60 and the Old Road (*almost* boring now)

Yes, I can confirm with my own sad eyes that the Old Road is now 60 from the
Hawkesbury River all the way to Old Sydney Town. Riding up there today, I
did get stuck behind a few locals (pulled out from the houses just north of
the Hawkesbury bridge) and you wouldn't believe it, none of them stuck to
the 60 limit! You can bet they all had something at least to do with the
lobbying but they all drove at 75+. One old dude in a greenish Barina hit a
whopping 85 at one point.

I wonder if the fuzz will be noting their extreme disregard for the law
along with ours???

So are the new speed limits smart? Well, that depends on what is trying to
be achieved. IMHO, as a means to turning reasonable road users into sources
of cash while annoying the shit out of us/them, then it is a smart move. If
lowering the death/injury rate is the goal, then it would seem reasonable to
assume that the narrow bandwidth of road users hell-bent on becoming
hell-bent are not going to be stopped by these measures. As Max put it
today, perhaps education is the only way to stop stupidity - not the cheap
way but life is not cheap. Of course educating wayward riders isn't going
to produce nice revenue results.

*Yawn* - all said before but I was a bit pissed off today I must say. More
and more we have to abide by fvcking stupid laws created by people who are
removed from the 'coalface' and perhaps bent by agendas we all sense but
which have nothing to do with the preached intended outcomes (safety etc.).

</rant>

As Cam put it, if you get nailed on the OR this weekend, then you deserve
it. The place will no doubt be crawling with radars, cash registers and
noise measuring devices.

Cheers,
Dave E ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX

 

Oh well, if the 60 limit adds another 10 minutes to my trip that I
take up there once a month... I guess it is worth it. As I now sleep
very well indeed knowing that the residents will have to add the same
time to their daily routine.

Hmmm.. a trip to the shops and back (or place of work) = +10 minutes
each way, return makes it 20. 20 x 5 days a week = an extra hour and
40 minutes travel a week.

Times that on a yearly rate, and well... heheheh.. who is the real
loser here??

Good luck in getting rid of the bikes. Hope you like your new 60 limit
poorly harrassed "we own the road" residents.

 

Who said it's the residents doing, a troll?

It seems to me to be part of an area wide conspiracy to gradually lower all
limits by 10km/h! Further north the Pacific Hwy and other roads have
dropped from 100 to 90, 80 to 70 and 70 to 60 over a period of time.

 

Pisshead Pete wrote:

I _think_ that there is a scheme where by the limits on the Pacific Hwy,
a bit north of Karuah, get dropped by 10 kph for high days and holy days....
like christmas time.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

I suspect the pedestrain council has something to do witht his. Soon,
the speed limit will be so low, it will actually be quicker to get to
your destination by pushing your motorbike there, as there is no speed
limit for pedestrians!

Hmmm.. gotta love those speed signs...
10
40
50
60
70
80
90
100, and
110
km/h speed limit, all in operation on our roads. (Did I miss any?)

No wonder everyone just does 100 km/h an hour! It's much easier, and
apparently safer too. That way, they can actually concentrate on the
road instead of having to watch the side of the road in case the speed
sign changes again and again and again.....

 

Strangely enough Dave, we came through heading south yesterday afternoon
around 2 pm - having done the Putty- Wollombi loop - and there was not a cop
anywhere, nor any talk of them.

On the Putty however, we were told of 1 mobile and one stationary in the
Bulga curves............

...............only to go through there at the speed limit and find they must
have fucked off for lunch.......

ck

 

Yeah, same for me on Sat morning. We passed through mostly sticking to the
limit, certainly on straights just waiting for a glimpse of a trap but
nothing. From Berowra to the Corrugated Cafe I even put the baffles in.
Damn! Hehe

It's like being flashed by oncoming traffic and not seeing a copper. Nasty
trick that.

What a waste eh? It's a bit of riding to get to those Bulga curves and then
to ride through at walking pace... We decided to enjoy the Mangrove >
Wisemans run and without being too silly made up for the OPH crawl. ;-)

Cheers,
Dave E

 

It's about 40km from Berowra to Somersby isn't it? You ride up a bit of
road which begs to be ridden at speeds in excess of the posted limits,
with a real and ever present fear of having your speed and noise checked
for compliance for 35 minutes. The alternative to spend half that time
cruising up the freeway at 110kph with no real chance of being done for
anything. And you're out riding this road because it's an enjoyable
passtime? Does not compute... Does not compute...

