Down in front!

I've neglected to post this here, intending to generalise the content a
little, but I forgot about it, and now I can't be faffed...

Warning! Clubman Tourers content!

Since the Australia Day 2000 Breakfast Ride was the first Clubman Tourers
event I'd attended on my bike, it seemed inevitable that I'd write an
account of the day.

As ever, my ride started with the unique but dull trip on the Hume from
Canberra to Sydney, enlivened by the tortuous roadworks north of
Canberra, by unseasonal cold, and the ever-present threat of rain.

Also as ever, I was late leaving, and late to the Killara bike-park,
where my patience with a very silly Kiwi splat video was rewarded with a
night in a bed in a room all by myself.

But of course great things never last, and Yahoo rattled my cage before
dawn. Various people milled around the kitchen fumbling with breakfast
until those paragons of virtue, Dave, Jane, and Mike, took off into the
greying pre-dawn to collect Mike's ‘other’ bike, leaving PJ and I to
mutter and groan in the gloom.

Finally, as we seemed close to ready, PJ took a phone call from his
intended in far-off Pommyland, and the minutes clotted into a
catastrophic delay. PJ, with a great effort, put down the ‘phone and we
rushed downstairs. I started to don my wets, leaving PJ wondering if I
knew something he didn't, and I pointed to the pool pock-marked with the
daylight's first rain.

PJ moaned, staggered, spun around, ground his teeth, held his head,
stamped his feet and otherwise carried on as if a life-changing decision
was splitting his psyche, such as whether to spend an hour with me or a
lifetime with Kate. And so it was that he chose conversation over
community.

This is the stuff that fills the campfire hours: My first official club
ride and I'm going on my own; I don't know how to get to the rendezvous,
which is WAY across town; And I'm critically late... But I bolted anyway,
into the angel-tears rain and the endless unknowns of Greater Sydney.

I fuelled up somewhere on the Pacific Hwy, and decided to stick to the
Princes Hwy for my southward route as it was clearly marked, fairly
direct for Sydney roads, and seemed to go where I needed. Once across the
Bridge and through Newtown, which at 7am on a public holiday seemed as
busy as I'd ever seen the place, I gave it heaps and flew across the
unknown near lightspeed. Leaving aside a minor diversion when I followed
my nose right through the Sutherland shopping centre, I had a crisis-free
run and was beginning to think I might nearly be on time.

You may imagine my delight as I saw the tram-crossing and, close by,
assembled Clubman Tourers. I wasn't too late! In fact, contrary to
motorcyclist tradition, I was exactly on time, and visors started to
clonk down and engines fired up as I switched off and lifted mine to let
Mike know what happened to PJ.

In moments we were away, the usual single-file of the world's most
desirable machinery playing follow the fat tyre. The usual games amongst
the world's most capable road riders meant that I was soon following my
nose, floating along a ridge above the bush, caught in an island of
isolation above the tree line, with no bikes in view and the park clear
from horizon to horizon.

About here my poor bike, not used to such work before breakfast, started
cutting out, to be repeated sporadically throughout the park. Apologies
to those behind me who must have wondered why I seemed to be pulling up
in some strange places.

The bike's farting distracted me a little, but I did get to appreciate
the park and the road. It seems very well maintained, with good surface,
comfortable width, and a diversity of bush and forest vistas pressing up
against the road or opening to a green canopy on the vast sandstone
sheets that characterise much of Sydney's hinterland. We must trust to
its recovery after repeated catastrophic fires.

Seemingly, within minutes, we'd reached the lookout - which marked the
end of the park run. After waiting for the tail-enders, for the smokers,
and for everyone to be thoroughly drizzled on, we turned and went back
into the dripping green tunnel that was the focus of our big day out.

Somehow we all survived the damp roads, the dozy tourists, the wildlife
(who must have been tucked into their leafy beds) and the exuberant
spirits of youth. We made our way to the abode of our hosts, where the
breakfasting began with sheets of snags, blocks of bacon, and kegs of
coffee. Conversations flowed and weaved across the hours, a post-modern
bluelight Clubman gathering with coffee and OJ instead of beer and
Stones.

By noon most of the guests had made their plans, and many had left, so
missing the arrival of Jenny on her new bike, a cute and chunky
tradition-inspired Honda XBR500. Pausing only for massed congratulations,
we were soon on our way: Jenny, Dave Loone on his trick Yamaha SZR660,
and me, on the battered and blemished baby Beemer. We were soon back on
the highway, passing the entrance to the Royal National Park. Such was my
morning in Sydney.

