Club Ride to Crookwell 4 Jan 2015

This was to be Trevor’s ride, but since Trevor is without bike still for a while, I agreed to take it. We met at Caltex Nicholls for an 0830 start (who wrote this into the ride calendar, OMG it’s early!), and despite it still being at the height of Christmas holidays, a surprisingly large number of riders turned out.

The day promised to be a warm one, so it’s a good thing we got away early… I had a friend (Melissa) tag along. Mel, although not a Ulyssian, is close to the joining age and has ridden with us before on some Chomp’n’Chat rides (eg, Captains Flat last year). Catch is, she’s always late so we had to hang around for a bit – and then I found myself being asked to give her ‘bike a little TLC – check the tyre pressures, lube the chain... So we eventually got away at 0850, with me not leading (I suspect some of our number may have been frustrated with the late start!).

Some advised early that a shorter ride is best (work begins tomorrow, so domestic issues have to be sorted out). We rode the standard route on Barton Hwy through to Hume Hwy, turning off on the road to Boorowa, stopping at the Bakery for coffee and a chat.

At Boorowa we decided that it would be too early to lunch at Crookwell, so we’ll lunch at Gunning instead. At this point, the short-route riders left for home, while the remainder of us did the Boorowa - Rugby - Crookwell – Gunning – Gundaroo run, at our own pace. We met again at Gunning (albeit lunching at different locations – some at the Gunning pub, some at the Old Hume Café).

Importantly, we all enjoyed our ride, and Mel and I ended the day over a beer at the George Harcourt Inn (what happened Andrew, I thought you were going to join us?).

Thanks for a lovely day.

Chris

Riders -

    Chris Dietzel: GTR1400
    Suzy Arnold: BMW F700GS
    Ron Leslie: BMW F800GS
    Kathy Leslie: BMW F650GS
    Mick Beltrame: Victory XC (no Kipper today – it would have been too warm on the poor dog)
    Peter Arday: Honda ST1300
    Gary McCurley: Honda VFR1200
    Terry Mills: Honda VT750
    Robert McNeilly: Honda VFR800
    Michael Winters: Triumph Trophy SE
    Adam Kral: Suzuki GSXR1100
    Andrew Cmpbell: Kawasaki ZX14R
    Marilyn Starick: Ducati Multistrada 1100
    Melissa Wilson: Honda Hornet 600