TiTs 2010

[AB-Oz]

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Day 1 started well with Terry and I ready to go and meet 3 others for the trip to Tumbarumba to meet the rest of the group. A faily uneventful scoot along the highway to Gundagai, then a fast blast along the Snowy mountains highway from Tumut to Kiandra. After the obligatory rest stop and picturewe carried on to do Elliots Way.

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(Trev, zRoYz, and Hayden had left Cooma together) ... At the very start of Elliots we saw Trev and Sandra coming back the other way towards Cabramurra, wtf?, and then Hayden coasting down the hill looking over the edge. I stopped and spoke to him and the problem was they had lost sight of Roy, who had just vanished ahead of them. I then fanged it to Tumbarumba to look for him while the others did their searching on the mountain. I spotted Roy about 10km out of Tumba, coming back the other way. He said he was going back to look for Hayden and Trev!! I said "Idiot, they're looking for you!"

At tumbarumba we searched for some shade along the main street, and met up with Mick and Ange, and then with Kirby, John, Kev and Steve who had come down from Sydney.

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From there we headed off along Murray River which is a great run with fast sweepers. the sight of a dozen VFR's doing a conga line was awesome. Hopefully Terry caught some footage on his POV1.5 video cam.

At the end of this bit we headed down Granya's Gap, I was near the back of the line by this stage as the 38deg C heat was tiring me out quickly. I came around a 40km/h turn to see a huge pile of dust at the side of the road and 3 of the guys stoppped, I pulled over and it turns out Kev had failed to take the curve and threw his bike down a 10m, 70deg gully, missing trees and a barbed wire fence. His bike ws trashed but he is ok, just a few bruises. After manhandling his bike back towards the road a guy in a 4wd with a winch stopped and helped us out, with a few of us guiding the bike over rocks and between trees. After pulling off all the cracked and jagged plastic, we found the forks were straight, only the rear brake lever bent, but a huge tree dent in the tank, and all plastics trashed. I tried to start the bike but it blew an ignition fuse. Roy pulled the instument cluster off as it was shoring, and after replacing the fuse it started! Good old VFR !! Trev took it for a short test ride, and Kev was recovered enough to ride the last hour to Bright. We strapped his gear and some of the plastics to other bikes.

Before:

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After:

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We pulled into the motel to see it had a POOL !! So we dumped our gear and just jumped in. 10 blokes in their jocks in a pool is an ugly sight!!

After a swim we decided to have a BBQ for dinner, so I scooted into town for some beer. Did anyone know Givi make a great esky (beer cooler)?

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The next morning was a slow start due to a late night and too many beers and Turkey.

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Paul, Garrie, Rob and I headed back to Canberra while the others made their way to Melbourne to meet the ferry to Tasmania. I got a message later from Terry to say they had made the ferry in time for the overnight crossing of Bass straight.

Kev's girlfriend dove down from Sydney with a trailer to retrieve Kev and his bike. His TiTs ride is over. This is Kev's 8th VFR, the others being disposed of in other crashes and theives. He says he's just about had enough of VFR's !!

Cheers for reading, I'll post more as I get info from the guys...

AB

[TexOz]

Lucky skunks - on my bucket list! Look fwd to watching their progress! :biggrin:

[Veefer Madness]

Be sure to post up a bunch of TiTs pictures when you get back!

Enjoy! :fing02:

:biggrin:

:wheel:

:491: WAGGA WAGGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :491:

[Knife]

I love TiTs!

[vfr_steve]

I love TiTs!

Now this is my kind of tour!! :wheel:

Looking forward to the TiTs pics! :biggrin:

[Vee-Ef-Ar]

Have fun kids :fing02:

Look forward to the progress.

Is Go Pro going?

[Baileyrock]

Sorry, I know better than starting off like that. :pissed:

Have a fantastic trip/journey! :fing02:

BR

[Baileyrock]

Thanks for the update and sorry to hear about Kev's crash! Glad he's OK! :sleep:

[AB-Oz]

Day 2 from Kirby:

Just one word sums up yesterday's ride. F&*king hot. Oh OK then, that's 2 words...

So yes, we drank too much and stuffed around for so long in Bright that we ran out of time to do Hotham. Good thing too, can't think of how unpleasant it would have been riding from Bairnsdale to Melbourne in that heat. Thanks to our mystery guest Gingle we were talked out of that ride, but to call it a last minute change would be an understatement. Instead of laps of Hotham, I did 3 laps of Bright rounding up half the group that had already left.

