Mt Donna Buang MK II Sunday 16^th August 2009

Ian Payne (half rear)	Honda CBR1000	Mark Rigsby (half rear)	Suzuki GSXR1000
Misho Zrakic/Pina Garasi	Honda CBR1000	Grant Stewart (1^st ride)	Suzuki GSXR1000
Brien Armstrong (1^st ride)	Honda VTR1000	Geoff Shugg	Suzuki DL650
Ben Warden	Honda CBR954	Dave Chisma	BMW F800ST
Ha Du	Honda CBR600	Paul Wakeling (1^st ride)	Yamaha TRX850
Dennis Lindemann (leader)	Honda CBR600	Clifford Peters	Kawasaki ZX10

They say you should be careful for what you wish for because it may very well come true, and then some. I’ll own up to the wind and rain on the day, but I’m certainly not responsible for the previous night’s howling storm which completely carpeted the roads, and 90 percent of today’s ride in debris, making for a really slow ride (for me—and poor Mark, for that matter) through the Reefton Spur. Mark and I were in for a reeaaally long and painful slug. You know you’re ready to call it a day when you’re riding in the tyre track, counting each slow, cold, self inflicted, rain drenched kilometre through the Reefton Spur, whilst dodging sticks and everything else. My heart skipped a big beat when the front tyre caught the edge of a broken stick and for a split second, lost and regained traction mid-corner. Thank goodness for the tread on my tyres! Still, two sticks and two big skips of the heartbeat isn’t bad considering the layers of debris through the Reefton today.

I guess we should have seen it coming. Being greeted at the Berwick servo by blustery winds and sleet, you just knew you were in for one of those days. One by one, we watched them leave. Bronwyn and Dave were the first two to jump ship after a very quick hi-bye at the meeting point. I daresay that they were pretty happy to leave us behind. J Then Paul’s 1000 literally got blown over at the bowser and snapped off three quarters of the front brake lever and leaving other minor cosmetic damage to the right side. L And then there were 13. Moments later, one of the plastic rubbish containers sitting at the pumps came sliding across the stretch of concrete towards us, stopping just two metres short of where Cliffy was putting on his wet weather pants.

Luckily, Dennis managed to sort out the nail-in-tyre problem with some help from Ben the day before, so at least we still had our lead rider for the day. We headed off towards Gembrook joined by three new riders in the group: Grant, Paul W, and Brien. I wondered if they knew what they were in for. I guess Dennis decided the weather and road conditions weren’t challenging enough, and decided to add in a couple of u-turns along the way. J Thanks to Ian for turning my bike around on the slanted gravel.

Further along, I passed Geoff and Ian corner marking at a roundabout and distinctly remember thinking for some time, as I happily rode along, that Dennis must be miles and miles ahead because I still hadn’t caught up to him corner marking anywhere yet. Turns out I completely missed Dennis on a left hand turn in Cockatoo, intended directly for Gembrook. I did not spy with my little eye anyone beginning with the letter D! Anyhoo, Ben-the-rescue-team tracked me down seven kms later, overtook me, and led the way to where the group was headed. Kinda funny, actually. Apparently we did an extra 18 kms all up on the detour via Packenham Upper to Gembrook. Phfwwf, tough roads with all sorts of debris you can possibly imagine, from whole tree branches, twigs, bark, leaves, stems, and lots of squishy, slippery stuff that looked like multitudes of overly soggy tissues—talk about hard going, but with a rider in front who knew the roads and with a significant amount of riding experience, we made good time and eventually ran into Cliffy and Mark as they rode past at a T intersection at Yarra Junction, and we continued on with the group.

Morning tea at Warburton found us minus Grant and Paul W, two of the new riders, which brought the group to 11, and my, weren’t our spirits high. Maybe it was an adrenaline rush from having made it through the relentless rain. I couldn’t help but smile at one of the local’s disbelief at our group’s determination to ride in the crazy weather and road conditions as the rain got heavier.

Warburton was jam packed considering the weather, and the view was picturesque from where we were sitting. There was a scooter gang of four or five zipping through the main street, one flying what looked like a golf flag and a couple of others wearing makeshift plastic...rainbags? They certainly weren’t raincoats. I think we saw them again later as we descended, and they ascended Mt Donna Buang. Sharing the covered cafe footpath strip with us were also two happy little boys doing circuits on bicycles with mud speckled faces and dirt drenched backs having a ball, two little girls on ponies, and the usual brunch scene of couples, families, etc.

At this stage, we weren’t yet soaked to the bone—which reminds me, having a late one the night before and not pre-packing will result in you forgetting everything for the ride in the morning, like the weather forecast, wet weather pants, spare gloves, chain lube, Mr Sheen—which I finally remembered to buy, but forgot to bring, etc. All this inevitably leaves you open to your fellow riders, namely Geoff and Ben, taking it upon themselves to remind you at every stop, as they watch you gradually get more and more soaked, that this is a good lesson not to forget your things next time. Thanks guys. You both have such beautiful, caring hearts.

