Lavers Hill via Great Ocean Road Sunday 4^th December, 2006

Name	Bike	Front Tyre	Rear Tyre
Clifford Peters (leader)	Suzuki GSXR1000	Battlax BT002R	Michelin Pilot Power
Tony Raditsis	Yamaha TRX850	Michelin Pilot Power	Michelin Pilot Road
Cameron Stevens	Suzuki GSXR1000	Michelin Pilot Power	Michelin Pilot Power
Matthew Clarke	Suzuki GSXR750	Michelin Pilot Power	Michelin Pilot Power
Michael Bosworth	Kawasaki ZX10	Dunlop (US) Qualifier	Dunlop (US) Qualifier
Ron Johnston	Suzuki Bandit 1200	Dunlop 208GP	Pirelli Super Corsa
Chris Pointon	Suzuki GSXR1000	Bridgestone BT014	Bridgestone BT014
Ern Reeders	Honda CBR954	Metzeler Sportec M1	Metzeler Sportec M1
Ben Warden (rear rider)	Honda CBR954	Michelin Pilot Race	Michelin Hi Sport

There were so many bikes at West Gate Shell Servo it was unclear where our group could congregate. Tony, Matt and I ended up at the far end of the carpark. After a while we decided to move upstream of the bowsers where we occasionally group up. It was then that I noticed a few more of the members had clustered near our usual spot and we moved again! Matt and Mick went off for air, and in hindsight Cliff should have too, given that his bike handled like a sack of spuds with only 27 psi in the rear until Apollo Bay. Not that it was all his fault. Apparently the magazine had the starting time of 10 am whereas the web and itinerary card indicated the usual 9.30 am early start. So rather than being 15 minutes early he turned up 15 minutes late and didn’t perform his normal pre-flight checks.

The rest of us were keen to get going, away from this carnival atmosphere with car clubs, bike clubs, 4WDs and kids everywhere. It was quite a spectacle.

I took up rear station – the second most risky position in the ride structure after the leader, as evidenced by Geoff’s special effort last week. I started to have serious reservations about this decision after about 5 minutes when Chris and Cameron maintained a steady 95 km/h (indicated) down the freeway with lots of cars passing us. Cameron said he felt naked without the number plate disguising film, removed after a particularly exciting and expensive ($118, 3 points) discussion with Mr Plod during the week. They had confiscated said item and considered charging him under Section 74 which deals with deliberately installing equipment with the intention of defeating speed cameras; a mere 20 points and $1000 fine. Gulp. He argued the toss and eventually recovered his film that same day after talking to their boss, a bold move. But now he was suffering the “naked bike” syndrome. Or more specifically, I was suffering, particularly when you consider bikes’ speedos generally read 10% high. It could only get better!

Lara and the outskirts of Geelong came and went, steadily, carefully. The bypass freeway works are progressing slowly, wreaking vast damage to the countryside. I would not have liked to have bought property nearby only to have a freeway ploughed through my front yard.

It was 101 km to Moriac, arriving at 10.50 am. It was much cooler than I expected and I had foolishly not brought, let alone worn, my wet weather clothing. According to Cameron, the forecast maximum was 19 degrees. A stiff south westerly was blowing all day, adding to the wind chill factor. The upside was I would lose weight just by sitting around, the metabolism burning up kilojoules trying to keep warm.

During our 25 minute stop for a bite and fuel for some I gathered the troops for the obligatory magazine front cover photograph, which may have turned out to be a waste of time because when I downloaded late Sunday night I managed to miss where they went! Of course I efficiently deleted them off the camera before making the discovery that I couldn’t find them. They may still turn up – somewhere amongst the 4,000 photos!