What we ended up doing was the trip through Mansfield & the Spurs that we were going to do on the way home, but in reverse. There are some cracking good roads through there, made all the better by the insane local at the head of the pack setting a, um, brisk pace ;-)

By the time we got to Mansfield the heat was brutal, and by Yea ("yay!") it was infernal. The air temp gauge on the bike hovered somewhere between 37 & 40. I can't remember the last time I'd been on a ride this consistently hot.

We had to stop about every 40 minutes to rehydrate. Each time I'd drink an entire 750ml bottle of water and didn't need a wee stop for the whole trip.

I just lost the lot in sweat.

We did make good time though, so we made a short detour to casa Gingle for a layup before heading for the ferry. By this time a welcome cool change had made its way over the city and the short ride down to the dock was through a few showers. The water was nice on your leathers, but those bloody tram tracks are lethal when they're wet. Don't f&*king go near them were I think Greg's exact instructions. Good advice.

We fought our way through the crowds heading for the Australia Open tennis final and turned up ready to get on board. In all the confusion, we actually failed to say goodbye to Greg who'd kindly escorted us down there. Sorry mate, by the time we'd realized you'd parked & weren't coming in we were in the queue & couldn't turn around. But thanks for an excellent day out and your hospitality - much appreciated.

The queue itself was hilarious. Terry couldn't quite contain his excitement and sat there on his bike yelling out "woo!" every 5 seconds. Someone else (who we'll just call 'K' to protect the guilty) kept getting off to try to take a photo, only to have the queue start moving again and hold everyone up. Some others tried to decide whether it was better to start up, ride 5 metres, stop and switch off, or just push.

At any rate we finally got through the gate, waited at the bike marshalling area for a few minutes, then went into the ferry. The set up is pretty simple. They've got the same sort of handlebar tie downs you might use to trailer a bike around. They just clip them to D-rings welded onto the floor, tension, and lock your front brake lever on with a Velcro strap. Done.

We went upstairs, and after a bit of stuffing about found our cabins and cleaned up. The cabins are pretty cramped but at least they're self contained with their own bathrooms. Next was dinner, a couple of drinks, then hit the sack. We'd been warned that we'd be woken at 5:15 and they were going to kick us off the boat just after 6 so an early night was more or less mandatory.

More anon...

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[AB-Oz]

Day 3 from Kirby:

Quote of the day: "Hayden, you shoulda bought a ventura rack" - Hayden's strange saddlebag arrangement was causing him no amount of grief, not least because they hung down right over a pair of red hot akras out the tail of his R1. The bags themselves - quite miraculously - failed to melt, but the plastic bags inside them were not so lucky. Now he's the proud owner of a few items of clothing with an MCA bag specially melt woven into the fabric.

Being woken up and kicked out of bed at 5:15am was not all the pleasant. Anyway, by some miracle we got up, got organized, and got off the ferry before things got nasty. We met Trev's sister once off the boat, she led us around to a brekky place that did a full cooked number for $10 if you had a ferry voucher.

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A - B dull. Roadworks. Cruise, stop for a photo op just out of Ulverston (yay, we're here!). More photos at "The Nut".

B - C dull. Roadworks (again). This time they were spraying water on the dust so everything got covered in a reddish pink mud paste like spray paint. Found a servo with a coin operated pressure wash at Burnie, and washed it off the bikes before it baked on hard. Just before we stopped, a clever bee managed to find its way in between the collar of my jacket and my helmet, and stung me in the neck. That was pleasant.

C - D aha, that's why we came here. The plan was to turn left out of the servo at Burnie, find the first place that sold food, and stop there for lunch. As it happened, that turned out to be Rosebery, 125km away. Seriously, there was nothing - at all - open for food until we got to Rosebery. That's Tassie. Even better, nobody had really prepared for the trip. No music, Terry even did most of it without gloves on. Anyway, at least when we got there, the pie shop had some of the best pies I've had in a long while.

But in the way was Hellyer Gorge. Hmm, nice. Imagine a combination of Mac Pass, the Oxley, and the top part of Snowy Mountains Hwy where the trees thin out. Then after the gorge was a bunch of sweepers, woo! And just before & after Rosebery, more tight stuff. A bit more traffic this time, some of it on the wrong side of the road.

From Rosebery to Queenstown, yeah has potential but there were roadworks everywhere, that god awful spray tar & stones crap. We had to stop at one site for 10 minutes, and it was pretty hot by now, so that was a bit boring.

Turned up at the hotel in Queenstown. Well, some of us. Others went on a tour of the town first. They will claim they really did see the sign for the carpark but just decided the charms of Queenstown were simply too good to miss.

