So, this was our second official Canberra branch ride after lockdown, you know the one, where the people are allowed out of their homes again, but all the shops are still closed?!
In typical fashion whenever I am the designated ride leader, I woke early and climbed out of my warm bed in the far flung southern suburb of Banks, to greet a typical Canberra Spring morning; cold, wet, windy and thick fog obscuring the surrounding hills and mountains. I was temped to return to the comfort of my bed. For some strange reason, I have become somewhat averse to getting cold and wet in my dotage after decades of riding long distances in all weathers. I think my percentage of bad weather days as ride leader is running at about 75% at the moment. Have I mentioned before that even my own family refuses to go camping with me due to a long track record of it coinciding with heavy rain, local flooding, gale force winds and the occasional locust plague? The only glimmer of hope was a very thin band of blue sky to the North.
By the time I set off from home, the misty rain had momentarily stopped, and as I headed towards the far off patch of blue sky, I hoped my optimistic decision to not put on my wet weather gear would not cause me too much grief. The scattered rain drops on the visor finally stopped as I traversed the deadly chaos of the Glenloch Interchange, bound for the Barton Highway and the meeting point at the Ampol Service Station at Nichols. The en-route presence of two revenue raising mobile speed cameras was another indication that lockdown was over and the business of running government was back to normal.
Within moments of arriving at the meeting point, I was joined by our esteemed ride coordinator, Warren, riding his very impressive new BMW900XR. We filled our bikes and waited for all the other enthusiastic Ulysseans, eager to get back on the road after lockdown, to join us. Our waiting was sadly in vain. Apparently, there are others like myself, averse to riding in threatening bad weather. As I looked up at the heavy overcast and the gusty wind stirring the trees, I couldn’t blame them.
The planned ride for the day was a clockwise loop through Binalong, Boorowa,
Crookwell and Gunning. Warren had already contacted me the night before with a heads-up about the weather forecast for the Crookwell portion of the ride. The BoM was predicting an 80-90% chance of heavy rain. A quick check of the weather radar confirmed widespread rain falling over the eastern half of our proposed ride, with lots more moving in from the South-East. The forecast and radar image to the west of Boorowa looked much more encouraging, so we exercised our discretion and changed the route. After all, there was only the two of us to please on this occasion.
The new route would take us on an anti-clockwise loop, west to Binalong, then north along the Hughstonia Road to Boorowa for a coffee stop at the Superb Bakery. Then, instead of turning east towards Crookwell, it was west on the Murringo Road to Young for lunch at the Wilders Bakery, before returning East along the Moppity Road and Kalangan Road to Galong and a stop at Kaffeine 2582 in Yass for a final injection of caffeine, then home.
Having given other members an additional five minutes to present themselves, Warren and I mounted up, armed with our post-pandemic travel essentials; face masks, Covid-19 vaccination certificates and a couple of check-in apps installed on our phones. As I glanced across at Warren when he started up his lovely new BMW, it was like watching a Top Gun pilot strapping into the latest glass cockpit of a modern fighter jet; lots of lovely, brightly coloured, flashing touch screen buttons to play with. I looked down at the miserable grey-on-grey LCD display on my 7 year old Ducati with some envy. Even at its brightest illumination setting, the only way you can read the speedo during daylight hours is if the sun is shining directly on it, at least that’s my excuse, officer. I must also admit to some secret delight that it was me waiting for another rider to get ready to ride. Usually, everyone has to wait for me to get organised on my bike.
The ride to Binalong under clearing blue skies was uneventful, with the gusty wind mostly behind us, except for the short cross-wind section of the Hume Highway around Yass. The first few kilometres as we left the ACT past the Barton Highway upgrade works, was slow in accordance with roadworks speed limits, but free flowing. At one point along the Hume, Warren rode past me gesticulating feverishly. After first checking that my bike wasn’t on fire, it didn’t take too long to figure out that he was giving me helpful feedback about how my wildly inaccurate speedo (reading 8% too high according to my owners manual) compared to the GPS speed he was getting from one of his cruise-controlled, well-lit, functional glass screens. I have to admit that I was struggling to figure out how fast I should be riding when it comes down to calculating an 8% error on the fly.
At Binalong, we turned north onto Hughstonia Road, and I was curious about what road surface conditions we would encounter on this lovely 30km section of sweeping bends through undulating pasture land. The last time I had ridden this road, it was heavily pot-holed with broken edges and scattered loose debris. The first few kilometres out of Binalong were very pleasant but quiet bumpy, lulling us into a false sense of security. Before long the pot holes started to appear, often lurking in the deep shadows of roadside trees. The closer to Boorowa we got, the worse the road became, the potholes now congregating together like a well laid out minefield. It certainly kept our concentration levels up as well ducked and dodged some quite deep hole in the road. Unfortunately, this was a recurrent theme on most of the secondary roads we travelled on this outing. Apparently, all road works and repairs in the region had also been put on lockdown for most of this year.
By the time we reached the bakery at Boorowa after about 80 minutes in the saddle, I was ready to have a break, stretch the legs and have a good cup of coffee. You know that you’ve been away from riding for too long when the backside starts complaining after just 50 minutes riding. The ‘iron butt’ of my past long distance travels was well and truly missing in action. Our entry into the Superb Bakery involved face masks, vaccination certificate checks and, for me, a first time use of the Service NSW check-in app. Five minutes later, after receiving several email messages and prompts and entering various six digit verification coded that in turn needed verifying, I finally got to join Warren indoors. As an aside, the NSW app differs from the ACT one in that there is a check-in AND a check-out time procedure, which would definitely give contact tracers a much better idea of how long you were in any one location, but only if you remember to actually check-out. Fortunately this can be done retrospectively.
Warren and I settled down to a pleasant chat over coffee. It was here that we discovered that the bacon and egg roll that Warren had ordered as a “light snack” was actually big enough to feed two people. With just the two of us, I got lucky, thanks Warren! Another check of the weather radar confirmed continuing steady rainfall to the east over Crookwell and Gunning, so our alternative westward journey to Young continued.
Murringo Road through to Young was another pleasant 45km run under increasingly overcast skies. Generally a good surface with sweeping bends that took us through the Canola crops just coming into flower. Some fields were a sea of bright yellow flowers, whilst others were showing just a light scattering of colour. This area in the coming weeks will look amazing, especially with everything so green from recent good rainfall. I had to modify my uncharitable thoughts about local roadworks when we encountered a road crew doing repairs, tearing up the random blobs of hot mix that had been shovelled into the pot holes and replacing it with large sections of properly dug out and relaid surface.
A pleasant hour was spent sitting on the upstairs balcony of the Wilders Bakery in Young enjoying their usual good quality fare. The only point of concern was the increasingly dark, threatening clouds forming overhead and to the east where we planned to return. A few scattered raindrop fell as we refuelled the bikes, then it was onto the Moppity Road on our way to Galong and the Burley Griffin Way. There were a couple of short, heavier showers of rain as we approached Galong and then on the Burley Griffin Way around Binalong as we made our way back to Yass. Not enough moisture to cause us any discomfort, but just enough to clear the smattering of squashed bugs from our visors.
Riders:
Peter Ongley - Ducati Monster 659
Warren Richer - BMW900XR
