Who’s News April 2010
The Club web site at www.melbsportsbike.net.au accumulated 751 hits during April, up 83 on last month. Total visits are 59,092 since April 1996. The counters on the other pages after another month indicate that the Calendar page took 616 hits (total 9851 since 28th October 2008) and Great Roads 131 hits (total 2855).
Membership now stands at 82. Official kilometres for the month of April: 2110 km, up 430 from last month – 6 rides versus 5. Official Club kilometres for the month (people x ride length): 28,660 km, up 6,930. We had one crash for the month’s 6 rides, ending the run of 11 crash-free rides.
Ben Warden’s message to Google Group 8/4/2010 outlining various Club web page updates:
A lot of work has occurred on the MSR web site in the last few weeks. Your feedback is welcome and encouraged. Everything is effectively in draft mode and can be changed easily and quickly.
Here is a list of most of the changes:
Seen at the Social Sip,
Seen at The
The Club Participant of the Year is based on aggregate points accumulated at 1 point per ride, an extra point for leading or being rear rider, and 1 point per magazine article (maximum 2 per magazine). Attending one or more days of a weekend event scores 3 points for leading, 3 for rear riding duties and 2 points for participating.
The count is for the 2009/10 year ending
the ride before the 2010 AGM in July. After ten months, the top ten count is
Front Cover. Photo taken on the Boolarra Ride, Monday 26th April (ANZAC Day Holiday) at the Korumburra Bakery: Back row: Graeme “Pommy” Tattersall, Rob Jones, Mark Welland, Pina Garasi, Misho Zrakic, Kate Stewart, John Rousseaux, Ivan Radywonik, Peter Feistl. Seated: Ron Johnston, Cliff Peters, Marty Thompson, Mark Rigsby and Ha Du. Ben Warden behind the lens.
Barb Peters has volunteered to retype old magazines and they will appear in the Members area as well. This is a very long term project. So far this month I have put up 6 new magazines in 1979 and six in 1980. I will reprint the odd one that is particularly amazing.
Bio Page for the Committee members – check out Dennis Lindemann’s and Ern Reeder’s bio.
The Committee is considering purchasing T-shirts with the Club logo on the front and our name change history on the back, similar to those produced for the 50th Anniversary. The price will be in the range of $15-20 depending on numbers. If you are interested please advise what size and how many. We will probably get black writing on white background, nominally “white”; white writing on black background, nominally “black”. We could also get “grey” and “navy blue”. If you want 15 red ones, we can do that too. So far the response has been fairly underwhelming with only 6 non-committee members responding.
See elsewhere in the magazine for the Club Name Change History as we morph
from a scooter club to a motorcycle touring club to the current sports bike
riders club over a period of 55 years. We also change geographical emphasis
from Box Hill centric to all of
Welcome to new member Damir Djikic riding a green naked Kawasaki Z750. He’s keen and is hanging in there, despite the series of crashes a couple of months ago which would deter some new riders from joining. We wish him many safe and fun rides with the MSR.
Email from Ivan Radywonik to the Google Group, that night Monday 26th after his accident on the Boolarra ANZAC Day ride.
A very pleasant ride in an
ambulance became a four hour stay at Leongatha hospital where I had 7 stitches
in a gashed knee. Just as well they
looked past the long johns - they weren't cut but the blood seeping through
them indicated more than a grazed knee.
I phoned the people who were
looking after the bike - the accident happened outside their farm (on the
Arawata dirt …Ed) -
and Ray insisted on driving in to pick me up.
The damage to the bike was cosmetic: a smashed indicator, severe
scratches to the front panels all the way up the side of the windscreen, and a
christened crash bar (not a mark at the rear).
I checked out the crash site and
took some photos before it got too dark.
I could see where the front of the bike had impacted the road - and a gouge
line that stretched diagonally back up the road that the front wheel and crash
bar had etched out. The starting point
was quite close to the left edge - soft and slippery gravel. Clearly
a front wheel slip - very sudden and quick. Anyway, I rode it home, sore but relieved I
would ride again :-)
Many thanks for all the help
today. Kate was amazingly clear headed
and reassuring given I'd lost consciousness and couldn't remember much at all
for a while - until pieces started to filter through. I still can't remember
the incident itself - it was so quick!