Checked in, turned the air con in our rooms up to blast chill, then off to the pub for beer & skittles.

[The Phantom]

Good stuff AB :fing02: I did my first year of high school in Tumbarumba (1hr40m bus ride from Cabramurra each way) in 1981 - the main street hasn't changed a bit! A mate of mine hit that very tree in a one tonner, doing a u-turn with a hangover

[Guest]

Somebody has to stop Kev from buying any more 4th Gen's. There's a shortage of them, you know!

[AB-Oz]

Day 4 from Kirby:

Quote of the day: "Roy used the charm". Context - Roy took some glasses back to the bar at Queenstown (they'd run out of schooners) and for his trouble was rewarded with a free round. His explanation? "I charmed her". Yes, well.

Today was west coast loop day. Team Turkey managed to cover pretty much all there is to do, a few others had an easier day, the rest chose to do the tourist thing and went for a cruise on the Gordon River.

Big west coast loop:

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A -B Crappy roads out of Queenstown again. B28 horrible, horrible sprayed on stones & tar everywhere. The road would be wonderful without them, but as it was it was impossible to trust the surface in any of the corners. The smoke from the fires was pretty thick as well, enough to make my eyes water.

B23 to Savage River - find of the day. From about 5km out of Waratah to Savage river is one of the best roads I've ridden. Mostly tight stuff but a few sweepers and a couple of fast straights thrown in. Very hard work, but very rewarding. Savage River itself is one of those nothing mining towns that wouldn't exist without the mine itself. You can't even get fuel out there. But it's well worth the round trip, since a round trip is what you need to do as the road turns to dirt after there.

B - C The lap back from Savage River then out to Reece Dam. Some of you might remember that Bec bird that used to be on the list. She said something really interesting once that stuck with me - that a bunch of roads in Tasmania were built by railway engineers. Well, the road out to Reece Dam is absolutely one of them. Lovely wide radius corners, consistent grades, no surprises. Well, there was a bit of gravel here and there but apart from that a great ride. There are a lot of what are probably good views along there as well, but the smoke haze obscured everything.

C - D Reece Dam - Zeehan. Nice sweepers, still a few surprise gravel patches though. A lot of the roads are built of this really light coloured stuff, which makes spotting debris on the road that much harder.

D - E Zeehan - Strahan. More sweepers, some straight stretches that had big bumps in them. Big enough that you'd get air at above $1.60.

E - F Strahan - Queenstown. The stretch up to the A10 is just f'n unreal.

Tight, tight, tight. Motorcycling does not get much better than this.

Hayden's gear selector lever came undone, so he ended up finding 6th just before it fell off altogether and did all those 35 corners in 6th. hmm, torque? What torque?

So by now you may have seen a common thread here. There are 2 things you need to count on if you're going to ride Tassie. The first is that you need to be fit, since you spend all day tipping in and out of corners. The second is that almost everywhere you go, the roads are covered in gravel. Most of the time it's trucks that run off the road for a bit and drag crap back onto the road with them, and the rest is dodgy roadworks.

[V4 Rosso]

Sound like they are having a good time, looking forward to seeing some more pics. Thanks for forwarding Ab :fing02:

He says he's just about had enough of VFR's !!

Finally. Now go kill some kawazuki's :laugh:

[vfrcapn]

Nice report, sounds like a good trip. :fing02:

[AB-Oz]

Day 5 from Kirby:

More of a touristy day than a ride day today, although we still managed to do 400km.

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First stop was a trip up Mt Wellington. At the top it was so foggy you could barely see the road, let alone the view, but by some miracle it cleared away about 5 minutes after we got there. Probably because Roy used the charm and told the clouds to f&*k off.

So after going photo bonkers for a bit we headed off to Tahune Forest airwalk. This is basically a big, metal catwalk suspended 40m above the forest over the banks of the Huon river. So those with a fear of heights need not apply, especially for the cantilever part at the end that sways around a bit… Spectacular views, though it was also pretty hot and humid, and walking up a hill in boots and leathers didn’t help…

The turkey boys decided the 1.5km round trip was simply too much for their delicate constitutions so they sat at the café, with Uncle Roy spending the whole time grumbling about f*#n walks and f$%n nature and I didn’t come here to hug f&*n trees ;-) In his defense he was a bit weary, having only had a couple of hours sleep due to a shockingly bad sofa bed. But he just wouldn’t shut up about it for the rest of the day. Even when we got home and had a swim to cool down he was still going on about it, and it culminated in him stumbling through the patio garden, waving his arms and yelling “nature walk. Look here’s a f&*kin nature walk. That’ll be f&*kin’ $22 thanks.

