Decide and Ride 12 June 2011 – Boorowa Again!

Daybreak brought with it the promise of a bright and sunny day. How deceptively fickle the weather Gods are! I almost didn’t do this one, but the promise of a nice day beat me into submission and I quickly donned the ride gear and headed off to Nicholls Caltex. Was that 0900 or 0930? It was almost 0915 and I was still alone, so I figured the long weekend, cool weather and Dubbo ride might have put the remainder off. I almost called it quits myself, but one-by-one a few more hardy souls started to roll into the service station and before long we had a quorum of five. The ride was on. 

The attendees were, in order of arrival:
Mick Beltrame R1150GSA
Greg Prindable Suzi M50
Michael Winters Triumph Sprint
Dallas Lamson GSX1300
Rob Swain VF1100C (with 2 seconds to spare)

Where to? Ah, the joys of Committee decisions when it comes to ‘Decide and Ride’. However, we quickly ‘decided’ and started the ‘ride’. Boorowa bound, and the weather getting cooler by the minute! We left it to Dallas to lead us out via the Barton and thence to Nanima Road, and on to Gundaroo, Gunning, Crookwell and Boorowa. These are lovely back-roads away from the traffic and other potential distractions. Good spacing, steady pace, and sensible riding were the order of the day. The passing scenery was bathed in patches of brilliant sunshine interspersed with the shadows of scudding clouds that belied the ever-diminishing heat in my body. It was time to turn on the heated vest. Yes, I’m a wimp, but a very warm and toasty wimp. We rode on, watching the clouds slowly blot out every patch of blue sky. Everything was going swimmingly until ‘it’ happened. It? What ‘it’?

‘It’ was where Michael kicked the bucket. Don’t panic my friends, because Michael and his Triumph are alive and well. This was a very literal ‘kicked the bucket’. The car in front swerved wide just as we were about to commence a single line overtaking procession. The swerve was to avoid hitting a member of the local wildlife, the rare and endangered ‘Green Plastic Bucket with Wire Handle’ that was having a rest in the middle of our lane. Michael was fourth in our Congo-line, and proceeded to give the bucket a good kick as it passed by his left foot. I think the intent was to chase the poor creature away from the road.

The Bucket completed a triple somersault followed by a quadruple twist for a score of 9/10 from all the judges. It also proceeded to slide directly into my path as I was following Michael and had nowhere to go. On seeing that the Bucket was in imminent danger of being hit, I threw the big GSA into ‘off-road’ mode and deftly weaved around said Bucket by traversing the far rougher centre-line. Thank God I was on a GSA and could safely negotiate the raised cats-eyes on the road!  Had anyone been following behind, they would probably have said that I merely changed my line slightly and swerved gently around the Bucket as it slid towards me, but my version is far more exciting. I can only assume that the Bucket is still there, so keep your eyes open when you next travel the Sutton to Murrumbateman Road. It’s a rare thing to see.

We breezed through Gundaroo and Gunning, intent on reaching Crookwell where a hot coffee would be well-deserved. It was along the Gunning to Crookwell road that the weather really changed. The high ridge along which the road twists and turns is also very prone to picking up the prevailing weather and wind. The ride temperature suddenly plummeted from a balmy 8 degrees to a miserable 2 degrees. The coffee was looking decidedly good! So much for heated vests. It was so cold that as I looked out across the landscape I spotted a large family of Polar Bears. They too were huddled up against the icy conditions and looked for all the world like a small flock of sheep. Farther on, I peered into a small rivulet and watched as two seals slid silently into the freezing water, startled by the proximity of a bunch of roaring motorcycles. You could almost see the snow being scraped from their backs as they broke through the icy crust of the stream and disappeared. Almost. Damn it was cold.

Coffee at Crookwell. It has a cosy ring to it, doesn’t it? Lovely. But like the fools we were, we drank our hot beverages and decided to ride on to Boorowa. What a road! It still excites me, even though the older sections are starting to break up and will soon need to be renewed. Fast and flowing, it is fun with a capital ‘F’. Which would make it ‘Fun’. Rob and I took the lead and were on our third Boorowa coffee by the time the Michael, Dallas and Greg turned up. I think they stopped to do some sight-seeing at Rugby, or went to the picture theatre to see a movie there, or something. Fun. Capital ‘F’. We spent our money at the usual bakery haunt, and enjoyed an assortment of tucker. Has anyone else noticed that the pies are getting smaller? They must be looking after our waistlines. At least the weather had warmed slightly.

A few grabbed fuel before we left Boorowa and Greg decided to take the quick way home via Yass and the Barton. Things to do with his kids. The rest of us chose to travel by the same roads we had arrived on. We made it all the way to Crookwell without incident but Rob managed to miss the short-cut turn back to the Gunning road, and Dallas either waved farewell and continued to Goulburn, or was trying to signal that he was drowning. I hope he went to Goulburn. That left three when we all met up again. Rob and Michael, and yours truly. The consensus was to stop for another coffee at Gunning. We really needed another one! However, it was also a good opportunity to have a final chin-wag about the ride, and bikes, and the cold, and our hopes, dreams and aspirations.  Actually, we skipped that last bit of crap and just stuck to bikes. It was clear that the weather was closing in again, and the few spots of sleety drizzle had forced the Polar Bears into early hibernation. There were none to be seen on the return journey. How strange.

Michael branched off after Gundaroo and headed home to Bungendore, while Rob and I rode on to Canberra. We waved farewell at the Fyshwick/Gungahlin off-ramp, and I was home by 4 pm. It was another one of those ‘nothing’ days and ‘little’ rides that had turned out just fine. I trust that my fellow riders all made a safe return, and I’m sure I’ll see them again on another one sometime. It would be nice if the scenery included Lions and Hyenas baking in the sun next time. The bloody Polar Bears can have this weather! Cheers all.

Mick B