Frogfoot

A cool but sunny late autumn day dawned on the Friday for my trip back to my family in Sydney. It seemed like a great opportunity to try a alternate route that had been recommended to me. The main reason that I hadn't yet tried this way is that I estimated it would take around 6 hours - that's double my normal time, door to door, and being a new route, I would be taking it easy. I also had been warned that snow and ice were real possibilities on this route so weather was also a big concern. But we've had a long unusually warm autumn in South East Australia this year (barely making the single digits, let alone snow and ice temps) and several rain free days before today. A quiet week at work meant that the chances of getting away early where high - all I needed was an early knock off. I slipped away early and soon after I hit the road west from Queanbeyan. My route took my to Tarago, but here I turned North to Goulburn, where usually I head straight across towards Bungonia. At Tarago I deviated slightly to check on a couple of bikes I saw stopped in case they were lost. No problems there so I turned north. This road is the more well known route than my normal way, and its' not a bad ride. A bit shorter and straighter than via Bungonia. Plus it adds more interstate. After getting a little lost in the streets of Goulburn, I fuelled up and turned for the unknown. Again, more northerly towards Taralga (NOT Tarago or Tarana... can get a little confusing). The roads were pretty open and flowing, mostly through farmlands. Some resurfacing was underway and the low winter sun often annoying, but otherwise the ride was very enjoyable. And the kms were swiftly covered. The road continues north over the Abercrombie River. The descent and climb down to the river crossing were fine twisty roads, without markings, but generally wide enough. Up from Abercrombie you head towards the back side (from a Sydney perspective) of the Blue Mountains. Again the roads were wide and flowing, but empty. The area is obviously pine plantations and the odd logging truck may need to be avoided. I arrived in Oberon, grabbed a small lunch and topped up the fuel again. This should easily last me until my doorstep, so no requirement to stop again. From Oberon, you join up with the road from Jenolan Caves and head towards the Great Western Highway at about Mount Victoria. This stretch before the Highway is the last fun before the grind over and down the mountains. And it's a pretty good bit with some nice vistas of Aussie mountains (so really slightly bigger hills than the rest of the area - not real peaks with snow etc) The Highway is being expanded and sorted in a massive upgrade that has so far taken several years so there are slow speed roadworks zones, and the newer areas have reduced limits (because the tin tops can't help running themselves into barriers and off the road all over the place). And the traffic was .... well there actually was traffic, so the fun was over. Still takes about another hour to get over the mountains to home. A really nice ride and I think heading the other way would be nicer (get the annoying bit out of the way at the start). Pity it is so much longer than my normal route so I'll have to save it for next time the stars align. Of course the mighty VFR ate it all up without hesitation. It's now about 500km short of 150,000 and then only 11,000km until it rolls over 100,000miles. Its not impossible to hit that by Christmas.

Another Sunday means another ride to Canberra. The weather was warm with some scattered clouds. A pleasant, if dull ride ahead. I was about forty five minutes from home when I noticed all the cars headed the other way had their lights on. At five in the evening, that wasn't a good sign. About five or so minutes later the road ahead seemed to disappear into a cloud. I quickly pulled over... rain ahead. As I pulled my rain pants from the top box it started to rain a little. Big drops, but not much. Pants on, I hit the road as it really started to rain. Then about 1km up the road was the petrol station I had planned to pull over at anyway! Ah, well. at least I was dry. And a fellow VFR rider was just pulling up as well. Not only was it a fellow VFR rider, but a mate from Sydney who has also moved to Canberra. We chatted as we filled our bikes up and geared up for the rain. We decided to ride together, as heading out together was a lot safer into the heavy downpour that the rain had turned into. The ride, though heavy rain was fairly uneventful for about another half an hour. As we started to clear the heavy rain, the traffic in both lanes ahead started slowing and clearly stopping. Not wanting to get caught at the end of a line of stopped highway traffic in poor visibility I decided to split up the middle - the main reason so that we wouldn't get flattened when someone didn't pay attention and squeezed at the back of the queue. I also hoped to split right past whatever accident was ahead (conditions as they were, it was pretty likely someone had gone off the road or tapped another car). At the front was something else... water. Lots of muddy rising water. The highway was flooding. My buddy came up... "We have to keep going, it's only going to get deeper" At this point it was over the sole of my boots. And rising quickly. I remembered all those images of cars floating away on flooded highways. "Are you sure?". "Yes" He headed forwards. We split some way up the road until we were past all of the cars and the flooded highway stretched out ahead of us. But we could also see clear road. "Keep going, otherwise we're stuck here" he said, just as a semi trailer crept past. "follow him, he'll clear any debris" So we did. The bow wave of the truck kept tugging at the front wheel trying to turn the bike. Sometimes we'd ride over the centreline that we couldn't see, but we could feel the cats eyes. A few hundred metres up the road we were out of the water. We pulled over to check nothing was caught in the bikes. The water had gotten to mid calf, not quite over the tops of my waterproof boots when I was on tiptoe. Riding, it was lapping at my boots on the pegs and the bow wave as we rode through it was at least twice that. We looked back just as the police arrived and shut the road. They wouldn't have let us through I'm sure. Good choice. (or lucky??) Not long after that the rain stopped and eventually the roads dried. More than an hour late I rolled into my garage to get dry and warm. Safe.

Thanks Jag. Speed sensor fixed now... both bikes now fully serviceable.

