+1 Rod & Lida,
Well I’ve been asked by VChops to do a RR for the Crookwell Overnighter ride so here’s my RR, others may remember it differently depending on wether there was coffee, soft drink, beer, scotch, rum or wine involved. ….
Saturday the Richmond meeting point crowd made it up Bells Of Line Road (BOL) with the dozen other bike groups going that way. At Bell the police were dutifully booking anyone speeding past the intersection of the Darling Causeway and BOL rd (that corner is a black spot killer, so it’s good policing IMHO).
After turning off The Causeway, we all warmed up on the short dirt sections around Hartley Vale and onto The Ace Café (a bit late) to meet the rest of the bunch, we were now a “mob”. Someone (he who shall not be named as he rides a BMW) mentioned another nice dirt road that was on our planned route, so with a little help from Giddy Goanna we made our way through an extra section of well graded & fun back roads. (Thanks GG for flagging down everyone before the road dropped altitude suddenly).
We all made it to the Tarana Pub with the only casualty being AstroBob’s screw that had become loose and was now part of the road fill somewhere back on the track.
The “mob” of dirty Stroms and dirty riders made local coaches of tourist’s nervous (or maybe just the local sheep were).
After a quick bite & beverage at Tarana Pub it was onto Mt Panorama circuit that turned out to be closed for a hill climb event, before wishing Ozzy Strom a safe trip home a few managed to pose for a Pit Strait pic before continuing. We all regrouped at the Black Stump Hotel in Trunkey Creek where we could admire the country pub classic wall decorations.
With more great dirt roads ahead I could see a few grins appearing in helmet visors.
The run to Crookwell was as good as expected and checking into Spud Murphy’s was like visiting a relative’s country homestead with Grandad Spud watching the cricket on the back veranda and Mr & Mrs spud in the garden. Once all riders were washed and changed it was a short walk to the middle pub (the closest pub) for predrinks and cricket on the pub TV then onto the top pub for dinner with what was now the beginning of a “rowdy mob”
The morning saw those who could bear the morning sunlight (Rod& Lida, Bigfoot53, Giddy Goanna & Co) make their way home after rousing a motley crew from the caravan park. After a group pic we rode through what is left of the dirt roads to Taralga for breakfast then Chops and Astro headed south while Myself, Ock, Normo, and Thunder, headed north to Oberon.
More coffee at the Monkey Bean cafe then Ock and Normo shot west while Thunder and I headed for Sofala & Ilford.
At Ilford I handed Thunder a paper road map of NSW with the instructions of “keep the ocean on your right” he had a huge grin after riding through Sofala’s twistys and was last seen heading for Bylong Way!!!
Great company, roads and destination made this ride a good start to the festive season. When I finally got back to Bell the police were still booking people at the same intersection we had come through yesterday.
On my way down BOL rd there was a nice light rain that washed my Strom and I, the temp out west had been near 30c so the cool off and the NSW Blue Mountains washed and green after a rain was as good as you can get.
733 fun km's on my Black Strom
ML