Greetings,

Last w/e end I went to Hobart, saw my kids and brought beryl back to Melbourne, ending a hiatus of 7 months from riding any distance and 5 months of cabin fever.

I live in the Vast urban wasteland that is the s/e suburbs of Melbourne and the only way I got to see the world was gloomily out the window of a moving steel box. The world quickly lost its colour and thanks to the mollycoddling of my wife, my well meaning friends and the therapists of the rehab centre I became a pale listless husk of the man I was. All I could do was keep watch on the embers of the fire within, feeding it daily with bike porn, choosing of my new bike and looking about for new bike gear.

Then on Monday morning I was free

I woke at 6am, donned my shiny new riding gear, packed up my shit and headed down to marlys garage (dads partner) where I loaded up beryl (dads 1986 model R65) disconnected the charger and kicked her in the guts. After a few Grumbles about being awoken so early, she burst into life with the steady thud thud thud of a truly beautiful piece of ch-ergman engineering and as I blipped the throttle a few times, the bike gave that lovely right hand torque reaction that reassured me that the bike was indeed capable of pulling the skin off a rice custard.

and I was off. I fueled up and put some air in the macadams tyres and head out to dads house where I picked up the war chariot (trailer) and a nice stack of $50 bills that my brother had collected selling all dads shit at a garage sale. On ya bro, a bottle of laphroig will be forth coming

The road gods had smiled upon me as they gave me a nice sunny 'cool and crisp' day to travel in, as I left Baghdad I did a quick check, Bike runing ok? check, trailer towing well? check, wearing fathers 'Gentlemen's motorcycling socks? check, lap rug secure? check, hot grips on 100%? check, softcock? check.

I was reading the bard's latest column in AMCN in the plane on the way down to slobart. You know, the one where he is ranting in that wild eyed and near psychotic eastern European way we all know and love about how he loves to ride in the cold? Well while this may be ok for the supreme riding soviet, but not for me. I do ride in the cold, but its a pain in the arse, and the only way I deal with it is that I take the view that life is all about balence and that one day ridden in sunshine and warmth is worth 10 days riding in cold and wet (well ok, 5 days stopped at the lights listening to hailstones bounce off your helmet while dickheads in cars laugh at you). Either way I figure that Im way ahead.

I usually listen to audio books on longer runs or music, but since I stuck my head in a tree I found both these things annoying while trying to concentrate on not breaking rule no.1 But as I headed north, a warm feeling came over me that belied the cold and fog that I was riding in. I worked out this warm feeling was a happiness I havent felt in quite a while, and I started to hum, the humming became singing (pink floyd), I rode past the scheduled break at Oatlands and by the time I was approaching campbelltown I had the helmet kareoki machine belting out barnsey while turned up to 11.

but what? its only 9:30am? if I continue like this I would be in Devonport before lunch with 5-6 hours of wait time before I got on the fucking ferry !! This is not acceptable. SO after a coffee I jumped back on beryl and headed off to swansea via lake leake, more coffee at the barkmill bakery, then back through campbell town to perth where beryl and I both refuelled. by this time I was getting a bit sore so I popped a couple of pills and had lunch.

I continued after lunch, Full of the peace of mind and sense of well being that only narcotic painkillers can bring. I was riding along and and saw the turn off to sheffield. I was well ahead of shedule still (I msg'd a bloke that I would be in devonport and asked him if he wanted to meet up for a pre-boarding, cleansing ale..... but he couldnt make it), so I went back through sheffield, cethana, wilmot ( the little little store opposite the school had nice folks, but shit coffee) and up the wilmot road to devonport. I got there about 5pm, so it filled the day quite nicely.

there was the usual phaffing about in lines waiting in the cold for them to let me on, I found my room and managed to have a quick shower before heading to the the restaraunt for dinner.

For dinner on board the spirit you have 2 choices, the 'captains table' cafe which has the usual bain marie crap or the resteraunt that sells really top notch tucker. My 3 course dinner was $64 and worth every penny as each course was fantastic. Life is too short to eat crap food so the restaraunt is the go if your on the spirit of tassie.

By this time, the drugs had worn off so I grabbed a couple of bundies and went to bed.

I rose at 5:30 when some bastard rudely woke me up with the PA system, had breaky and rode home before changing, calling a cab and heading off to rehab.

it was an excellent trip, the bike pulled the war chariot really well after the stale fuel was worked out of the system and I am really happy with it. the whole rig bumbled along quite nicely at $1.10 to $1.20 and showed no vices at all apart from causing a bit of a low speed wobble. I feel much better knowing that there is a fully functional motorcycle out in the shed, one that I can ride any time I like.

And ride it I shall....... Hail Beryl, Hail the war chariot, Hail motorcycles.....

OZ

haha, really nice writeup ozjohnno!
best of luck with the new machine...hail motorcycles indeed!

Thanks Jafo,
Yeah it was a long time coming but well worth the wait once I got underway.

The my half of the money from the sale of dads house hit my account today so Im riding beryl to the BMWvic club coffee tomorrow morning, then I will be heading out to pick up the strada.

Beryl will be my daily ride, will save the strada for the fun stuff on the weekend :)

Cheers bloke

OZ