for the ride.
Thanks
to Ian for part one of the lead, and Ben for part two.
Thanks to Wayne and Joanne for part one of rear riding duties then Ian for part
two rear riding duties. Apart from Paul’s incident, it
was a great day with some hard riding. The bike clocked over 383.6 kilometres
door to door.
Martin Hastie (Honda CBR1100XX)