Lunch at the café was pretty good. The chicken caesar salad Hayden ordered (yes, you’re not dreaming, Hayden ordered salad) was an enormous mound of stuff, most of which actually appeared to be chicken. There might have been a few bits of cos lettuce in there as well, but it was hard to say under the cheese, croutons and eggs that made up the rest of it.

The road out to the airwalk and back was a narrow, sealed logging road.

Mercifully no logging trucks while we were there, although the signs of their presence are everywhere with surprise gravel and potholes in the middle of corners. Another road with great potential sadly let down by a surface you couldn’t trust.

>From there a few of the folks went back to the resort, the rest of us

continued on down to Southport. This is a great little road. Good surface, not too many gravelly corners, mostly faster sweepers but there were a couple of 55 signposted corners that were more like 35… that was a bit exciting pulling up for those. There was also a hump in the road at one point where Team Turkey all went airborne sideways…

Southport is a tiny little speck of a place, not much there but beautiful white sandy beaches and crystal clear blue water… so we stopped long enough to take photos, have a drink and for Ali to pull a bee sting out of her neck. Yep, another bee victim. Not surprising since the little bastards are everywhere, with hives placed at what seems like every 5 meters along the road. The leatherwood trees are all in flower so its leatherwood honey collection time. And sting the passing biker time…

Went back home just straight up the highway, with a quick stop for petrol and alcohol. The last part of the road into Hobart is like Kiama bends, but up and down steep hills as well. Back to the resort, dip in the pool to cool off, risotto for dinner and Turkeys for dessert.

[AB-Oz]

Days 7&8 from Kirbs:

Day 7: No riding for most of us. Trev, Sandra & Terry went out to the Cadbury factory in the morning, Trev & Sandra continued out to the Gordon Dam, Terry came back. Then we all went into town to do a Cascade brewery tour. At least, that was the plan. We got there and found it was all booked out. Oh well. So we caught a bus back into town and had a nice seafood lunch on the waterfront. Life could be worse.

Day 8: Also known as iPost 8.0. Our good mate Terry decided to go in the spa at the end of the day. Unfortunately, due to his impatience to get in, he involuntarily immersed his iphone that was still inserted in his pocket, and it instantly became indefinitely inoperable. You can see where this is going. it's been non-stop igags since. Poor bugger, he became so irate at the incessant insolence that he immediately isolated himself. ;-)

Oh yes, and some of us did go for a ride.

Team Turkey, Darren & Ali did the Gordon Dam run today. Beautiful, sunny day and a great road into the bargain. The surface was mercifully clear of the debris that seems to plague most of the roads down here, although I did have a huge front end lose in a patch of water that was seeping through the tar in one of the slower corners. The last 5km or so was dreadful though, gravel and crap everywhere, and had to be taken very slowly. But the view from the end is absolutely spectacular. Or a gigantic piece of environmental vandalism, take your pick.

There are steps from the viewing area all the way down onto the dam wall. 196 of them, to be exact, because Hayden counted them. Not on the way down mind you, that was the easy part. Once I got to the top, I said "yep, he's f&*ked". And he lasted about 4 flights before the energiser bunny ran out. From then it was a long, slow grind, accompanied by non-stop heckling from the peanut gallery assembled above. Almost as fun as the i-jokes.

The run back was, well, the run back. There is one of those feral greenie protester camps about half way along the road. They're protesting about some piece of forest being cut down or something. I don't think they appreciated our wanton displays of consumerism and resource waste (ie riding shiny toys for fun) because a couple of them came running out of the bush looking purposeful, as if they wanted to give us a piece of their minds. Either that or they were stoned or had taken too many magic mushies. It was a bit hard to tell as we went past at $1.40'odd.

>From there we stopped at Maydena for a late lunch, fuel stop for the range challenged sportsbikes a bit further down the road, then home for a swim, spa, and a bit of iFun at Terry's expense.

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Exploring the Tasmanian Roadworks

[Dutchy]

it went all tits up for the 4th gen...... :beer:

[Vee-Ef-Ar]

Yeah shame about Kev's beast, real i catcher that one. :goofy:

iwell... thanks for the progress imates

<snickers>

[AB-Oz]

Day 9 from the laptop of Kirbster:

Today we left the resort at Seven Mile Beach and made our way to Westbury.

