Saturday I went for a ride over the Reefton to Marysville, Black Spur and home again. I hadn’t been over that way for a long time. When I arrived home Cliff was there and had been waiting for a short while. I told him where I had been riding, and he said “You should have told me and I would have come along for the ride”. You could see the disappointment in his eyes. Maybe next time. Cliff stayed overnight.
Sunday, I got up bright and early, had breakfast and set off for Berwick and arrived just after 9.30 am. It was an easy ride, people still on holidays, not much traffic about. There were a few riders floating around; by 10 am there were 27 people ready to go. We haven’t had such a big turn out like that for a long time. There were 4 first timers including a father and son, dad on the CBR1000 and the son on Aprilia RS250.
Also, it was good to see Ern
Reeders back on deck. He seems to have been doing some unofficial hibernating
due to a skiing mishap. Paul mustered
the troops around and gave the usual spiel about where we are going for the
day. Highway, Nar Nar Goon, Longwarry, Drouin,
Poowong and onto
Everyone seems to be having a good time and things are uneventful. A lot of motorcycles have just arrived in Loch along with a lot of old vintage tin, Bugatti Type 37, a couple of those, 1920s Bentley, Lamborghini 70s, Ferraris 70s, there was a whole lot of vintage tin everywhere. A sight for sore eyes. If I had written this when I should have I would be more informative about what was there.
From
Frank on the Ducati left. Being a first time rider he found the ride too fast. From Korumburra to Warragul things started to unfold. Lee on the CBR600 hit the Armco. Cliff just missed him, but poor Ian didn’t fare too well, having to put the bike down to avoid running over Lee. Ian’s bike had cosmetic damage, but was still rideable: fairing both sides, scratches on engine cover, forks. Next incident further along the same road I let Tim, Ben, Ken and Dave past, but apparently, I only saw the aftermath.
Ben had gone too hot into a corner, Ken up his clacker. Ben on some late breaking, managed to get around, but Ken has had a lock up, front brake hard on, back wheel lift slightly, into the embankment, slide sideways behind the sign and back out on the road.
Dave was giving Ken the thumbs up for the good save. When we got to Warragul Ken had to stop at the roundabout where Ben was corner marking and have a nice long cigarette to calm his nerves. I followed Ken from where it happened and he took it fairly casually. He gave himself a fright.
There was no damage on Ken’s
bike, only some grass hanging out the fairing on both sides. Between
Neerim and Neerim Junction Geoff on the BMW K1200 RS had a clutch failure.
He was parked on the side of the road waiting for RACV roadside assist. We did
a loop from Neerim to Neerim Junction, the one
We didn’t stop in Noojee, but had a regroup a couple of kms out of town. Visors were being cleaned, cigarettes being smoked. A bloke in a council vehicle stopped to tell us that there had been a fatality and that the road was closed, were we missing anybody? Some people in 4bee stopped to talk to us. They wanted to go to Yarra Junction but had to go the long way home.
We travelled to the Nayook,
Powelltown road intersection and went the back way to Neerim, Jindivick, and
Ron Johnston