Next stop Apollo Bay after 108 km at 12.24 pm. Highlights along this section were two echidnas just after Deans Marsh trying to cross the road and Mr Plod sitting in his 4WD pointing his radar backwards, out the window while he sat in the drivers seat, in the 60 zone opposite the first servo in Apollo Bay. The roads were in the best condition ever with no road works, no gravel and all recent improvements including widening in excellent condition. And there are many more signed corners with advisory speeds. Some lookouts now have large arrows painted on the road indicating which side of the road and what direction one should travel, presumably for overseas visitors used to driving on the “wrong” side of the road. Good idea.

We also noted a marked Traffic Operations Group car interviewing a couple riding two-up heading in the other direction around the cliffs after Lorne. That was the sum of the “moments” for the day.

My style as rear rider is to try and keep the leader in sight. This was achieved for almost the whole day as we rode in single file, riders all experienced and well skilled. It is a pleasant feeling riding in a long snake and of course 9 bikes looks like 20 when on the move. As rear rider you also get to see some interesting passing manoeuvres, with some riders perfecting a new term called “The Wedge”. Something about jamming in between two cars to avoid a head-on crash.

It was a further 49 km to Lavers Hill through the brilliant Otway Ranges. I was following Tony for much of this section. The horsepower junkies would get on the gas but through the tighter sections we would reel them back in again. I hit reserve at 249 km from West Gate and a couple of kilometers later we stopped at Lavers Hill for lunch at 1.05 pm. We sat outside at two tables, fast fast-food the preference. I settled on a spinach and fetta cheese wrap – hot – to carbohydrate load for the trip back and to recover some lost heating joules. It was cold, as usual. The Wedge exponents compared techniques, followed by a tyre discussion.

I had started collating bike and tyre statistics en-route while the others fuelled up, knowing from experience that I would not require fuel until Lavers Hill, particularly as rear rider. This theory was further corroborated by the instantaneous fuel consumption readout gizmo often showing around 20 km/litre. (It is probably not instantaneous but rather sampled instantaneously and averaged over the last 10 or so seconds and then displayed.) The tyre comparison – see table at top of page – provides a historical snapshot of what is “popular” choice by the tenuous extrapolation “If they are wearing it must be popular” (which does not necessarily follow). This prompted discussion on the cost of tyres and whether the Club should buy in bulk. I have pursued this idea with an email on the Monday after the ride canvassing for would-be purchasers of Michelin Pilot Powers. See Who’s News for more info.

At 1.48 pm we headed back to Apollo Bay and up the Skene Creek Road to Forest and Deans Marsh. Some hard braking was needed for the sharp right hand turn and Ron thought it better to overshoot rather than wear someone up his numberplate. After a long 152 km we reached Moriac at 3.17 pm. We were making excellent time, now with a pleasant tail wind. And it was at last warming up a bit too.

I knew I would be doing the writeup so had collected times and distances throughout the day. The tricky bit is getting the departure times as that requires the application of memory because you are usually on the bike by the time you remember to note the time.

At Moriac we bade farewell to Cliff as he would turn west soon afterwards at Batesford and begin the long trip back to Portland riding in the vicinity of 1500 km for the weekend. Ron took over leading for the last bit back to Lara, 45 km away, arriving at 4.12 pm, after a total of 455 km for the day. Farewells were completed and then most riders headed up the Freeway independently. I rolled down the driveway at 5.01 pm after 539 km, just in time to catch a bit of the Test cricket before heading out for a hard night of cards with friends.

Thanks to Cliff for his leading and apologies to anyone who turned up at 10 am at West Gate to find no-one there. Note to self : must severely reprimand proof reader, again.

The 954 clocked over 10,000 km (in my hands) on the ride with the odometer now showing 57,782 km. Next week sees a replacement cam chain tensioner as the beginning of the hunt for an engine ticking noise and noisy startup. It is probably the cam-chain but tensioners are a noted weak point for the model. According to my odometer it was 257 km to lavers Hill resulting in fuel consumption figure of 16.5 km per litre. I made it back to Melbourne and a bit more on that tank with economy of 17.8 km/l thanks to the tail wind.

Ben Warden