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Richmond - quick stop for photos of Australia's oldest bridge. Roy shows his usual enthusiasm for anything tourist related by buggering off into town for a can of Red Bull.

Triabunna - wee stop. That's it really.

Swansea - fuel and lunch. The Ducati plague (ed: The Ducati Tourismo) that is about to descend on us was in evidence everywhere by now. There were a load of them at Orford and a few had even leaked up the road to Swansea. Hopefully they'll swarm off largely towards the west coast leaving us with a relatively roadblock free east.

Road up to Swansea wasn't too bad. Even major highways in Tasmania seem to have a complete absence of plod, and twisty sections every now and then just to keep you awake.

After Swansea, it was splitter time. Trev, Sandra, Roy & Terry passed on the trip out to Freycinet National Park and a walk up to the Wineglass Bay lookout, and headed straight for Westbury. The rest of us took the excellent road out there (lots of lovely fast 55/65 sweepers) and lobbed at the visitor centre to buy our entry passes. The lady at the counter said "I hope you've got more comfortable shoes than those". Pah, what would she know?

After all ,she only works there, probably has done the walk a million times and it's only 1.5km, how hard can it be? So we all succumbed to apathy and decided en masse that we couldn't be bothered changing out of our boots & leathers for the walk up the hill. For about the first 500m it was relatively flat, and we all were congratulating ourselves on how clever we'd been. Then it got harder. Another 1km up a steep hill, in the full sun, and we didn't look very clever at all. We all made it eventually, amused the other folks up there with our crazy bushwalking outfits, then headed back down.

Still more chaos was to follow. Steve and I headed up for a look at the view at the Cape Tourville lighthouse, the other 3 went straight back to the visitor centre to quietly expire in the carpark.

Next up was Lake Leake Rd. Woohoo! Think a combination of Cann River and Delegate speedway and that'll just about cover it. Hayden & me went along there at some kind of ridiculous pace, my reserve light came on about halfway in but whatever. it was VTEC time! The servo at Campbell Town (note Sydney peeps, the Tas version is 2 distinct words, I think perhaps they want to distance themselves.) only had standard unleaded. This was the cause of a great wailing and gnashing of teeth from Hayden, who was already complaining about the R1 surging. This was sure to make it worse. And his rear K3 tyre was by now looking distinctly second hand.

From Campbell Town we cut across country on a sealed, deserted but bumpy country back road. There were a few surprise corners out there, usually hiding behind large hedgerows that removed any sort of sightline. Ali had a small scare on one, ending up running wide and taking a short excursion onto the dirt verge, but no real harm done apart from some slightly dented confidence.

The home stretch was along the main Highway across the north. You know how it goes, turn on, merge in, hit 120 indicated and go to sleep on the dual carriageway. Except it's not dual carriageway, which I nearly found out the hard way. I pulled out to overtake a minivan, going just a bit faster than they were moving, as you do on dual carriageway, not paying much attention to anything. I look up and see something. hmm, that looks like a car. Err, yeah, what's it doing in my lane? OH F&*K IT'S A CAR AND I'M ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!! So turned the throttle to the stop and cut in with I reckon about 20m to spare. that's not much at an approach speed of about 220km/h. Ah, OK, time to pay attention again.

We all made it safely there, pulled into the carpark, and Hayden's surging bike finally died completely. Hit the starter, relay goes 'click', nothing happens. So it's mobile OBH time in the carpark, bits of faring, wires and stuff everywhere.

It's not the battery, that came out and started Steve's bike OK. It's not the rear brake light wire which has been worn through by his boot. We cut that off, it made no difference. Finally we gave up fiddling with the electrickery and bump started it in the carpark. Vroom, runs straight away. The current suspicion is that the starter motor has died. You can hear it spin up and try to engage on the flywheel when the engine is running, but once it stops, nothing.

Pizza for dinner, a few bevvies, and we'll see what the day brings for a ride tomorrow. It looks at this stage like it'll be an involuntary rest day for Hayden, which is a pity because I think we'll be doing Elephant Pass and pancakes. Even if his bike was running, his rear tyre is now almost completely shagged, and it's a public holiday in Tassie. No chance of getting it replaced until at least Tuesday.

Some undedited pix here from Trev:

Trevs Pix

And a selection from Kirbs:

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[AB-Oz]

day 10 from Kirbs:

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The iPhone lives, the R1 doesn't. Sort of.

This morning Hayden took his air filter out. There was a compost heap in it.