Nev..

 

Hi Nev,

Yes to a degree if your goal is to get from A to B. However, from Berowra
to the Hawkesbury there is no change to the old 80 limits so you get a few
nice corners there to play with and not much chance of being nailed (touch
wood). After that it is 60 all the way and there are a lot of 45 corners
linked by the inevitable straights and hidey holes for traps but you can
still enjoy a few sequences at pace (again, touching wood) just being
sensible on the straight bits.

For my money, keeping around 60 on the straights and having some *sensible*
(ie. not 9-10/10ths) fun on the tighter corners[1] is still far better than
taking the freeway. Thinking about it, if you stick to that approach, you
are probably less likely to be nailed than the locals who do the whole thing
at 85 (as I saw the other day).

Illegal pipes may be a different story but in the hundreds of passes I've
done up there, I'm yet to be stopped by the EPA.

Cheers,
Dave E
[1] On Sat a couple of sports bikes (CBR600RRs I thought) flew past,
scraping the knees on a fairly tight left hander (as we saw it). These guys
were up each other's asses and on that surface with random collections of
leaves, surface irregularities and all manner of riders, some quite handy at
running wide, the mind boggled as they flashed past, sparks coming out of
their knee sliders. The whole 60/40/20 speed limit thing will never affect
this lot I thought.

 

Our regret on the Putty run was not filling up at the hafway house and
choosing to do it at Broke

Had we refilled at the halfway house then we could have gone through the
Bulga curves, seen there was no cops/stationary gun, switched back and done
a fun run outside of his line of vision.

Not enuff fuel to do it .................................bugger

Overall it's still enjoyable though Nev, it's just a game after
all...............

ck

 

ck wrote:

I hope you have lodged a complaint with the appropriate police station.

....and, demanded your petrol money re-imbursed.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

very inconsiderate of them we thought............

ck

 

A road north of Melbourne was popular with riders. Locals whinged about
speeding bikes, etc..

Vicroads reduced the speed limit to whatever and cops set up radar
traps. Guess who copped the brunt of this enforcement? Hint; it wasn't
the riders...

 

There were at least three police cars ( two marked, one unmarked maybe
another unmarked ) at the Calga interchange Saturday morning around
10:30. They were no where to be seen later that afternoon as I drove
back down around 1:30ish.

Since all that road from Calga to Brooklyn can be done at 90 I wonder
how they justify the 60 on what was I believe mostly 100 a few years
ago. Am I going crazy or was some of that two lanes and 100km/h not so
long ago ?

 

Hmmm - I think we passed there at around 9:45am Sat and didn't see anything
resembling officialdom, other than a couple of guys and a white Ford wagon
parked at Berowra Mobil, one of the guys was packing but neither wore
uniforms. Didn't like that much. They drove off just before we left - I
initially though they could have been EPA but then saw the gun.

When I was growing up in the 70s in Wauchope, we took the then Pacific
Highway on every trip into Sydney. Dad was (is) a bit of a gun driver, and
in those days the limits were all 100 in the area and our family car (HR
with "three on the tree"!) traversed the road at this limit with no problems
or discomfort to mum (who was less interested in traction limits than I was
at the time...). This is the conversation we had on Sat actually. Compare
that road with some of the 100 zones between Wisemans and Wollombi and the
whole 60 thing is so inconsistent.

Oh well, c'est la vie eh?

Cheers,
Dave E

 

Loooxury ! We did it as a kid in an EJ in the 70s - the HR was a Ferrari
by comparison (and yeah the old man had no worries about sticking to
the speed limit (and I was watching over his shoulder so I could bag him
out if he slowed down - **** of a kid I was*)

JL
* some things never change

 

First parsed as "the old man had no worries about sticking
it to the speed limit", sounds pretty much exactly like *my*
old man in The Mighty EH(tm).

G

 

Sounds near enough

JL

 

My old man had an XK Falcon.... Does that mean I can't join in?

 

My old man had an EH, but I don't think I can join in... he drove like
Aido rode.

Nev..