Nothing improves my appreciation of Sydney as much as leaving it, and,
for a change, I was in a position to follow the coast road south. It was
in the twisties nearing Wollongong that I learned the disadvantage of
following two singles at speed through a rock cutting, the XBR's majestic
two-pipe growl only surpassed by the trench mortars launched from the
SZR's enormous baffle-free can. We followed the highway to Berry, and
turned up the Divide onto a narrow, winding back road that climbed and
dipped and twitched to and fro into the heart of motorcycling. We
gradually spread out as our focus shrank to the few metres before the
next corner, and the next...

All too soon we were at Kangaroo Valley, where we met another sortie of
Clubman Tourers including Mark Cole, Mike Wood, and others. Some sought
another round of refreshments, some settled for mere food, while some
seemed to be sustained by the conversation and conviviality that is the
hallmark of a club as successful and satisfying as the Clubman Tourers.

The mixed crew took off homewards in smaller groups, with a string of
goodbyes, and I continued through the valley with Jenny, Mark, and Dave,
until the drizzle returned and we chose to don wets again. We separated
at the Robertson turn-off with my companions heading north back to
Sydney, and I carried on towards the Illawarra Hwy.

Not long after this, just past Fitzroy Falls, I thought the front end was
getting a bit snaky, and the handling decidedly suss, waving a bit in
turns and generally being slow, baggy, rough, and unresponsive. I
struggled on through the choice mountain country to Moss Vale, and at the
servo did the thumb test, which revealed the worst: front tyre dead flat.

OK, what now? Anyone with half a brain would lie low, book a room in the
pub and drown their sorrows, until something like a Moss Vale bike shop
opened in the morning. But surely no Clubman Tourer would take this lying
down, or even slumping on the bar!

Last time I had a flat was more or less deliberate. I'd had the same tube
in the front for the five years I've had the bike (and heaven knows how
long before that), and it finally let me down. I rode it home from work
on Friday night, come Saturday morning it was flat. Oh well, I guess
that's a good innings, and a nice saving not buying a $15 tube with each
front tyre as many others do.

I replaced this tube myself, with obligatory skinned knuckles, bruised
rim and, as I stood over the front of the bike in the Moss Vale servo,
examining the tyre, possibly a pinch in the tube. But this was months
ago, not the day before...

The tyre is pretty old. It can't get hot because it's bloody raining
again. The Beemer is light and easy to control. The roads are as smooth
and safe as they come. I've been that way dozens of times. I can go slow,
even slower than I go on the dirt. I can stop. I can go back. I can move
to Moss Vale and build a shrine around my rusting immobile steed... but I
go on.

I put some air in the tyre, ha ha. It's sweet for a while and I motored
along the Illawarra, but by the time I reached the Hume, it had gone flat
again. Oops, this is the last real corner before the 'Y' (the junction of
the Barton and Federal Highways in North Canberra), and I slowed right
down, with the front end working up a tremor. I held the bike upright and
leaned myself through the corner, gave it some in the slip lane, then it
settled and we were on the Hume, homeward bound.

It was easier than I imagined; as long as I kept a steady speed, dodged
the ripples, patches, gouges, and lane markers, and didn't try to change
direction too quickly, it wasn't too different to riding with an aired
tyre. As the forward motion eased some weight off the front, and the
spinning wheel forced the tread away from the rim and provided a little
rigidity in the sidewalls, it was surprisingly sustainable. Out of
boredom I even took it up to the speed limit a couple of times, but I'm
just an apprentice Clubman, and my nerves weren't up to that, so I did
most of the same-but-different journey, in a rare frame of mind, at 80.

The worst part was probably the rain. The sky was dark, dull, and
drizzling, with occasional wind gusts to pitch the bike one way or
another and spike my pulse, but because I was travelling so slowly,
nearly everyone passed me, dousing me each time with sheets of water from
the road.

Very much later, I was back in the thick of the Federal Highway
duplication north of Canberra, and my clenched fists trembled as I
started to mix with some traffic. Fortunately there's a servo close by
the roadworks, but once again I wasn't impressed with that disreputable
Caltex, and their lack of an air hose, and I very carefully crept another
couple of km to the Ampol over the border, and had my last fill of air
for the day.

