Dams Ride - Sunday January 29th,
2006
|
Yamaha
FJ1200 |
Trevor
Harris (Leader) |
Honda
CBR9x9 |
Craig
Morley |
|
Suzuki
SV650S |
Tim
Eamon (Rear) |
Honda
CBR929 |
Simon
Trubiano |
|
Suzuki
GSX-R1000 |
Chris
Pointon |
5
bikes |
5
people |
Up
early-ish, have breakfast and head off to the local
Shell station to get some VSX4 for the YZF as the oil (level) light had started
to come on at times. Get there and find
that they don’t stock it. Head back home
and get out the old FJ.
Simon
was going to show up at 9:00am so that he could follow me to the Berwick
pickup. As it turned out, he followed me
down the street as I was going home.
Swap bikes, get gloves sorted out and we’re off.
It
was going to be a hot, muggy day around 30 degrees, in some ways a nice change
to the heavy rain that I encountered when doing the pre-ride the day before (in
an Astra, so I stayed dry).
I
took the easy but boring way there from Bundoora: Eastern Freeway,
I
have travelled this road a few times now and learnt which turns to take at the
roundabouts, unlike last year when I managed to lead a large group up a
dead-end road. It’s a mixture of 60, 80
and 100 km/h sections as we move in and out of outer suburbia. Hard to describe but I got us from Berwick to
the first dam – Cardinia – and all on the intended roads this time. Chat, get the details of the group onto my
phone (no pen, but I can record sounds) and then onto the next leg.
Lots
of 60 km/h roads on the way from Cardinia to dam number two: Silvan. We head through Puffing Billy country with
light-to-medium traffic. If the council
would put a more suitable speed limit along here, it would be great!
Another
dam, another blurb on age/volume/etc and I give the group a choice on the next
part of the day. We can go to the Upper
Yarra Dam, over the Spurs and then Maroondah, with lunch at Marysville, or we
can go straight to Healesville, up to Maroondah then have lunch and break
up. A quick chat and we decide that the
last day of a four-day weekend would result in too many 4WDs on the Reefton. Zigzag time, hitting the Healsville
to Koo-Wee Rup road and we
get to dam number three, at Selovers Lookout. Craig didn’t realise it was there!
Another
quick chat and it’s to be lunch at the Marysville bakery, with permission to
pass the leader on the Black Spur. Craig
does just that, and christens his new knee sliders. He also managed to connect with a cats-eye
but the slider stayed in place, unlike the one he told us about that came off
and disappeared into the scenery a few years back.
Lunch.
Talk. I swapped my slightly
mouldy apricot pie for a less-mouldy one, and we heard tales from Craig about
his earlier days with the Club. This was
the break-up point after 154 km.
Trevor Harris