And thanks to John for staying chirpy and to Ron for taking care of the
bike. Thanks especially to Mark for his patience and support at the hospital
while the medicos did their thing. I
assured him I could manage hanging around and would find a way back to the
bike. Thanks mate. And a special thanks to whoever called the ambulance; I might
still have this huge gash in my knee! Cheers from a very sore Ivan.
Happy 60th birthday to long standing Club President Ian Payne. Well, not quite, but on the 15th May. If only the rest of us could look as young and be as bike fit. Congratulations from all the members. Now for the party – possibly when Dave Ward returns from Tassy to collect his hail damaged ute.
Leaders required. It is that time of the year again when we need to add another four months or so to the itinerary pages. So if you would like to lead, or have a particular route or destination in mind, please suggest the details to any of the Committee people. Our strength is a Ride Every Sunday. We need you to help.
Google
message received from Dave Ward 29/4:
Greetings from the land down under! We
have only just got our computer up and running and are sorting through the
mail. First of all, a big thanks to all that came to see us off at the London
Hotel last Saturday night. We are most grateful.
The trip
over was fine though both of us were quite tired after packing all week. The
dogs survived the journey and so did the van (thanks Ian). We arrived in
Monday
we spent checking out the area which is very nice with the water, boats and Mt
Wellington in view. I popped into my new work to sign all the papers and see
how long it's to travel to work: 12 minutes in peak hour!
I am
going for a trail ride this Sunday with a guy from work and am looking forward
to it as I have no idea about the trails around here; I only know just the road
stuff at this point.
That’s
all for now and we will keep in contact.
Email from Barbara and Trevor Rolf Harris travelling around Europe: Hi, we are currently in
We spent a day in
We
went for a walk today around the area the hotel is in. We are close to the
Central transit station and have found that we have free travel on all public
transport provided as part of our hotel deal. We also have Internet access :)
Trevor's
phone has international roaming, but we have only been able to call our friend
Toni at this point. There seems to be some sort of magical art to international
calls on mobiles. Trev has found in the past that if he has received an SMS
from a number while overseas then he can reply to it. My phone also seems to
have international roaming set up. Hope all is well.
Google message from Ron Johnston for those people
interested in buying TYRES...Road, Off Road, Motorcross,
Super Motard. The
Club is considering doing a bulk buy (at a discount price) of tyres, provided
there are enough people interested. I
have spoken to Rick at Treads N Things, Ringwood and he's prepared to allow us
to visit the Workshop one evening during the week to give us a run down on the
products, whether they be Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli, etc. The tyres will
be on the racks and he will go through their applications and we will be able
to see what we want to purchase. Those interested please email me at
[email protected]
by 12th May, 2010.
Ben Warden was offered to purchase a bike at what seemed to be a price too good to be true. The deal was buy it tonight or it goes to a mate the next day. No pressure! I needed a second pair of eyes and Misho and Pina accompanied me to the viewing in Misho’s ute. Prior to inspection the smart thing would have been to use the service offered by Vic Roads (see attached document) that notes the status of the bike, in particular whether it has a higher purchase agreement with monies still owing, who owns it, of course, and whether it can be registered again ie whether the bike is a statutory write-off, or just a technical one. For $24 over the net all of this information can be provided within minutes. As it turned out, I was not well enough prepared and delayed the purchase until doing the checks by which time the sale had gone. Thanks to Misho and Pina for their time and help. Pina was particularly astute in reading the body language and listening attentively for relevant, subtle clues. Brilliant work!
Second Email from Barb
Hi, we left Düsseldorf on May 1 – a public
holiday in
We spent so much time walking around the
cathedral that we ended up staying in
We have learnt the hard way the Sat Nav does not know about road closures. For instance, the main route into one town was closed for road works. We backed up and then followed what we hoped were locals, along a back road. Driving on narrow roads while on the right side of the road is fun enough. Having a big truck come at you from the other direction and having no room to move over is more than a little scary. Trev was worried I was going to put him in the ditch or up a wall; I was worried that the truck was going to take us out. We made it :) And I stayed out of the ditch and away from walls.
Tonight we are in N … We have walked around the city wall. It is a very old town.
We are deciding what to do tomorrow - try
to find/follow the signs or speed things up and head to the towns of interest
quickly, so that we can then get to
Barbara and Trevor 'The Honeymooners'