Sutton Grange Sunday 26^th October, 2008

Pina Garasi	Yamaha R6	Ian Payne	Honda CBR 1000
Willem Vandeveld (rear rider)	Honda ST1300	Tony Saccuzzo	Kawasaki ZX7
Dennis Lindemann	Honda CBR 600	Geoff Jones	Yamaha R1
Renzo Cunico	Ducati 916	Bernie Foley	Suzuki DR650
Ben Warden	Honda CBR 954		9 bikes, 9 people

Finally Sunday! It has taken me a while to get back riding after the Wet ‘n Wild ride experience on Phillip Island. I ended up fixing the bike myself…again. Painting it black was a good choice.

Anxiously following the weather forecast during the week, with rain predicted, Sunday morning didn’t show any relief - grey clouds and humid. Making my way to Whittlesea, I realised it probably would be better to keep the visor closed today. Sometimes I think those bugs are aiming for our face.

I guess some of the regular riders were saving their tyres for the following Snowy Mountains weekend, but we still got a group of nine people taking off in one of my favourite directions. The first “70 km/h” bends, especially with an extra lane added, gets you in the mood right away. I haven’t been on the bike, unless riding to work, so it took a while to recover my confidence. I must say the track day really helped a lot finding out what’s possible - and what’s not - even though the track time wasn’t very long.

Corner marking at the Flowerdale intersection my visor was completely blocked with bugs. After cleaning and 20/20 vision returned, we made our way towards Strath Creek and from there, across on the King Parrot Creek Road to Kerrisdale. A very nice road with long, fast bends in fairly good condition. Geoff was already waiting at the intersection of Goulburn Valley Highway when I approached – he must have thought it a very nice road too. Just a few rain drops so far, but those would be the last ones for the day. A few more could have helped as my bike looked like a flytrap already.

With Geoff giving the ride a proper pace, we rode through Trawool, Tallarook, Glenaroua, and Pyalong for the first stop in Lancefield. (At Pyalong Renzo left the group to go back to Melbourne.) We filled up the bikes at the usual servo and ourselves at the usual place. After refreshments Ian was off, leaving seven people behind.

Leaving Lancefield we made our way through Cobaw and Carlsruhe riding parallel to the Calder Freeway for a while. (There is a city in Germany called Karlsruhe…hmm.) Crossing the Freeway at an underpass, we were now headed for Tylden.

All these names! I wonder how long it’ll take me to get used to these exotic place names. I try to remember a few significant places or names during the ride, but after a few days or even on the same day – nothing is left. But I guess that’s the purpose of those rides or maybe just for me – don’t think about anything and start fresh and empty the next week.

Anyway…we passed Spring Hill on our way to Glenlyon followed by Hepburn Springs and Shepherds Flat and then turned on to the road with three names towards Strangways – according to Google: Powell Connection Road, Daylesford Newstead Road, Hepburn Newstead Road. Generous people here!

We headed west from here towards Guildford, Vaughan, Fryerstown and then north towards Chewton and the second stop for lunch at Castlemaine. Riding along the road outside the local shops we found a place to park the bikes and met at Subway to fill up – the bike could wait.

The topics of this break were quite diversified, ranging from scenery along the Rhein in Germany, Red-light districts in Amsterdam and Hamburg and today’s female dressing styles. After sorting those things out, we rode back to Chewton filling up the bikes on the way. On through Faraday towards the topic of today’s ride: Sutton Grange.

Somewhere along here a Ford Falcon was driving in front of Bernie and me – after some nice bends by the way. It seemed to be in a rush or as I thought: some bloke who wants to show us that he’s faster than a bike. Usually it’s a 4WD somewhere in the Black Spur.

I corner marked at a right turn with Bernie, but not for long. I guess Burnie didn’t want that guy to escape as he was going into same direction as we were. (Ben took over Burnie’s corner marking spot.) After catching up, I just saw the car turning into a long driveway. Afterwards Bernie told me that the people in the Ford were old grandpa and grandma on their Sunday drive.

After riding through Redesdale, Mia Mia and back through Lancefield and Romsey we stopped at our break up point in Wallan.

Thanks to Geoff for leading this ride. I really enjoyed it! Hope the rain spares the Sundays from now on.

Special thanks also to Mister Sheen for getting my visor bug free quite often that day!

Dennis Lindemann