sticks and wind and stuff

What a weekend!

My ride to Cann River yesterday was glorious - so warm that the winter liner
had to come out of the jacket at Bombala.

I've been horribly unconfident since my car-park spill, and getting worse by
the day. After the pep talk by Bruce & Dave (lovely mechanics) on Thursday,
and a massage for my stiff neck & sore shoulders on Friday, I was a lot more
relaxed, and it showed in my cornering. It was the best ride I've had for a
while!

Stayed at the Hop Inn motel in Cann River - was clean and comfortable, and
after sweltering in a walk around town for supplies, I snuggled up with the
laptop and finished the first draft of a new book project. Wandered up the
road to the winery, where I'd booked myself in for dinner - and was early
enough to fit in a wine tasting beforehand - heh heh!

Back at the Hop Inn after dinner I got up close and personal with the laptop
again, and at exactly 10pm all the power went out. At first I thought 'maybe
Cann River just shuts down at 10pm on Saturdays', but then there was this
god-awful roaring of wind. The computer had switched to battery power so I
could see what I was doing long enough to grab a bedside glass of water
before giving up, shutting down and trying to sleep with the sound of
creaking trees, falling branches and howling wind in my ears. It was pretty
scary.

Gorgeous weather this morning, and hot enough not to need the liner in my
jacket when I headed off around 8.20am. There were puddles all over the
place, and lots of debris on the road, so it was a fairly cautious ride, but
how beautiful! Everything had that just-washed look and smell, and the
sunlight was glinting on the road and the wet leaves so that the whole
landscape glittered...

I discovered sticks are nasty. Managed to avoid most of them, but once or
twice my handlebars jerked around a bit and tried to jump out of my hands,
courtesy of road debris. I started thinking the puddles and debris and the
sparkle of everything might make the road very attractive to roos, so I kept
my speed well down, and just enjoyed the sights and smells of freshly-washed
bushland. And rightly so.

A very little roo eyeballed me from the roadside, but I slowed down enough
for him to decide I probably wasn't worth playing with (thank goodness). Not
wanting to try and second-guess his weird roo logic, and knowing how dopey
and perverse those critters are, I slowed even more, and he turned around
and hopped off.

By the Imlay Road turnoff I was toying with the idea of heading to Eden, and
then going home via Brown Mountain, but the temperature was dropping, the
wind was rising and the trees ahead looked a bit misty. I pulled over and
reinserted the liner in my jacket.

By Bombala, 30kms later, I pulled over again and donned the wetties. The sky
was a nasty purply grey. The Bombala folk stared and smiled and some even
waved - they love motorcycles in that town, and I thought they were just
checking out the bike with their bike-friendly expert eyes. About 2kms out
of town I realised they were probably taking a last look at the crazy woman
on the SV650 who was heading, sacrificial lamb-like, into some hideously
treacherous weather.

Holy dooley! The wind was grabbing at me from 3 different directions,
threatening to whip the bike out from under me, throw me and the bike to the
other side of the road, knock us over from the left and from the right... it
was a NIGHTMARE! I don't think I have ever felt so vulnerable on the bike
(apart from a particularly horrible ride on a dirt road up near Port
Macquarie once). I was countersteering for all I was worth, and had the bike
at a sort of hard cornering lean, just to keep it on straight road. I was
too scared to pull over and sit it out in case the weather actually got
worse, and I kept telling myself that the Monaro Hwy is dastardly for
crosswinds, and that as soon as I got onto the Snowy Mtns Hwy it would get
better - and it sort of did... at least, the wind seemed to come from only
one direction between there and Nimmitabel. Oh, and there was rain, too,
lots of rain. Yuk.

Nimmitabel to Cooma wasn't too bad, but I seemed to be heading into more of
the purply grey cloud that I thought had been heading east. Perhaps it was a
new lot of purply grey cloud, I don't know (having bugger all sense of
direction...). In any case, it opened up just as I was coming into Cooma,
and the rain did piddle down sideways, and the wind did roar, and yea verily
it seemed a maelstrom of biblical proportions! And apart from a brief,
sun-filled hole in it over Bredbo, it accompanied me all the way back to
Canberra.

And that, my friends, is why I am sitting here with my second glass of red
wine at only 2 in the afternoon... ('yeah, right, any excuse', says Johno
;-)

betty, almost not shaking any more!

 

You weren't riding fast enough. At 250km/h even a Cat 5 cyclone couldn't
bump you out of your lane

Great ride report, BB. The only flaw is a lack of report on the wine
tasting.

You'll be wanting a copy of yesterday's CT if you want to see a report
on your latest book. [1]

--
Regards

Andrew

[1] Actually it wasn't a report at all, it was a precis. But the cover
was featured, and that always helps sales.

 

LOL, you know, as I was weaving along in abject terror I was thinking about
that Texas hurricane, and thinking about Texan bikers evacuating on their
Harleys.... and I wondered how hard/futile/terrifying it would be, trying to
outride the winds of Hurricane Whatever-this-one's-name-is...

Oh.... um.... it was nice! I tried a white and 3 reds. I think I tried a
little too much <snigger>, coz the winery bloke left me alone with the
bottles... he was also the chef and was trying to get stuff ready for the
evening. Clearly I turned up at just the right time!

WOW, really? Oooh, how exciting! Must try and scab somebody's paper...
Thanks for the heads-up!

betty

 

That's very eventful!

I got up at 7, fed the local whiny magpie, then made some adaptor
fittings for my new water pump (2" inlet and outlet converted down to
1.5" & 1" respectively). I then went to the archery range, but there
was a little too much dampness in the air for my liking, so instead I
went to the dump shop and spent $30 on a pair of XC ski boots, 2 pairs
of skis, a pair of stocks, a futon mattress and a bit of carpet.

The skis won't get used until next year, but the futon got folded in
half and sandwiched between the carpet and a bit of chipboard and used
as an archery target once the rain cleared up this afternoon. I've
only got a 12 metre backyard range, but it'll be plenty good enough
for building up enough arm strength to use this bloody bow!


BTH

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:11:48 GMT

Nah, it's just the bike's too light.

I've been in major windstorms on The Old Girl, but nothing makes 260kg
of motorcycle do something it doesn't want to do...

Zebee

 

actually, in a Cat 5 cyclone you would need to ride at 100Mbps

mh

 

Anybody who rides a Harley does that. The first time they try to go
round a corner.

 

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!
[applause]
you are evil, hee hee

betty

 

oh dear , still at least your not wavering in your misconception .

 

Clapclapclapclapclap...

 

Quick, someone, what's the opposite of applause?


GB

 

that would be Booing...


mh

 

That sounds like a slow-motion trampoline event...


BTH

 

That's so terrible that I should have thought of it first.


BTH

 

I was hoping that with my blackbird but the fairing is like a nice big
sail. I've had it jump 2 feet across a lane with a strong gust. New
undies needed after that one. Strangely enough the V-Strom is pretty
good and the Daytona is fantastic in strong cross winds.

Fraser

 

Yeah - Blackbirds suffer a lot from that. I recall Kerry and I
heading to PI fully laden and with the Ventura and that fairing, high
crosswinds in the wet heading down the peninsula had a certain amount
of pucker factor involved.

 

If you haven't found out yet go and watch Collingwood play.... anyone!


G-S

 

Actually in Cat 5 cyclone you couldn't ride any faster than 100Mbps.

 

That's when you get the clap from someone else.

Moike

 

Well you could, just as long as you didn't go very far

JL