I felt as if I need to give the bike a run before the end of the year just to see how it handled and how the seat would be after having some modifications done to it.
Early Saturday morning I headed off towards Melbourne, with my turn around being Tallarook VIC.total distance would be back to back saddlesores, so an IBA ride of SS2000 miles.
Having done the run down the Hume a couple of times made things a bit easier well so I thought. My last trip down was a good run but this time I had forgotten that I had left around 9.30pm and my start time for this run was 2.00 am, this was a bit of a blunder on my part. I started hitting the holiday traffic just around Coffs Harbour which put a bit of a hole in my timings. These buggers are worse than the kangaroos!!
I actually felt like turning around and heading home because of this simple mistake. I persevered with the traffic for about an hour (oncoming traffic was nuts), and it slowly died away and the rest of the run down was great, even going through Sydney was a breeze.
I camped at one of the IBA motels in Vic and woke up to check my phone for the time and it told me it was 0330, well better get up and get going as I had about 4 hours sleep, or so I had thought, it was not until I was up the rode about an hour when I remembered the time difference :headwall actually had three hours sleep.
I was glad that I had taken the warm n safe jacket along as it was very cool when I woke up, so plugging it and the gloves in made things very comfortable.
I did have a nice experience on the way back somewhere between Coff Harbour and Grafton, the other motorcyclists weren't so happy though. As I rode along I noticed about 4 riders standing on the side of the road, so as I normally do I stuck the old thumb up to see if all was well, uh oh....got a thumbs down, took about three kilometers before I could turn around but got back to them. There was a flat tyre on one of the bikes and not a repair kit amongst them. Quickly pulled out mine got him patched up and off. The group were from Coastal Riders on a return from the Gold Coast and very appreciative that we could fix the tyre. Nice bunch of riders who were heading into town the next day to purchase a tyre repair kit :)
Now I said I had a nice experience from this incident and it was, as it was a nice feeling to be able to assist a fellow rider in trouble.
well, all up two basic mistakes a good learning experience
and two nice feelings, the other being completing the SS2000. Paperwork all done and hopefully the IBA should update their list again in about 3 weeks with this one and some others that I am waiting for :dream
Well another run down, will have to start looking at what is next
