SR500 Club Rally 2010

The best bits of this Rally were not photographed. I apologise, but I was in motion at the time. And it was too good to stop.

The title of the Rally is self-explanatory: the annual Rally for members of the Yamaha SR500 Club, attended also by those unwashed madmen who work their way up and down the eastern side of our continent, attending motorcycle rallies every weekend while their shipping-container-for-a-house sits idle in a bush block somewhere. You can read about last year's event here.

Friday
I left after lunch. The air was warm and flowed over me in all the colours of sun and sky. It was to be a perfect Spring the entire three days.

East of Yarra Glen I came round a corner at 100kph to find a flock of cockies in my path. They scattered except for one, who stood stubbornly and then attempted to walk casually out of my path.  This all happened very quickly.  He must have spread his wings in a final moment of panic, and my boot shattered one of them. I stopped and rode back, and there he was rolling about with a smashed wing, trying to stand up and get off the road. I quickly parked my bike, which took a moment - it was heavy with luggage.  A truck passed by and when I looked up the cocky was flat.



I curved through the Black Spur at speed overtaking cars like a '50s dare-devil bikey, my exhaust a thrilling drum roll. And so I made for Mansfield.



The road between Mansfield and Whitfield is one of the best in the state. I took it easy, waltzing from side to side through the turns: a baby in a rocker, a gentleman of motorcycling.





The roads all the way to Albury-Wodonga, where I arrived just on dark, were fantastic. I was tempted to become annoyed with myself for leaving Melbourne so late and thus missing a sunlit scramble along this tar, but I have an ideology about riding: I always choose the ride. That is, whatever is happening now on the ride, I assent to it, adopt it as my preference. And so, if I had to repeat this ride over and over, in some strange eternal return, I will that I would repeat this moment again, and discover the value in it. And indeed it had its own pleasures. The strong smell of cut grass on a warm dusk evening in Spring, as you weave amidst the paddocks, is very special.



I rode through the hills to Bethanga in the dark, looking constantly over the weir where the full moon sparkled on the water.


Saturday
I decided to explore a road that loops from Bethanga, north along the Murray River to Corryong, then south back to Bethanga. On the northern side it follows the edge of the great weir.

This was one of the best roads I have ever ridden. It was the 19th century explorer Charles Sturt who dreamed of an inland sea. It was I who rode a motorcycle along it.

My fellow club member and friend Axel and I made this ride together, our pace matched, through a road that twisted and swept just meters from the water's edge, sometimes at its level, sometimes on a cliff. And the sea itself was perfectly calm, the lack of salt-smell uncanny. Out in the water white cockies sat on dead gums, reflecting the sun. I thought of T.E.Lawrence, the true gentleman of motorcycling, and envisioned a Bristol bi-plane racing me, low and out over the water. It is amazing that the world can afford such freedom and pleasure.

I took no pictures of this road though I travelled it twice. I simply could not stop, I was too happy in my motion.

Where there was not the sea, or the fast river, there would be a valley of lagoons spread out before us, green like everything else between here and Melbourne, but framed by ancient hills of granite.









While I was taking the last photo a car pulled in behind me driven by a conservative-looking lady in her fifties who seemed intent on getting our attention. I wondered what could be wrong. She asked to where we were heading, then warned us that the police were there pulling motorcyclists over. I thanked her, and it's good to see that not everybody makes silly assumptions about motorcyclists. But of course some "concerned citizens" do indeed make them, and the police were indeed in town and came over to us as we sat for lunch, asking how we were enjoying Bethanga. We were 100kph from Bethanga. The question had an implication. That town, which is itself a nothing - a pub and general store - yet sported a constant patrol car, day and night...the most policed small town in Australia. The police were all friendly, but it was the eager sort of friendliness which said, Note that I am here. And again, as you came around a corner, a wave which said "And here also!" I found it rather comical. Our bikes are the latest in low-powered, old-fashioned farm machinery.  The rally is a family event.  A bunch of nice bogans who like old bikes.  

We arrived back at the Rally just in time to park our bikes for the 'show and shine' display.

The best of all, in my mind: a stock SR400


Stock 78 SR500


Trick XT500, the model on which the SR500 was based.


About one-third of the line


One of the most long-distance, most adventurous SRs around (see).


A nice sidecar set-up, from a Bethanga local.


