Reefton MK II Sunday
26nd April, 2009
|
Ben Warden |
Honda CBR954 |
Darryl Lyons (2nd ride) |
|
It had been a late night the
night before, participating in a Trivia Night at Laverton, supporting a young
lady and her lacrosse team heading for
We duly set off in half-hearted pursuit of the gang. An hour’s start I figured would be nigh on impossible to catch in any sort of comfort, so resolved to use the ride as part exploratory. We travelled the exact route as Tim described above to Yarra Junction, the road basically dry and sheltered from the wind. Brand new tyres, fitted yesterday, Pilot Road II rear and 2CT front seemed to offer immediate grip though my brain wanted to lean less. It was only after leaving Berwick they saw their first corner so it took a few kilomters to gain confidence and relearn the steering/tip-in rate. Bikes always steer so fast with new tyres.
ANZAC Saturday had been a big day in the garage, listening to Collingwood, up by 14 points at the 25.5 minute mark of the final quarter, be overrun by Essendon who kicked three goals in as many minutes to steal the game. Brilliant! I changed three tyres (Lyn Duncan dropped around for a chat), swapped out the Ohlins rear shock for the standard one while it gets a service. Turns out the bottom “eye” has a collapsed rose joint bearing, explaining the 12 mm of movement in the swingarm at the axle end. Not bad for 289,000km (180 on the 929, 109 on the 954). Though it was starting to feel weird! Greased the linkages; beautiful roller bearings. Changed the front and rear brake fluids. With both wheels out I checked the steering head bearings – really bad! Forgot to buy fork oil, so will change the fork oil and do the bearings on the next free Saturday arvo.
Followed back roads to
Gladysdale, then back tracked to
Darryl and I pressed on over the
Reefton where the above mentioned snow started to appear. Darryl seemed to be
really enjoying the devious roads I was taking him on, and when he noted at
Cumberland Junction that he had never seen snow before, a cunning plan started
to ferment! Being from
It was a blizzard! Snowing and blowing hard. We parked in the carpark and made a beeline for the big restaurant with about 4 people in it including the Spanish-only speaking waitress. She had other attributes.
It was a white wonderland. We stayed quite a while drinking cappuccino and hot chocolate, eating carrot cake slabs. The hard part was knowing that we had to leave as the weather didn’t look to be improving at all – quite the contrary. Would we have any brakes? Would the motor start?
Luckily, I had my camera and was
able to take some very unusual shots. The snow, driven by the wind had
collected on one side of the bikes, covering the wheels and front disk, fairing
and seat. Darryl’s bright red and green
Down to Marysville: unrecognisable, properties surrounded with cyclone fencing, diggers parked up, scraping away and piling up mountains of corrugated iron and red bricks, the great survivors of extreme heat. The rain was setting in, most unpleasant cold fingers making their way to my crotch and saturating the gloves and inners, leeching out the black dye, later to become of great interest to small children.
Darryl was now not comfortable leaning the bike at all, his day done. Can’t quite grasp this concept of not hanging off, but still go fast around corners. At Narbethong, Melbourne a mere 80 km away, we departed company, Darryl for home and sleep before starting an all-night 10 hour nursing shift, and me for Rob’s warmth and hospitality extravaganza. Arrived with an easy 10 minutes to spare!
Ben Warden
Members and former members and friends seen at Rob Langer’s home: Tom Saville and Andi Sirninger.