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Aha we all think, that'll be your surging problem. And it ran OK for about the first 30 minutes or so and then went to s&*t again. So we're back to square one. There is so much electronic stuff going on in that bike that it's impossible for your average backyard hacker to figure out. It's going to need to be plugged in to some sort of purpose built diagnostic machine.

No doubt, it will tell the mechanic that the answer to all the problems in the bike is 42.

Meanwhile Terry informs us at lunch time that not only is his drowned iPhone charging, but it actually turns on. Various bets were made. so we got home, Terry calls Roy's phone. Roy answers. "F&*k off" ;-)

The route itself was another typically Tas ride. 400km and here we are at the end of the day feeling like we've ridden 1000.

Westbury - St Marys. Dull. Even at $1.40 it wasn't much fun.

St Marys to Pancakes. Bumpy, tight, very challenging. There are signs on all the blind corners that say "large vehicles sound horn". This tells you 2 things. 1 - there are large vehicles using the road. 2 - there ain't enough room for anything else. Just after we arrived at the restaurant I saw a big 10 wheeler dump truck trundle past. hmm, OK, the signs weren't lying.

Pancakes is, well, a bit misnamed. They need to call it crepes, but I guess that's not as punchy a name. Whatever they were, they're still pretty tasty.

From there to the bottom of the hill it opened out a bit and was more fun. But like all tight mountain roads it would have been much nicer going up.

Up the coast to Scamander for a bit of fuel. More beautiful beaches, white sand, blue water, sea mist drifting up the mountains.

St Helens - Derby. Now this would be a great road, but. no, go on, guess.

Yep, that's right, the dickhead local council has been up there and thrown gravel all across the road. Not only in a couple of sections, it went for ages. And ages. And ages. Absolute joke. I mean, here is all this effort to attract motorcycle tourists to Tasmania, and then when we get here they do their best to kill us.

Derby - Launceston - muuuch better. Especially the bit out of Scottsdale.

Roy and I were hooking into one particularly nice 65 right hander when I look up out of the apex and there is a logging truck, crawling down the hill in low gear, with a line of traffic behind it. Pulling up from $1.40 odd when you only start to brake at the apex of the corner was. interesting.

About 3km out of Scottsdale the reserve fuel light came on. OK, 60km to Launceston, ought to make it if I'm careful. Only trouble was, there was 16km of 25/35/45 corners in the way. So I rode that lot in nothing lower than 3rd gear, but still managed to lose the front - for ages - in a slippery right hander that saw me headed for the gravel. I thought I was off for a bit of an excursion for sure. Then at the last minute I bled off enough speed for it to hook up again and I reckon I saved it by about 2 inches.

About 2 corners later was a 25km left hairpin with this horrible glazed surface. I suppose it once might have been described as tar, but today it was an ice rink. Even at only 45 or so it was dreadful, the front slid then the back stepped out as soon as I got on the gas. Apart from those 2 horrors, the rest of the road was actually quite predictable and fun. You got your usual surprise "ooh, this is a bit tighter than I thought" corner or two, but it's getting to the point where we are all backing off a bit because we know they are coming.

Slowed down a bit on the other side so save a bit of fuel. Got to the servo with 2l left. reserve is certainly pessimistic! Still, you never know.

Then discovered that in prehistoric GPS land, removing a waypoint from your route means that it resets itself and you get to do it all again. I got as far as Perth (no, not that one, that would be silly, there is another Perth down here) before I realized there was something amiss. Apparently you need to delete not one, but all of your previous waypoints and only leave the ones you've yet to pass. So, this done, it was time to head home for beers, BBQ's and bulls&*t ;-)

A funny thing happened at dinner. Almost everyone mentioned they'd pretty much had their fill. Even though there's still heaps of road we've yet to ride, quite a few of us would be perfectly happy to get on the boat and go home tomorrow. I guess it's like being let loose carte blanche in a brewery.

For the first 5 minutes or so you just go nuts, gorge yourself on anything and everything because it's just there. Then you slow down a bit for the next few minutes. Finally you think "yeah, even though its free, and there is still a bunch of stuff I haven't tried, it's just more beer, and I've already had so much that I really don't want any more right now." Well, for the most part, we've had our fill of twisty Tasmanian roads. It's just ridiculous. Even in Hobart, the biggest city here, you basically go in any direction you want apart from riding into the sea, and within 10 minutes you're on some gorgeous winding road with no cops, no traffic and no worries. As Hayden said, "well, I could move down here, but I couldn't afford the tyre bill".

[AB-Oz]

Day 12 from Kirbs:

Lots of people went lots of different ways today.

