Loch Sunday 3^rd May, 2009

Paul Southwell	Honda CBR1000	Tony Stegmar	Suzuki Hayabusa
Ian Payne	Honda CBR1000	Rob Jones	Suzuki GSXR1000
Dave Ward	Honda CBR1000	Chris Pointon	Suzuki GSXR1000
John Rousseaux	Honda CBR1000	Peter Feistl	Suzuki GSXR750
Ern Reeders	Honda CBR954	Ettienne Gous	Suzuki SV1000
Ben Warden	Honda CBR954	Cameron Stevens	Yamaha FZ6
Kurt McEnaney	Honda VTR1000	Pina Garasi	Yamaha R6
Ron Johnston	Honda VFR800 F1	Geoff Shugg	BMW K1200
Graeme Tattersall	Kawasaki ZX10	Dave Chisma	BMW F800
Darryl Lyons	Kawasaki 636	Tony Raditsis	Aprilia RSV1000R

A crisp sunny morning dawns. There’s early snow on the Alps and it feels like winter but that’s officially still a few weeks away. A group of 20 are gathered at the Berwick servo. A couple of new bikes attract attention. Ronnie’s joined the sport tourer brigade with a new 08 model VFR with a swish paintjob and handgrip warmers. It’s almost run in. Tony Raditsis is back after a longish absence with a low mileage RSV that looks the business.

We tootle down the Pakenham bypass further than usual with Dave switching to the back roads at Tynong. The first leg is to Loch and some spirited riding gets us there. A few patches of damp under the trees in the shadow put an edge on things. Cameron scores a flat so most of the group take in the sun and swap tales in Loch.

After the break we climb up and follow the ridgeline to the south. Some good sightlines mean quick riding but concentration is still demanded here and later by bumpy black stuff with no centre or side lines.

The route is one that feels like loops within loops so that you’re surprised you don’t come up behind the tail rider. Keeping track of the turns is soon ditched in favour of enjoying the ride. A GPS in the tailpack records almost 4000 waypoints and a bit of digitrickery transforms the track data into a Google map. See http://tinyurl.com/Loch1.

We circle down to the coast seeing some eagles circling above us. The group is pretty well matched in speed so corner markers don’t get bored. After Dalyston we swing back north to Korumburra. Lunch at the bakery is accompanied by some ribald punning. The President is boosting his blood sugar with a ‘licorice slice’. It looks like it could have been injection moulded. I comment that some of our cornering is ‘by the grace of God’, countered by David Chisma’s observation that it’s going down on one knee and praying.

With clouds coming in from the west we’re reminded of the forecast of a possible shower, so rug up again and head for Warragul. This is a pretty varied road ranging from wide sweepers to tight bends with corrugations. Darryl comes to grief and scores broken ribs and clavicle for his trouble. After a wait, we regroup and head for Crossover. Out of Jindivick the sun gets lower in the sky and cresting some rises becomes a matter of faith.

This is my second ride on new rubber and it inspires such faith. The old pair were Pilot Road 2CTs and the rear returned a respectable 13,000 km in a mix of commuting, touring and scratching. From new though they slipped on white lines and bitumen lightly coated in sand, and their sport touring origin meant firm carcasses. Backing off the compression damping at the rear helped smooth the ride.

The new Pirelli Diablo Corsas feel like they were made for the bike. A more triangular front profile means easy turn-in; the flatter shoulders make for a rock steady lean and they stick to the road like the proverbial to a blanket.

So the day ended at Longwarry North with 11 of the 20 starters. The route was 350 km and the moving average 91 kph. The ride home was in that low autumn sun that’s as pale and sharp as a scalpel.

Many thanks to Dave Ward for leading, to Ronnie and Paul for sharing the rear rider duties and to Ben for helping with the two incidents.

Ern Reeders