StuNVA
29-11-2009, 07:02 PM
A couple of weeks ago while at a party the guys I do the drags with suggested we should do Long Flat this year, full of bourbon I totally agreed, mate if they had of suggested we strip of naked and do burnouts in the drive way while seeing Ricky Martin songs I probably would have agreed......mmmmm bourbon.
Anyway last Monday Rene rings me up and asks if I'm right for Long Flat, I ask him "why what's on at Long Flat" , for those of you that have drunk with me know full well that once I start drinking a 90 year old with Alhiemers has a better memory than me.
After he stopped laughing we reorganised to duck over for the Friday around lunch time and back Saturday arvo after the bike show.
About 2pm I get the call I was waiting to get at 10am, we are still going but we need to wait for another rider to get to town and get sorted, suited me fine I was flat out at work and needed every minute I could milk. I hung up the phone at 3.30pm, loaded the bike got me boots on and headed out to the shed...............who's idea was it to put a phone in the shed, I had to be at the roundabout at 4pm but I'm a greedy fucker so I worked and finished packing and basically hung up the phone and started the bike, right on time.
We took the mind numbingly boring road to Somerton where I managed to talk the other two into taking the back roads through to Moonbi, the speed can be increased substantially across these back roads and much fun was to be had.
We met Rene at Moonbi servo fuelled up and headed up the hill for cooler air. It still amazes me how much cooler the air is between Moonbi and 20ks up the road at Bendemeer.
One of my all time favourite roads is the Bendemeer to Walcha, I was happy sitting behind Rene on his Z1000 through the rougher fist 10 - 15km but once I saw those open sweepers I had no question that $1.30 was a complete waste of this road and quickly despatched the kwaka on the outside of nice sweeping right hander, much to his surprise.
We pulled up at the Walcha Road pub for a refreshment, I'd never been there before and will make it a frequent stop over point from now on. A charming old pub that was burnt out a few years ago but rebuilt in the original style of the late 1800's with balcony verandahs out the back over looking the hilly country side and gardens of the pub and couple of the housed nearby.
We fired up and head towards Walcha where Tish and I fuelled up, the Z1000 and the ZX10 had fuelled at Moonbi and decided against topping up much to my surprise and ended up determining at the ride pace of Geoff on his ZX10 once he realised that Long Flat is closer to 130km past Walcha not the 80km he had thought.
We hit the start of the twisties just on sunset, there was hardly any traffic and we made short work of the first section to Gingers Creek stopping only to clean the 10,000 or so kamkazi bugs off our visors, this is when Geoff realised his second bad decision for the night, no clear visor. So Geoff already concerned about running out of fuel decided to tail light Tish on her R6 for the balance of the mountain.
I clicked the gixer into first (very impressed with the 15/50 Motul just put in), flicked high beam on and gunned it. The next few ks were great and them the sign, "Roadwork Next 3okm, No Lines Marked" shot past and woohoo we were into a road recently surfaced. It was better than it looked with the majority of the small stones removed by traffic through the week but as we found out the next day everyone still had the odd moment or two.
I was wondering what riding the Oxley at night would e like and the only way I can describe it is your riding like your in a video game, it was all a bit surreal and you could easily lose concentration but I really didn't mind it as you could tell if a car was coming in the other direction by the glare of the lights.
As we disended into the humid coastal air I realised there was no lights behind me at all so I pulled up at the Mt Seaview hut and waited a few minutes for the first of the bikes to catch up, It was great listening to the Z1000 coming down the hill, a full micron on these beats does a great job and looks a million bucks over the stock cans.
After regrouping was managed to stay together for the run into Long Flat.
Anyway last Monday Rene rings me up and asks if I'm right for Long Flat, I ask him "why what's on at Long Flat" , for those of you that have drunk with me know full well that once I start drinking a 90 year old with Alhiemers has a better memory than me.
After he stopped laughing we reorganised to duck over for the Friday around lunch time and back Saturday arvo after the bike show.
About 2pm I get the call I was waiting to get at 10am, we are still going but we need to wait for another rider to get to town and get sorted, suited me fine I was flat out at work and needed every minute I could milk. I hung up the phone at 3.30pm, loaded the bike got me boots on and headed out to the shed...............who's idea was it to put a phone in the shed, I had to be at the roundabout at 4pm but I'm a greedy fucker so I worked and finished packing and basically hung up the phone and started the bike, right on time.
We took the mind numbingly boring road to Somerton where I managed to talk the other two into taking the back roads through to Moonbi, the speed can be increased substantially across these back roads and much fun was to be had.
We met Rene at Moonbi servo fuelled up and headed up the hill for cooler air. It still amazes me how much cooler the air is between Moonbi and 20ks up the road at Bendemeer.
One of my all time favourite roads is the Bendemeer to Walcha, I was happy sitting behind Rene on his Z1000 through the rougher fist 10 - 15km but once I saw those open sweepers I had no question that $1.30 was a complete waste of this road and quickly despatched the kwaka on the outside of nice sweeping right hander, much to his surprise.
We pulled up at the Walcha Road pub for a refreshment, I'd never been there before and will make it a frequent stop over point from now on. A charming old pub that was burnt out a few years ago but rebuilt in the original style of the late 1800's with balcony verandahs out the back over looking the hilly country side and gardens of the pub and couple of the housed nearby.
We fired up and head towards Walcha where Tish and I fuelled up, the Z1000 and the ZX10 had fuelled at Moonbi and decided against topping up much to my surprise and ended up determining at the ride pace of Geoff on his ZX10 once he realised that Long Flat is closer to 130km past Walcha not the 80km he had thought.
We hit the start of the twisties just on sunset, there was hardly any traffic and we made short work of the first section to Gingers Creek stopping only to clean the 10,000 or so kamkazi bugs off our visors, this is when Geoff realised his second bad decision for the night, no clear visor. So Geoff already concerned about running out of fuel decided to tail light Tish on her R6 for the balance of the mountain.
I clicked the gixer into first (very impressed with the 15/50 Motul just put in), flicked high beam on and gunned it. The next few ks were great and them the sign, "Roadwork Next 3okm, No Lines Marked" shot past and woohoo we were into a road recently surfaced. It was better than it looked with the majority of the small stones removed by traffic through the week but as we found out the next day everyone still had the odd moment or two.
I was wondering what riding the Oxley at night would e like and the only way I can describe it is your riding like your in a video game, it was all a bit surreal and you could easily lose concentration but I really didn't mind it as you could tell if a car was coming in the other direction by the glare of the lights.
As we disended into the humid coastal air I realised there was no lights behind me at all so I pulled up at the Mt Seaview hut and waited a few minutes for the first of the bikes to catch up, It was great listening to the Z1000 coming down the hill, a full micron on these beats does a great job and looks a million bucks over the stock cans.
After regrouping was managed to stay together for the run into Long Flat.