The "race that stops a nation", the Melbourne Cup is a major sporting event on the Australian horse racing calendar, however, those who like to ride powered steeds typically turn it into a long weekend holiday and head for the mountains. It's the beginning of Spring, the snow and ice has gone from the high country and the motorcycles are out. We did 1639 kms in three days of great riding in sunny, though sometimes windy, weather.
Day one: Geelong to Bright via Melbourne, Bairnsdale, Mt Hotham and the Great Alpine Road.
It’s not much good me going to bed too early prior to a big ride, as I’m often so full of anticipation that I don’t sleep well anyway and wake up often to check the time. The morning came eventually and I met Marty at a nearby servo ready to go at 5.50am. This departure time ensures that we don’t get stuck in the bottleneck on the run into Melbourne that is the West Gate Bridge. The ZX14R had 975kms on the clock, though I’d had its first, 1K service done earlier in the week. It was a cool 9 degrees C and hovered around that for the first hour or so. Around two hours later we pulled into Yarragon for our fist pit stop with Melbourne well behind us and the sun shining.
From there it was a pretty boring run along the freeway to Bairnsdale, although the 110kph speed limit helps a little.
After a lunch stop in Bairnsdale we headed to Bruthen then up the Great Alpine Way. This section tends to be mainly open sweepers and we made pretty good time. After another break to shed a layer of clothes it was another good run up to Mount Hotham where we pulled in to take a few photos. There was hardly any snow left at all, although there was a cool gusty wind blowing. We had barely pulled in and a large riding group pulled in as well.
The run from Mt Hotham down to Harrietville was very instructive for me – namely that the new ZX14R is quite a different beast to ride in the tight downhill twisties than the old one was. It needed substantially more physical input and change of body position that I was accustomed to and I must say that I didn’t really come to grips with it for the whole of that section of the ride. Added to that was that there were bicycle riders racing downhill as well who were just a bloody nuisance as they blocked up the tight corners. Marty steadily rode away from me on this section and we met up under some shady trees in Harrietville, before riding into Bright via Mystic Mountain to see if any hang gliders were flying.
As we pulled into the petrol station to fuel up I spotted a black ZX14 that looked remarkably similar to the one I had traded recently, parked with a group of bikes nearby. I strolled over, and sure enough it was it. I've subsequently had an email from Mark, the new owner, who had only taken delivery of it the day prior to heading off on a Snowy's run as part of a group of 21 riders. We checked into our motel, changed and headed for the recently expanded Bright Brewery, where we sampled a range of brews. We’d done a little shy of 600kms for the day and after dinner at the pub and a Jack Daniels nightcap it was off to sleep reasonably early.
* Last updated by: Tarsnakes on 11/15/2013 @ 6:01 PM *