Me and the ninja boys went for another lap of yesterday's run, except we turned around at Cradle mountain and did it all again in reverse. Since the

R1 is still broken, Hayden took Ali's bumblebee F4i for a run. It no longer has any chicken strips and the engine has been nicely decoked... ;-) We were going to do a run up to the great lake as well, but it's still bloody hot and we were knackered from what was pretty much the equivalent of a couple of laps of the Bonang.

Roy has now got his full money's worth out of his rear tyre. Both the ninja bikes will get new tyres tomorrow.

Darren & Ali went for a tourist run to Liffey Falls. This included 20km of dirt due to following some local's misinformed directions.

Trev & Sandra left us to go and stay with his sister for the last few days before we leave.

Terry took his broken rack to the local welding yokel for repair and went for a run into Launceston while it was being done. The guy's done a very neat job too.

Taxus is crook and is resting up.

Oh and something I neglected to mention from yesterday. We saw absolute swarms of Ducatis going the other way. And what do you need to have following you around if you're a Ducati rider? Why, a support truck of course! And there it was dutifully following behind, picking up all the dropped pieces as it went :-P It'll run out of oil & spares well before they all get where they are going...

and a quick snippet from Roy

TAS what can I say except this place wears you & some bikes out hehe

Terry:

Rack mount FAIL

Exhaust heat shield FAIL

Hugger FAIL

IPhone FAIL

Hayden:

R1 starter motor FAIL

R1 induction system FAIL

Soft luggage FAIL

Rear tyre 4500kms FAIL

Taxus:

Rack FAIL

Rear duct tail FAIL

Health FAIL

Roy:

Rear tyre 4500km FAIL

The rest haven't had any FAILURES except being totally stuffed from too many corners.

My only complaint is the hot weather which with so many bloody corners tends to cook you like a chicken in leathers but you have to wear them due to all the corners, but is still better than rain.

Everybody else you FAIL because we are riding TAS & your all at work bahaha.

RoY

[AB-Oz]

and an update from Trev:

Hehe, not worn out yet by a long way! Did Launceston, George Town, up to Low Head Lighthouse, back to Exeter, then took a spin on the beach at Port Sorrell before arriving in Davenport at 3:30 this arvo. Port Sorrell road is nice, no twisties, more open sweepers, but still a lovely (read clean) road.

Read the paper today, Launceston having its best heat wave in ten years. 19 degrees at night, and only been over that 3 times in the last ten years, but as you say, still preferable to rain. :-)

Cracked 4000 Klms in ten days today too.

Cheers Trevor

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[AB-Oz]

Day 13 from Kirby:

Lucky 13. today it finally rained.

A very leisurely start. A few of went on a walk around Westbury itself because there is a fair bit of history just in the village. N1 and N2 went into Launceston to find new tyres, this was a saga all on its own. Here's the version I got...

Roy rings shop #1 to arrange for tyres. The guy says "yep we have some". So Roy & Hayden go in, the guy says "what, you want them fitted?" Erm... well, no, I just wanted to wear them as a necklace... why the f&*k else would I order tyres? So he goes "oh, you'll need to leave your bikes here all day".

Shop #1: FAIL.

Shop #2 was the Ducati shop. They should have known better. Out of his 4 mechanics, 2 of them have had to be seconded to Tourismo full time to pick up random Ducati pieces dropped everywhere and fix broken bikes. Plus he has

2 weeks worth of work banked up in the workshop already for things that can't be fixed on the road. Shop #2 (and Ducati): FAIL.

Shop #3: This guy was just an independent bike mechanic. He has one tyre in stock, says "let me just call the wife to go and get another from the warehouse". So while he fits tyre #1, tyre #2 is picked up and delivered.

Chains are oiled and tensioned into the bargain. Total time: 45 minutes.

Shop #3: WINNER!

Once they returned, the weather had cleared up a bit, so Roy, Steve and I decided to go for a run up to the highland lakes. For the first 30 mins this looked like a good idea, but the higher we climbed, the thicker the fog got until we could barely see 10m ahead. So we turned around and went back to Deloraine, where we played bike swapsies for the short trip home. Roy took Steve's bike, Steve took mine and I got a go on the CBR.

I have to say I do miss that unbelievable surge of raw power, from any revs, at any gear that you get on a litre bike... but the relentless jiggling from the slightest surface imperfection would drive me to distraction on a long trip. On the other hand, Roy was giggling like a schoolgirl when he got off the 750, and started yelling at people to go away, it was his and he wasn't going to give it back. The verdict on the VTEC was "where did all that space come from"? Although the warped front disc that I have at the moment detracted from the experience somewhat... hmm, time to look for a set of VTR Galfers I think...