It only lasted a few more kms to the 'Y', but that's near enough. I
turned up the Barton, one more corner, a couple more bends and I was back
in suburbia, two more low-speed corners and some twitches and shivers
around the traffic calming devices, and there was the last corner...

So that was that: against the odds, the baby Beemer got me home again.
I'd ridden around 170k in three hours, in light but steady rain, on a
flat front tyre. I collapsed in my wife's arms and sighed like one
released on probation from Hell.

Many thanks to Pat, who organised and led the on-road activities, and
Colleen, who did much to fix us, immobile, to seats in the backyard (not
to mention the caramel slice without peer). Thanks also to the collective
friendship and good nature of the members, who continue to inspire me to
this kind of silliness. And an honourable mention to PJ, who reminded me
that love triumphs (or beemers, according to taste).

Gary (all nervous again)

--
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

The Seven Deadly Sins of M.K. Gandhi

 

Errmm Is this REALLY a 4 year old ride report ?

<boggle>

Better late than never I suppose.

In about 1977 I had my very first motorcycle ride, it started well but
after cannoning off one fence running down a dog and running into
another fence post I fell off. Many thanks to my Uncle for selling me
the bike, and my father for pissing himself laughing <bastard>.

JL
(did I get the format right ?)

 

Yeah, I'd been warned about smoking with Gary, but 4 _years_ to post a
ride report? _Thats_ spectacularly un-motivated!

(whatever happened to "Never put off till tomorrow things you can get
out of altogether"?)

big

 

Sorry, '75.

JL

 

You win

Gary

--
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

The Seven Deadly Sins of M.K. Gandhi

 

Was that you waiting by the side of the road with Llew at the Sofala turnoff
at Bathurst on Saturday? Cant miss those red leathers.

Al

--
Al

http://www.users.bigpond.com/pennykid/alan/index.html
"The highest form of life in the universe is Man and the lowest is a
man who works for the post office." - Holly

 

Colour me impressed that you can still remember a day from 4 years ago
clearly enough to write a ride report.

JL

 

Want to hear about my recall from my burglary?

Want to hear about my recall from the time I rebuilt my first engine?

Hammo

PS don¹t take up fibbing, eh!

 

repressed memory therapy maybe?
or maybe just a flashback eh Gary.

 

Yes, the best thing to come out of Melbourne ... the road!

Cheers
Goaty

 

You wrote Melbourne, not Geelong (or Gippsland).

Hammo

 

Yes, with about 8 Clubmaneers, waiting for the Biggleses... didn't see
you though, were you heading west?

You can say that again That's how I caught them, with Llew in the
driveway of the Mt Vic servo... red leathers, red bike, triangular
panniers... bingo!

Gary

--
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

The Seven Deadly Sins of M.K. Gandhi

 

Don't get excited, it only took 2 years to write

Gary

--
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

The Seven Deadly Sins of M.K. Gandhi

 

You blokes seem to have not noticed the magic words "I forgot about it".

Gary (haven't forgotten about the March 2002 Supers ride report that I
haven't finished yet)

--
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

The Seven Deadly Sins of M.K. Gandhi

 

Yep, Melbourne is the arsehole of the world. Just passing through, were
you, Goaty?

 

Err no not really but thanks for offering.

Oh well I guess I have an unusually bad memory, and yes I avoid fibbing
- gets too complicated

JL

 

Nope, went up the Sofala road and headed to Hill End, I was riding a red
K100RS sidecar with two bugeyed driving lights on the sidecar. I take it
you guys were off to Kandos/Rylstone?

--
Al

http://www.users.bigpond.com/pennykid/alan/index.html
"The highest form of life in the universe is Man and the lowest is a
man who works for the post office." - Holly

 

The best view of Melbourne is in a rear-vision mirror.

 

Some observations on my recent drive from Melbourne to Qld.

*Sydney roads are a pain in the proverbial. And the traffic equally so.
*It's a rare thing to see a Queenslander indicate. Anyone actually using their indicators stood out
like dogs balls..
*Sydney roads sucked
*Surfers Paradise and the roads around Brissy were easy to navigate and seemed to flow well.
*Sydney roads sucked
*NSW seem addicted to permanant speed cameras on the Pacific Hwy.
*Sydney sucks
*Melbourne.....Ahhhh it's good to be home.

 

I see you've noticed Sydney's quality roads there Dale.
I wonder if the local guvvyment are also planning to incorporate a "your head explodes at 3km/h over the limit" policy.

Mike.S