I wuz robbed! Seventeen degrees they said. Sunny conditions they said. And there I was, ensconced in an alcove of the Whittlesea Mobil Servo, the only place I could find to get out of the rain. The relentless, incessant rain. The grey, mist laden, all-encompassing, soaking rain.

It began in the early hours of the Sunday morning. Lying in bed you could tell by the very sound of it on the roof that it was set-in for the long haul. This wasn’t to be some shower that would disappear with the first light of morning. No, this was mean, serious, stubborn rain, determined to eliminate my meticulously organised fuel economy ride from the minds of all M.T.C.V. members.

As I leant here in the alcove, surrounded by bags of fire-place kindling and crates of home delivery soft-drinks, I watched puddles of water growing around my gumboots. Would I be the only one to front up? Has there been a club ride where only the leader has attended? Was it the combination of factors (riding slowly and getting wet) that had caused the membership to stay away in droves? Fortunately the arrival of the honourable Editor/Secretary on his venerable 750 Kwacka interrupted the need for answers to these and other brooding questions.

With two of us now contributing to the puddles of water underfoot, we ruminatingly looked over the all-pervasive wetness. When lo and behold a third rider appeared on the horizon. It was our illustrious President, feeling somewhat guilty if he had chosen not to attend and thus not bring the emergency kit with him. However, the only emergency I could visualise on today’s ride was one of drowning. And unless there were several sets of water-wings in the kit, its presence was somewhat superficial.

So… Ben, Ian and myself looked out across the unchanged greyness. Privately I totalled up a few statistics in my head, and came to the conclusion that the three gentlemen in attendance had collectively accumulated very close to sixty years of continuous riding with the Club. Incredible. Incredible that motorcycling can cause grown men to stand around in pouring rain, desirous of determining whether their motorcycles are able to obtain seventeen kilometres per litre or sixteen kilometres per litre.

As the hour by now was 10:20 am, by unanimous vote we decided to reschedule the Economy Ride to another date. And our Editor will notify all and sundry of that re-allocation in this august journal.

Ben decided that going home was in his best interest, where Ian and I concluded that as we were already exposed to the elements we may as well make an excursion of it. To this end we splashed off, at some pace I might add, up the infamous Humevale road, an all-time favourite of mine.

Riding along the ridge of the Kinglake National Park we eventually loomed out of the mist at Kinglake township and headed straight for the bakery. In no time at all we were propped up on stools at the window bench with cappuccino in one hand and either coffee scroll or hot jam dough-nut in the other. In this totally appropriate environment we ruminated at length about motorcycling in general and the effectiveness of wet-weather clobber in particular.

Having warmed the cockles of hearts, we then ventured down the slopes of many a twist and turn to St. Andrews and eventually homeward through Panton Hill etc. As I closed on the metropolitan area, patches of blue began to appear in the western sky producing a fairly dry Sunday afternoon from memory.

So there you have it. The Fuel Economy Ride that wasn’t. But it will be, in the not too distant future.

Les TT350 Yamaha