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Exploring the Tasmanian Roadworks

[AB-Oz]

day 13 & 14 from Kirbs:

Just a bit of tourist riding before getting on the ferry...

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There was rain for the first part of the morning, but by the time we got to George Town the sun was out and it was quite warm. There were a couple of log trucks that most of us would overtake, but then we'd come to a junction, regroup, they'd go past us, then we'd have to overtake them all over again.

They must have been laughing at us over the CB's...

Hayden did something to piss a nanna in a red Subaru off something chronic, because when he pulled up to wait for the back markers she actually got out of her car, yelled at him "have you got a death wish?" and smacked him in the shoulder. As far as we can tell it was just that he jumped the overtaking queue but who knows? Ah Tasmanians... what can you say?

The B71 road from the B72 junction to Port Sorell isn't a bad little ride. A few twisty sections but there was a bit too much traffic to make it enjoyable. At Port Sorell it was time for the mandatory 'bikes on the beach'

photo, except for the princesses and Terry who stayed and sulked in the car park. Actually, I can't blame Hayden too much, it's a bastard to push start that bike even on hard surfaces, let alone sand...

From there it was a 10 minute run into Devonport. We were way too early to go down to the dock so went to Trev's sister's house and hung out for a few hours until the ferry arrived.

The ferry was way late this time, we didn't even get on board until 9:30pm.

But we were treated to an amusing show in the waiting lot, with several Ducatis in various states of disrepair, their owners desperately trying to make them run again before they got on the boat. Then there were the ones that had failed completely, and were going home in utes, on trailers, in the backs of vans...

One had been pranged on the way there and it was a complete mess. The ignition switch had been demolished to the guy had a couple of wires wrapped around the mirror stalk with their ends stripped, and he'd twist them together to turn it on. Then there was the 748 that had got as far as the waiting lot before it just stopped working completely for no apparent reason. The last I saw it was in several pieces...

Loading up was a bit of adventure. One of the stevedores waved me on then changed his mind and said stop...and on wet plate steel that's a disaster. I locked the front and almost dropped it, somehow keeping it together long enough to stay upright.

Anyway, we had a very smooth crossing, and because of the late departure we got a bit of a sleep in, not being woken up until nearly 7. I had thought that push starting Hayden's bike on the same wet plate steel that had nearly brought me undone was simply not doing to happen, but by some miracle he got it running. We trundled into a drizzly Melbourne morning, said goodbye to Terry, Trev and Sandra and who were all going their separate ways home, then headed into town to find some breakfast.

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From there we headed north towards the spurs, since this way looked the least likely to be raining according to weather forecasts. And after a bit of GPS chaos (how many laps of that roundabout did we do?) and endless, endless Melbourne suburbia, we finally left St Andrews and headed up the hill.

We need not have bothered. The storm that had gone across Melbourne the night before has washed so much crap onto the road that it made Tasmanian roads look like a freshly swept racetrack. Then once we got to the top the fog started rolling in...

We went a slightly different way to the way we came down, this time via Kinglake West to Yea. The evidence of last year's fires is still everywhere up there. Every single tree is burnt and has green fuzz growing out of it, there are still some burned down houses and lots of new ones being built, and all of the pine fences are brand new.

This is a nice fun stretch of road, with some good downhill sweepers to wake you up. Except for Roy; he didn't fully wake up until he got a can of Red Bull into him at Yea. And even then I don't know whether it worked fully. From there it's a mind numbing 75km stretch to Mansfield, we had lunch

in the same café, got fuel at the same servo, then did the Mansfield Whitfield road again. This time it was not nearly as fast - despite it being about 10 degrees cooler - because we had no local at the front setting the pace and a bunch of weary riders. It was still fun though.

Once we got to Myrtleford, it was time for a GPS special. Find the most direct route from here to Tallangatta, no dirt, let's go. The result was actually a really fun little back country ride, and almost completely deserted so we got up it a bit. Once we got to the Redbank Road it was like coming home, we've ridden this so many times. Roy and I really got stuck into this one, cruising along in top at just out of VTEC revs for me.

So here we are at Tallangatta. It's pretty hot, but cool beer is fixing that problem. Looking at the Canberra radar on the BOM web site, I think Tezza (who slabbed it up the Hume) and Trev and Sandra (up the coast, then Cann River, Cooma, Canberra) are all about to cop a huge bucket from the Thunderstorms that are rolling in. Doubtless we'll hear from them sooner or later...