Ian, the only one thus far, it seems, aside from Paul S, with a legitimate reason, took his leave after a quick bite as the now 10 of us headed for the cold, misty mountains. We took a short break up the top of Mt Donna Buang to properly take in more light rain and fog, very few of us willing to remove our helmets. After the group shot, we lost another two riders. Not literally...“roll over, roll over, so we all rolled over and two fell out.” The two being Brien (who’d done well to last as long as he did in his soaked jeans, bbrrrr!), and Dave Chisma, who had battery problems.

With eight left, we rode back to Warburton as the rain continued to pound so Dennis and I could refuel before continuing on through the Reefton Spur. I shan’t repeat myself about the trek through those hills and corners, but when I finally made it out, I found everyone grouped on the corner and was very tempted at this point to pull the plug. I quickly weighed my options: would I rather just be cold, or cold, lost and stressed as I try to find my way back to Melbourne on my own? It was a no brainer. I decided to stick it out until Marysville and am glad I did because the combination of having your fellow riders around and the increased speed made the chill so much more bearable, and my mood instantly picked up. Corner marking with Pina and Misho, I found out that Mark had headed home, so we were now down to the soaked up seven: Dennis, Ben, Cliffy, Pina, Misho, Geoff and I.

We were a bit of a sorry sight upon disembarking from our bikes in Marysville, but still relatively merry. Even so, the look on everyone’s faces made it pretty clear that we were in real need of warm food, drink and temperatures. Cliffy and Geoff probably looked the most normal of us all. Ben’s hands were stained black from his wet gloves. If you didn’t know better, you’d be scared. Dennis, Pina and I were drenched in various parts. The rain had made it through all my five layers of clothing—six, if you include the DriRider jacket, not that I complained. Dennis threatened to ditch us mid ride as he sat on a ledge wringing the water out from each of his socks—hilarious sight!—but we’d like to think that he didn’t really mean it. J I took Dennis’ lead and wrung the water from both of my gloves, which Ben found highly amusing, and then attempted to do the same with the DriRider, but drip not-drying ended up being a much easier option for the jacket. As Cliffy noted whilst laughing, it was only going to get wet again anyway. It was pretty funny seeing the trails of puddles we left everywhere we went in Marysville’s packed and now only bakery. A day like this really makes for animated conversation, but one of us was uncharacteristically quiet, trying to warm up with some hot chips and hot tea while the rest of us tried really hard not to laugh. Cliffy and Ben joked that it would be sunny on the other side, and what do ya know. The sun came out and showed her full glory just in time to last the whole ride home from the breakup point.

After a bit of defrosting and sustenance, I was ready to get back into it again, all thoughts of calling it quits gone, and prepared myself to put all the cold and wet gear back on again. Meanwhile, someone else was frantically trying to find where the wind had blown the inner lining of their dry plastic/rubber gloves, but then decided they were too wet to wear when they were found and needed help to take them off again. You had to be there. J Lake Mountain, here we come! You should have seen the fog. So thick for part of the way up and down, you couldn’t see more than a metre in front of you, but so pretty too. Marco!...Polo! The toll gate was in action, but we declined and headed on to Healesville.

Geoff, Pina and Misho went their own ways home from Healesville. It was still early so Cliffy, Dennis and I decided to follow Ben home through Christmas Hills. The boys made lots of trouble with the Sunday drivers who all took it out on me, being the last in line: angry fists being shaken out of windows accompanied by very aggressive expressions, one driver did a lot of yelling (fortunately, I couldn’t hear any of it), flashing headlights, disapproving headshakes—and I’m the goodest one!!

It would be fair to say that I was near shivering by the time I rode into my driveway and wasted no time defrosting. The group took it easier on the roads today, making for an incident free day. It was just as well because if you could pick when to have your incidents, today was not the day to be stuck by the side of the road, although, our delirium would have provided for much entertainment and laughter...for a short while. There’s nothing quite like toughing it out as a group, knowing you’re not the only mad one wanting to be out on the bike today J A marvellous (except for the Reefton Spur bit), adventurous and very memorable day. J

Thanks so much to Mark and Geoff for sharing the rear riding, and to everyone else who came along. Dennis, you did an outstanding job leading today’s ride and I think you deserve top points for doing it in the hairy conditions that we were in with the pressure of the guys sitting up nice and close behind you. Anyone who’s game enough to lead a ride in these sorts of conditions so people like me can still go out for a ride is very cool in my books. Cheers to you!

Ha Du