Phil Duffy's famous girlfriend Phyllis. Phyllis has LEDs in her eyes, and by virtue of a piece of string can appear to give you the finger. Police sometimes pull Phil over because his passenger has no helmet. Once, roaring past a truck, Phyllis' head fell off and rolled. But she always brings home the shopping.


Afterwards I spied an example of commitment to the club


The evening was spent in Rally games, conversation and beer. I made some friends, including a drunk and fun Tasmanian, though I spent much of the evening being talked at by men who assumed I had a fascination with the minutiae of their life, anecdotes from which they repeated multiple times. Or who argued with each other over what year some such engine went in this or that car. And so I drunk more beer. And appreciated, despite the varying quality of conversation, the general friendliness about. You could go up to many people and have a chat.

Sunday
With little sleep both nights, I decided on a long day of riding: I chose the same route back to home.

I left with my friend Mike and we rode together until we split at Milawa, him to the Hume, me to Whitfield and down.

Taking the Acheron Way

Thursday was just an ordinary day, but heavy with the knowledge that summer is coming. I could see it, by the gilt of the clouds reflected on my chrome headlight, forever ahead of me even as the miles dropped away. Like a vision of the future.

Out of the terrors of 3am I dragged myself at midday. Out of the clamour of the city I rode it all away.

Christmas Hills, Chum Creek and Myers Creek Roads, The Black Spur.

And then...

Sunlight and green, shadows and ash, water murmur and the constant hum of insect life as they sat suspended mid-air, in their colonies of light as I passed through The Acheron Way.















This narrow strip of tar winds a constant S through the flat forest floor of a dry rainforest, a mixture of great ferns and giant trees.

And then the dirt.





And more dirt. A constant weave of thick gravel, corner after corner, sliding the rear wheel to turn. Up one side of a mountain.

Over a Spur.

Then down the other. Still dwarfed by the green.







By day's end the bike was singing, dashing skyward up hills amidst the paddocks. A staccato blessing on the world.

Damien

It seems strange that Damien has not featured in this blog, for we have done so much riding together in the past. It was thanks to Damien, years ago, that I switched from motorcycling as a mere form of transport, and into a country-riding motorcycle enthusiast. In turn I did Damien the favour of meeting him once, at an earlier date, and spending the evening in conversation about motorcycles. He had stopped riding since leaving Perth and selling his Ducati. Our conversation re-lit the fire in him and he bought another Duc.

We do have some differences, however. I love old bikes. Damien loves high-powered super-sports rocketships. We don't ride together so much as start off together and end together, enjoying our own pace in between. Which is good, because Damien is fast. And competitive.

The last time, however, that we rode together Damien had reason to pull up early, and so I came across him thoughtfully looking out over the ocean, from the heights of The Great Ocean Road. He had been relatively well-behaved that day, cruising at 130kph along that 80kph zone. The police officer sniped about how long it had taken to catch up with him.

Cop: "Do you know what speed you were doing through that town back there?"

Damien: Goes to say, "What town?", but thinks better of it.

The town was a 50kph zone.

After chatting with the police officer Damien lost his license for 15 months. He very recently got it back, but due to the loss of points he must now lose it for 3 months again, starting this Tuesday.

So we went for a ride together today. Me on the SR500. Damien on my Hornet 600. For the first and probably last time ever, I consistently left Damien in the dust.

Damien had forgotten how much he loves riding. He announced at the end of the ride that this had been the best day of his life. When speaking to his newly-appointed wife on the phone he down-graded it to second best day.



Next year you will hopefully see more of Damien. Perhaps in time we'll see all the members of the old gang together: Rosy too, certainly, and Fee talks of getting her SR185 back on the road. I now own Adam's Hornet, but maybe we can talk him into a re-union ride....

Molesworth - Dropmore Road

I began today's ride by seeking comfort and relaxation. That is, I chose the route I often do, to Yea and back via Kinglake. It felt a little greedy and indulgent to go out, after last week's ride. But then, is there a rule against creating as many good moments as you can in life? I love to ride. And the forecast was 28 and sunny!





Beyond Yea I travelled along Killingworth Road. And yes, it is to die for. Unsealed, a mixture of clay and loose gravel, it follows the Goulbourn River which sits below it - the earth falls away from the road. Where its route departs from that of the river's, the drop continues and one looks onto a valley of green dotted with cattle. Cockies en masse break into flight as you pass. My bike held the road easily, at times aided by my standing on the footpegs to negotiate thicker gravel.







