Sunday, November 29th, 2009
I snapped awake at 5:30AM met with a peacing ray of sunlight slowly toasting my left eyelid and the cat practicing its latest interrogation techniques on my right eyelid. Summer is here. With summer comes longer days and with longer days there is promise of extreme heat followed swiftly by storms with more wind and hail than rain. It is the day of the November '09 Brisbane Netriders ride and what greater purpose for a ride than to show defiance of today's forecast? I stumbled around for the next half hour and suddenly found myself at the local BP service station topping up the tyres, already squinting against the light and sweating in full gear on the sun baked forecourt. I had to get moving quickly to maintain a reasonable level of sanity, whatever that may be for someone keen to be riding on such a day. Nothing can hold me back.
The roads had a scattering of vehicles drifting along aimlessly whose occupants seemed to care more about being inside an airconditioned bubble than heading towards a particular destination. They stared with confused expressions at me as I rode past plowing through the heat shimmer that was oozing from the bitumen beneath. I can only guess what they must be thinking although as much as my ego demanded I'm sure it had nothing to do with awe or respect. I tune them out of my mind and the cars become blobs of potential obstacles between myself and where I wanted to be. In what seems like 10 minutes I arrive at the BP The Gap one hour earlier than I had intended, smugly confirmed by my watch, it was only 7:30AM. I top up the tank, add a bottle of water to the purchase and smile at the attractive girl behind the counter who was probably wondering why this leather clad sweaty mess with helmet hair was doing out on a day like this. I meander about until I find a shady spot on some stairs and watch the cars and bikes come and go.
Just as 8:25AM ticks over a black Yamaha XT660X pulls in nearby followed shortly by a red Honda VTR250 and a silver Yamaha FJR1300. The rest of the group flood into the car park within the next half hour and nearly on 9AM we notice a familiar rider pull in and start to check his tyres. Scotts RR has come for a quick blat up the mountain and accidentally stumbled upon the group so his hour run turned into a day. Transalp Tony almost made another ride with us but sadly a tensioner bolt was missing from his Transalp's swingarm that made things a little uneasy as you can imagine. 17SJS is organised as the TEC and the usual speech is given by Muttly we start on our way up Mt Glorious. I, and I'm sure the members of the group who ran the last attempt, gave a thought to Curvy as we went through turn one with caution.
The ride up the mountain was at a good pace, enough to make me wonder if Muttly was a SBK rider in a past life as he flicks that large tourer through the bends like it was a bike quarter its the size, modestly suggesting that people can pass him if the goings slow. The scenic views of the valleys had shown that the haze caused by weeping gum trees had already started to build up. The morning sun allowed the trees to offer us a reasonable amount of shade without any nasty wet patches hiding in the turns. We arrived at the Tea House in good time and satisfied that our tyres were adequately warmed up for the downward stretch to Somerset Dam.
Scotts RR (Yamaha R6) and Liquid Force (Yamaha XT660X) take this opportunity to start off in front of the group to make the most of one of the better stretches of road. Muttly and I head off down leaving the group behind on the second bend. About two thirds down we discover a lone scooter that threatened to destroy our lines. However the scooter pulled over/lost control or simply got lost and we passed it quickly only to be greeted by more of the little monsters. We were lucky as one had broken down so they all gathered together like ants around one of their wounded allowing us to go around and continue unabated. We reached the first turn to find Scotts RR and Liquid Force almost having a nap beside the road for what must have been hours on their time. I corner marked and Muttly also waited for the main group to catch up before heading right towards Somerset. I waited there for a few minutes and found Callum (Hardhat, Kawasaki ZXR750) and Beatrice (Kawasaki Z750) but no 17SJS the TEC to be seen so I waited a little longer but took off when I saw an unknown group of bikes approaching.
The last time I did this section was last summer and nothing has changed. One day I would like to do it mid-spring just to make sure the grass does turn green at some stage and the air doesn't always scorch your throat. There is not much you can do at 100kph to cool down when the ambient air temperature is over 35°C apart from wishing bikes had A/C pipes that can plug into your helmet and jacket (patent pending). All I could do was hug the tank and get my head out of the wind. Half way along I discovered 17SJS in my mirrors which was a relief because I felt guilty for leaving them behind (Jared and Lesleigh, Suzuki GSXR750?). We blew through the small township/caravan park of Somerset Dam where I was incorrectly expecting the group to be parked however they were stopped at the boat launching point further on. Nice place and very popular, probably something to do with the heat as people were ignoring the high water contamination warning sign.
A short break here to cool off before setting off through the remainder of Somerset's twisties and onwards to the Kilcoy bakery. I don't mind this stretch as there are some nice twisties with 40-50kph hairpins that are banked nicely be it a bit corrugated and fast straights on rural roads the rest of the way. I caught up to Muttly again (sorry Mr Cruiser) and marked the corner again hoping that I got everyone since the TEC was assisting another rider back at the Dam. I continued on and found a fair few people taking advantage of the BP servo on the corner opposite the park so I waited there for a while wondering which bakery we were meant to stop at. Luckily when we started off again Muttly was waiting at the carpark entrance for the Kilcoy bakery just down the road. We stayed here for a while in the shade keeping our fluids up and cleaning our visors of dead bugs seeking salvation from the heat in our faces (thanks for the visor cleaner Hardhat!). 10 - 15 minutes later we're on the back way to Woodford.
This road was planned in the original ride to bypass roadworks that were occurring upon the Daguilar Highway between Kilcoy and Woodford. It takes us along Neurun Rd and past a correctional facility that looks ominously over us. It's a strange feeling doing an activity that many associate with utmost freedom past a facility which is built to do the exact opposite. I wonder if any of the occupants could see us happily zip past? A couple of single lane sections and a bridge with the occasional bend was all that we needed to negotiate, far more interesting than the highway anyway. We popped back out at Woodford where we stopped at the IGA and lurked in the shade again, I was readily offered $2 for water from Hardhat for which I'm greatly appreciative. It was taking us longer and longer to cool down as the day progressed so it wasn't until at least 20 minutes later that we pressed on to the Mt Mee lookout for the inevitable group photo.
I have been looking forward to the newly refurbished road up this side of Mt Mee and I wasn't disappointed. Good quality bitumen that was grippy and nice shoulders and the cambers were good. You can now maintain a good pace heading up without fear of loose rocks, potholes and gravel. There were a few cars to contend with and apparently a rather slow Honda Jazz too. The lookout was green as usual although the view was hazy and brown and not the vibrant green that I like to look at through the Autumn/Spring periods. The group photos where taken and the stop kept short so as to get the ride over with before any storms hit. I chose this point to head home back the way I came since this was the closest point on the ride.
From what I've heard a few riders got caught by hail and rain on the way home giving the ride the nickname 'The Heat and Hail Ride'. Hopefully it won't become routine. Many thanks to all those who attended and apologies if I didn't mention you in this write up - much gets glossed over with a larger group but you're all appreciated equally, just some more equally than others. I'm sad that TheBigD couldn't make it along and he was missed as our usual TEC, 17SJS did a excellent job of covering the TEC duties of this ride. A big thank you to Muttly for organising and leading. Look forward to riding with you guys next time.
Sooty
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