Nagambie – Goulburn Weir MKII Monday 13th June 2011
I'd start the description of the ride from complain:
It takes 1.5 hours to get to Whittlesea from my place! I am going to make a petition to city council to relocate that servo station closer to Southern suburbs, as I am become already tired just by riding to the meeting point. That is cruel! What did they think about when they put Whittlesea so far away? Didn't they know the famous MSR club meets there regularly?
So, we started at Whittlesea, went there. When, we continued there. And after that we turned here and rode there. And when we went here. Well, I have no idea where we were and that is what I like about club riding - I don't care about the route - I just enjoy the ride!
The ride… Ben probably watched too much of mud racing over the weekend, so we had all sorts of gravel, sandy, cross-country roads. Even wooden ones! Have you ever seen planking with thin layer of bitumen and stone powder over it? Yeah - that was one of them.
We visited some sort of dam. Pretty nice, and beautiful, but the thing I will remember is HUGE SPIDERS under the dam pass. I think those spiders eat humans who carelessly pop up on the dam alone. They obviously didn't touch us because we were wearing protective gear and helmets.
What else? Cliff's Kawa was greener than usual. I don't know why. Maybe he's bike changes the color with Cliffs mood, or he has a dozen of green kaws in his garage, changing the color tone with time of the season.
And my bike.. everybody loves my little super-reliable GPX. Seriously, it always gets an attention. I do not remember a ride without a question about my bike, like: "have you ever tried to wash it?", or "It should be bolt over here, shouldn't it?", or "what the hell has happened with your chain?", or "how was the ride on THAT bike?"). Well, in bikes defense, I was able to overtake Misho's FireBlade! Yes, thats right! I just turned on the afterburner and pushed off asphalt with my legs.
Interesting to note - during the ride I overtook 5-6 vehicles and was lucky enough to make it just in front of oncoming cars. I made myself several reprimands about that and felt sorry until I saw the other rider overtaking me while I was overtaking truck just in front of oncoming car! So I thought, "Well, I am pretty safe rider, compared to him" and continued on very proud of myself.
By the way - I've made a personal record on that day - it was the first time I made all legs with MSR and didn't get the feeling of bulldozered ass. That a milestone! Let’s give me the medal of Iron Bottom!
My friend Michael made his personal record too - he's made his second ride and didn't get lost. That another milestone! I've heard so many stories of people get lost on MSR ride and returned several years later with long beards, in ragged gears, and mumbling something like "Oh, that was a beautiful ride, but… did I pass the front leader?"
The cold weather brought another mystery of motorcycling - why you only shake only when you off the bike? About 12-15 bikes started the ride, but only 4 of them finished it. Only the strongest and hardiest specimens of the humankind managed to finish that tough ride. The other got frozen.
I want to let you know, guys, the end of the ride was just PERFECT. We stood in the sunset under the landing airplanes. That was amazing, touchy feeling. So beautiful! So exciting! Have no words to describe it!
Apart from that - it was, as usual, very beautiful ride. Marvelous landscapes, mysterious fog, homey milky cows, the hills in the sun, giant rocks, blue-blue sky and the smell of exhaust fumes from front rider. Excellent!
I love that feeling of wind whistling in my head after the ride! It feels just RIGHT.
Many thanks to Ben and others for organizing such a convenient, pleasant ride on Monday.
Roman Biaroza