I had intended to ride to Yea and back without deviating, but the call of these roads, on this kind of day, was too much. Killingworth road re-connects with the Goulburn Valley Highway ten kilometers further on, and I would have returned to Yea, but in that moment when I saw a gaggle of slow-moving traffic from Yea and had to make a decision, I turned the bike left and accelerated to speed away from the town, toward further adventure.

Before long I came to Molesworth-Dropmore Road and there was no question I would turn down it. I sped across its loose pebals at 60kph, slowing little even for corners.

The road twisted and rose into mountains. In places it was cut out of the hillside, producing a wall of stone to one side. When a kangaroo jumped in front of me further ahead I felt the joy of motorcycling: in motion, in a world that is in motion. I could have photographed every turn. Instead I stopped for a drink overlooking this:



Everywhere was alive with colour.


The road continued. Its surface shifted from gravel to hard clay to a sandy soil, which I loved the most because it offered sure grip and yet was soft and smooth.






Finally the road came to an end and met the sealed Caveat-Dropmore Road


and I looked back to where I had come from.


Caveat-Dropmore Road twists and turns and offers the pleasure of opening up the throttle on tar, smoothly moving through the rev range, banking this way and that, up and down, on a perfect ribbon of road framed by sunlight and rich green bushland. What started out as nothing, a simple relaxation-ride, turned in to one of those memorable days.

Three-day Ride: Friday, the first day

For no reason other than the fact that I had no reason not to, I rode this weekend. Three days of riding.

Friday.

That day I had nowhere to go but Nyah by nightfall. I fell in from the Calder to towns with their regions like a patch-work. Gisbourne. Woodend. Tracing paths behind the freeway. Tylden. Trentham. Daylesford.

A Spring day, sunshine, warmth. Accelerating skyward up a hill at Shepherd's Flat the air smelt of honey: pollen thickened the world.

Many details insisted on themselves. One was the colour of fields: everywhere so thick with green, but spread with top sheets of yellow canola or purple lavender. This drought-ill land grew these colours as an experiment in seeing itself differently, hoping to catch in my response a glimpse of what it might be.

My machine sang a single note. Four thousand, five hundred R.P.M. Smooth. Powerful. The sweet spot newly discovered and other purposes now imagined, this SR500 proved it can tour.

And I thought at different moments over those days: this moment, now, will be a fond memory when I am somewhere up ahead. With body and machine in motion, my mind paused  to enjoy the present-moment's ride, but that experience was flavoured with a sense of the future remembered-ride into which it will pass, retold and enshrined. Let me now tell you its story.

***

At Shepherd’s Flat I stopped at a long-abandoned home. For a moment something spilled out of the folds of time just beyond the periphery of my vision. It was at first comforting.  I pushed myself forward into the space.







Moving on, the distance divided by a bee sting to my wrist, I came to Newstead and lunch. I walked the town and was tempted in my vintagent nature by the wares of an antique store. I have been hungry for ‘old things’ ever since childhood. My father’s source of income was his one-man business - pulling down old houses to sell the timber - and I was the amateur archaeologist and imaginative re-constructer of hidden lives, made out of the things they left behind. Jam tins. A hat. A baby’s pin. The racing magazines found beneath pantry floorboards. All the small ordinary stuff that accumulates from living and in time takes on new significance. From them we can almost smell and perhaps touch the other person of so many decades ago.

A truck out the front of the antique store.


Beyond Maldon the road-sides were flooded.





Above Rheola and I rode through a National Park to the Melville Caves. It was hot, silent, and I was alone. I enjoyed this solitude.













Through Wedderburn I continued to Boort on low petrol. In Boort I was the lone patron at a café, and had a good conversation with the owner and her assistant. She mentioned the predicted thunder-storm and that I was on a bike, and I described of the joy of riding through the emotions of the weather, that feeling of being absorbed into the sky.

Above Boort.


Friends along the way.


It was a long day. I only did 455km but I took my time. The roads were increasingly straight, which added to my weariness toward the day's end. At Swan Hill I stopped to visit Grandma for a quick chat on the porch, then made for Nyah where my family welcomed me.