H’s Ballerina Ride (Bellarine Peninsula)
by H.
This ride report was originally published in the March 2008 issue of the Motorcycle Tourers club magazine, ‘Chain Lube’.
This was a ride that certainly had everything!!! We had great weather, lots of sights, spectacular scenery, a mechanical breakdown, a good turnout of members and even an oops.
In all we had 17 riders (including me and the trusty, but now slightly damaged, MV) took in the sights of the Bellarine Peninsula in fantastic weather, with very little wind and plenty of sunshine. By the time we left the second pickup at Laverton there were 16 of us to head down the very boring Geelong Freeway. Hosko, Micheal V, Adam, Gary, Brett, Andrew, Fab, Brett, John, Adam (new member), Glenn, Dee, Tim, Mark and Peter Holmes paused for a short time in Geelong to pick up Phil who joined us, bring the total to 17.
From Geelong we made our way along the Bellarine Highway to our morning coffee stop at the Portarlington Pier Café. Because of the perfect beach weather there were a couple of sights on the beach to keep us focused as we enjoyed our morning coffees. Up to this stage we had be carefully following the 80 to 90 kph speed limits on this part of the ride but things were going to get a lot slower!!!! It is times like this I can begin to see the value of scooters and the 3 we had on this ride were certainly in for a treat. From Portarlington we made our way around the very edge of the Bellarine Peninsula with the bay to our left and houses to the right all the way to St Leonards. This part of the day we maxed out at all of 50kph and I discovered that MVs really do hate travelling slowly. As I was slowly melting and rapidly approaching dehydration level, the MVs temperature hovered between a tropical 100 to 105 degrees and the 4 exhausts I sit on, while being very sexy do tend to trap the heat, all I could think of was “I need a scooter right now!!!!”. One bonus of this part of the ride was the great views across the bay to see the city for an angle we don’t often see.
After a short stint at a more respectable pace we arrived at Point Lonsdale for a planned quick stop to take in the sights of the Rip and Mornington Peninsula, just a stones throw away. A quick head count at this stop came up one rider short. Tim who had marked the last corner had made it to the gathering point just 200 metres away. After everyone past he was not able to get the trusty Triumph to start. Tim discovered that batteries were never meant to last for ever and after 12 years of faithful service his needed to be jump started. Once we were all up and running again it was just a short ride on to Barwon Heads Hotel for lunch. The hotel was certainly pretty busy at this time of the year, but the food was good and it didn’t seem to take long before we were on our way again. From Barwon Heads we headed out along the top of the sand dunes with Bass Straight immediately on our left and not a surfer changing in the car parks to our right. Looks like I picked the wrong time of the day to pass through the area.
After a quick refuel at Torquay it was off inland to see if I could find some proper twists and turns with a bit of pace to get the air moving through my over heating radiators. We were treated with some quiet back country roads as we headed north to Moriac and spectacular and sudden views of the western plains as the road would suddenly drop away in front of you as we entered the numerous cuttings and switchbacks. I think the run from Lethbridge to Anakie was one of the best parts of the ride.
After a short stop at Anakie to take on fluids and ice creams we said good bye to the scooter pair, Gary and John as they headed straight home while we headed towards the You Yangs and the end of the ride at Werribee. It was on this last part of the ride we had our accident, one of the few we’ve had on tourers rides. I was looking for our next turnoff to head to Werribee when it came up quite suddenly. I braked for the turn off on the left, which was half way round a sweeping right hand bend. Unfortunately this move caught Fab by surprise and next I heard the squeal of tyres and the graunch of plastic and metal on bitumen. The next thing I knew Fab and his Suzuki were doing their best to wrap themselves around the rear end of the MV. I did say those exhausts were sexy!!!
As always the team from the tourers sprang into action with lots of support and assistance for Fab, plenty of advice on what to do with the damaged bike and a team of riders to travel with Fab all the way to Werribee once we all got rolling again. The end result was a hurt ankle and wrist for Fab, the loss of brake lever, footrest, exhaust mounts and fairing scraps for the Suzuki, a bent numberplate, broken indicator lens and a removable scuff mark on the seat of the MV.
After this climax to an eventful Bellarine ride we gathered at Werribee to say farewell and head our own way back to Melbourne. A special thanks to John and the crimson scooter for rear riding all day and to all those who helped out when Fab and I had our close encounter.
H.
Report Addendum [From Editor]
Some rememberable comments made when H and Fab had their ‘How Not Be Indecisive On A Corner At High Speeds Demonstration’ were:
“Ooo, that’s going to cost a bit more than the $50 Fab picked up at Anakie”.
“There are better ways of getting a pillion passenger on the back of your bike H!”
“Now you are going to have to get your rear tyre replaced H” – There was a tear up his tyre that should really have been replaced after the puncture from the 2007 Motorcycle Tourers Christmas ride!
Ride Photos:
