Walhalla MKII Sunday
20th April, 2008
Guten Tag! We met
this Sunday in Yarra Glen with a huge turn-out of 22 riders. Already my trip to
Yarra Glen was showing that this will be a perfect day to ride as I saw heaps
of other big motorbike groups heading in the same direction. After the briefing
we took the
Being off the bike for while due to one still unexplained incident - somebody tipped over my bike in the parking bay in the housing complex and left it with a bent throttle handlebar and some scratches. I also discovered a screw in my back tyre 10 minutes after the first discovery. Made my day! Anyway, I was feeling kind of strange the first few kays after days of riding just straight roads to work. After a short while on the road a rider was indicating us to slow down. Speed cameras already?
At the next right hand bend I saw Dom’s red Hayabusa lying on the ground and him sitting on the crash barrier with support of some other riders next to him. He had dropped the bike at a low speed trying to stop with the front wheel in gravel. Greg Trainor, Darryn and Dave took care of him while the others left to catch up with the ride. Not really a good start.
After some nice twisties from Woori Yallock through some back roads to Yarra Junction, Powelltown and the first stop in Noojee I noticed that a telephone booth can be very entertaining for teenagers in this area…mobiles are being delivered soon. At this point there were more bikers in Noojee than citizens.
After a short stopover we were off for some more nice roads with lots of twisties up in the hills. With fires to the left and right of us, burning logs and occasional fumes, we headed for Hill End and then Moe to fill up our bikes and bodies. Everybody was scattering for food with Rob, Graeme, Kurt and Dave Wilson leaving the ride, reducing the pack to 16 riders.
Leaving Moe - passing a goat strapped next to the street – we rode through Yallourn North and Tyers on some awesome roads with just me, myself and I and the road. It can’t get any better!? I reached the T-intersection to Walhalla with Trevor standing next to the road and indicating right. I was a little bit confused on what to do and I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying when I passed him. Still, with the two word fragments in my heads, which Trevor might have said, I kept cruising along. After the first tight twistes it finally clicked in my head: “Have fun!”
After letting the group of more advanced riders pass, it was again just me on some very tight twisties with a huge fun factor. Reaching Walhalla, a small gold-digging town, we stopped to stretch the legs. Dave had holed the radiator of his CBR on the way there. Some discussions followed about preventive methods to fix the radiator. What’s the best?
Paul and Dave went out to get something to stop the radiator from leaking. Couldn’t really think of anything that would help. Do they have Stop Leak out here? They came back with pepper! That’s something new. It apparently helped and with some external applied radiator gum it stopped leaking. He fixed the radiator at Rawson with copper particles which stopped the leak and he made it home with Bronwyn. Ian and Darryn followed, reducing the group to 12 riders.
We left Walhalla the same way we arrived and turned right at the T-intersection to Rawson with more beautiful roads to the Thompson’s Dam. What a great ride so far, except this big branch lying on the road. I was looking at it for a few seconds…what to do? Sure, drive right over it! Scared the sh*%& out of me, with the front tyre airborne and the handlebar going from left to right.
We crossed the dam wall and stopped safely in front of the big reservoir with great scenery. A few more bikers joined us. One bike was equipped with an alarm system. He finally decided to turn it off.
Leaving the Dam, we rode back to Rawson, through Erica and on to Moe for food and fuel again. Last instructions were given for the last leg to finish this awesome ride. The route was through Crossover, Neerim South and Jindivick. This last section had some nice roads to our final destination of Longwarry North where stood together for a last group snapshot.
Even the long ride home into the sun was nice. It couldn’t have been any better! Thanks Trevor for this great ride on a perfect day! I really enjoyed it.
Dennis
Lindemann