Thorpdale                             Sunday 1st February 2009

 

Ian Payne

Honda CBR1000

Ron Johnston

Suzuki GF1200

Misho Zrakic/Pina Garasi

Honda CBR1000

Chris Pointon

Suzuki GSXR1000

Paul Southwell

Honda CBR1000

Rob Jones

Suzuki GSXR1000

John Rousseaux

Honda CBR1000

Craig Davidson

Suzuki GSXR750

Ben Warden (leader)

Honda CBR954

Garth Fry (1st ride)

Suzuki GSXR750

Graham Brown

Honda CBR900

Cliff Peters

Kawasaki ZX10

Jean Eldridge

Honda CBR600

Paul Walkley

Kawasaki Z1000

Neville Hoare (1st ride)

BMW K1200

Dave Hives

Kawasaki ZX9

Rob Langer

BMW R11560GS

Dave Ward (rear)

Kawasaki Z750

Graham Tattersall

Yamaha MT01

Henry Wright

Triumph 675

Peter Jones

Yamaha R1

 

21 bikes, 22 people

 

The road.  An unbroken strip of compressed rock and dead sea creatures extending from your front door to your destination. Which on Club rides is mostly right back at your front door.  So why bother when you will just end up where you started? It was just after Loch that it began.

Brake, brake, BRAKE! The wind blast pushing you back into my seat being replaced with the crushing force of braking on my wrists, feeling every rock in the bitumen as the tyre is pressed into the tarmac. Gear down, ease brake and hurl the bike across for the left hander, applying the first millimetres of throttle travel to balance the bike. Hold the bike (and your breath) for a split second while the apex comes into view. Open corner, open road slightly uphill. Bring the power on, like a 747 preparing for takeoff, smearing some of Dunlop’s finest across the road. Full throttle now. The deep roar of the engine rising to a crescendo of screaming pistons, valves and fuel, the eyes widening as the scenery rushes towards you with exponential velocity, the front tyre feels like a gust of wind would lift it from the ground as the motor makes that special noise right before redline and barks as the next gear is fired into place. Just in time for brake, brake, BRAKE!

And repeat for about 350 km over dry grass hills with storm clouds on the horizon, flowing highways near the sea. Open farmland and deep forested valleys. A group of like minded fools blasting across the landscape, sharing the experience, the excitement and a few jokes along the way.

It was on days like today you knew exactly why you bothered.

I like Club rides.

 

Henry Wright

 

Leg 1. Berwick, missed Nar Nar Goon turnoff and took the next one down to Bunyip which seemed to save time with less corner marking. Drouin, normal route down Warragul Korumburra Road to Ranceby, right to Poowong, Nyora and back to Loch. Quilt Show again, people everywhere. Picked up Rob Jones band of merry men who had mistakenly headed for Yarra Glen pickup. Long morning tea break. Ian headed home for social event. Rob Langer had also bailed out earlier with a disintegrating clutch.

Leg 2. Fires having destroyed houses and sheds in Boolara, Boolara South and Mirboo North after a week of heatwave temperatures culminating in 43,44 and 45 deg, the planned route to these parts was abandoned in favour of a less serviced (police, SES, fire brigade) locale. Heading for Kilcunda seemed an easy option offering spectacular views and a wide selection of rarely used, brilliant motorcycle roads.

Heading south from Loch for 16 km we turned right towards Anderson, picked up 2 km of road works where all the bitumen was scraped off. Super smooth and fast with little dust, but somewhat embarrassing as I had just announced there would be no dirt on this ride. Looped around through Kernot and Almurta and started climbing south through Glen Forbes towards Archies Creek. Tricky right hand turn back to Woolamai and a group photo about half way to the next stop, views of Phillip Island in the distance. It was a close run thing for the front cover but chosen cover has more people. Noted Rob Jones had earplugs up nostrils, always doing something different in the photo, Pina setting about to punish him.

On to Kilcunda, a few kilometres of highway, then back into the sweepers heading for Archies Creek, big sweepers around Kongwak and on to Korumburra for lunch at the bakery. 

I caught up with first time rider Neville Hoare who I recognised from chatting with a week earlier at Bruthen. He was riding with the Shear Waters Ulysses group and was talking with former MSR members Jack Youdan and Danny Vits. Former President Vince Green was also about somewhere.  It turns out that Neville was interested in purchasing Rob Langer’s dirt bike and was about to drop around to view it. Rob said, “Not today, I’m off to Thorpdale with the MSR leaving from Berwick.” Neville lived nearby and so ended up on the ride, aiming to catch up with Rob (who left with the failing clutch!). A small world.

Pina was still on the back with Misho, her bike still not fixed after the altercation with the kangaroo – see Who’s News.  Paul Walkley was back from the wilderness, his first ride with MSR for over a year (?), but his bike and road speed still keen as ever.

Jean, don’t see him for months on end, now on consecutive rides. Jindabyne has that effect and I note 7 riders from the Jindabyne Epic were back for more 5 days later.

Ronny had the Bandit back in road going form, albeit with the wrong colour top fairing after the bike slipped off the side stand at Mansfield, toppling over and just missing Dave’s CBR1000 parked next to it. But since then Ron overbalanced in the shed and dumped it (gently) on the opposite side. When luck is running against you …

Leg 3: We headed straight up the Korumburra Warragul Road. Paul Walkley was soon on my tail but after a couple of bad front end loses in the tight naggery stuff where the corrugations overloaded the hard compound Pilot Road 2, I waved Paul on. A couple of large blocking boats allowed me to keep him in sight at least.

At Warragul we turned right at the big roundabout (all except Dave Ward who took the freeway option, still suffering the effects of a cold, hence his rear riding duties, an easy task today with this highly skilled group) and headed for Nilma and the Crossover high speed sweepers. On through the Neerims and Yallook by-passing the highway where ever possible, for the final fling into Powelltown.

Plenty of stories to tell while eating ice-cream and drinking beers. Home well before the sun gets annoyingly low.

 

Ben Warden