The VFR spent most of the last few weeks in the shop waiting for a water pump. It started the afternoon after getting home, I popped back into the garage and noticed a small puddle of coolant on the floor. Not a good sign. I rang the local bike shop, a new one as I'm in Canberra now. The guy on the phone said something about "Don't worry, they'll do that when its hot and the overflow tank fills. No need to bring it in." I sat back after hanging up. I've had this bike for ten years and 140,000km. I've ridden in hot weather, sat about in hot traffic and parked it when it's been much hotter. It's never done this. And certainly not with an almost empty overflow tank. I decided to head to the shop. Somethings wrong. Up the road is another shop, so I dropped in and asked to grab some coolant. I topped a little in the tank and it immediately ran back out. Yeah, nothing wrong huh*. I carefully rode on to the local Honda dealer. In the end they decided it was in need of a new water pump. Spent a couple of weeks waiting for the part. I guess a good thing about the VFR is that 12 years later, Honda are still making the same bike (and even now, it's going to be basically the same bike in the new one). So parts are easy (though as they always seem to need to order them from Japan, they don't break often.... but we all knew that) Got it back and headed up to Sydney for my normal weekend at home. That's when I noticed that the speedo was all over the place... it was like speed roulette. It has been sort of liberating, riding without speed limits, so to speak. So I'll have to take it back to the shop. Maybe the speed sensor is out (has happened before about 6 or so years ago) or the shop nudged or bumped something. They can take a look and fix it. Not sure about the shop though. I'll give them this chance. * to be fair, the tech was trying to diagnose over the phone, that's never easy.

So I've moved down to Canberra where I live during the week, and head home every weekend. One of the problems with this has been that whichever bike stays in Sydney won't get ridden, and its not fair to my family to be away all week, come home late Friday and then spend all Saturday riding, before leaving for Canberra mid afternoon Sunday. I always planned to move both bikes down here, but how do I do that. I'd really need a lift from a buddy or maybe catch the intercity bus. My mum and dad were headed to Sydney on their way to my sisters, so my dad suggested he rides the other one down. Which was a really good idea. Except he's ridden my VFR for a total of about 20minutes in the suburb only (no freeway, no back roads) and not ridden this far (to quote him "furthest he's ridden in 50 years"). We can't leave until after 4pm as my wife doesn't get home from work, giving us about 4 hours of daylight. If it takes us too long we can't ride on the back roads as the kangaroos are a real hazard around dusk. Then to add to it all, we turn on a bit of a heat wave and we're expecting about 38C, clear skies all day.... he's from NZ so not so used to our temps. But in the spirit of adventure... stuff all that, LETS RIDE! And so here we are, all geared up ready to go. Just about to head off It was warm, and it took Dad a little while to get used to the higher speeds (and glorious smooth comfort of the VFR, his normal ride is a KTM 690 Duke, he calls a tractor by comparison). I bought a set of Scala Riders several months back and they did great work on this trip. Our route took us down the freeway at first, partly to build his confidence and partly trading fun for time so we could do the best bit at the end. By Moss Vale Service Centre we both needed a stop for a leg stretch, but more importantly some water. It was very hot and no clouds to relieve us. We spent a couple of minutes drinking up and chatting to a bloke doing the run on a Speed Triple. At Marulan we'd made up enough time that I was happy and we turned off into the country roads. Dad's first taste of the country NSW on a bike. The comms worked well and I was able to give him general tips and warn him about hazards and tighter turns coming up... I'm sure he was sick of me nattering in his ear. But I was protecting two things very important to me. And I gotta say he did really well. He enjoyed himself but even he admitted he had the death grip on the handle bars for most of the day - part of that was the pressure of not smashing my VFR I guess. The forested roads gave us a lot of relief from the sun and evening was stretching on as the sun came down - into our eyes. Then, about 3h15m after we left we rolled up to my garage, safe, sound, tired and thirsty. I usually take just under 3h so we made really good time. This is my Dad, pretty stoked about the whole thing (and quietly a little amazed I let him ride my VFR - so am I) Time to put the feet up and drink lots of cold cold water. Well done Dad :)

Up early, beat the crowds, beat the heat, beat the cops, and be home for lunch after 5 hours of one of the best roads in Sydney. Sounds like a plan. I was invited to join a couple of mates very early Sunday for a Breakfast at Grey Gums... and maybe a bit further after breakfast. So 6am finds us meeting up a a nearby petrol station about to head up the Putty. It would seem that my last dash up this road wasn't to be the last. This one might be but who cares. So we made Grey Gums in easy time. The carpark was a bit empty. But the lack of vehicles didn't give us a hint of how many flies there would be. Made breakfast interesting. Ah summer, in Australia = flies. So we'd made it here. Some quick maths and we turned north, we should easily be able to head up to the top of the Putty and still make it home for lunch. This lead me up to the 10 mile Putty again. I really wish this patch was much closer to home, or I could get a day up here doing a few laps. It's picturesque - but then I'm not really looking at that. After fuel, another roll down the 10-mile and it was back to Grey Gums. What a difference a couple of hours can make. On a nice day, on a Sunday, the first Sunday after double demerits has finished and the holidays. Almost a perfect storm. With so many people the flies were spread much more thinly so our snack was more comfortable. It was getting warm and time was starting to run out, so we headed homewards. And I was home in time to head out with the family for Yum Cha. One of the bikes I rode with, a BMW HP2. Very nice and there was a fun moment as we both leapt away from the lights at high rev, quick shifters (no need for clutch with these) blipping..... then we were good boys again.

Service time again. This time I had some extra work to do on the bike. I have recently been considering suspension upgrades and work to my VFR. Discussions here and lots of helpful advice, including dropping in on a couple of specialists around the city. One of things I was scared of was changing the bike and ending up NOT liking the ride. While my Daytona is a wonderful ride, occasionally the stiffer suspension is a bit uncomfortable on some of the patches I know my VFR with its softer ride is less affected. The other problem was of course, costs. When I first started considering my plans I had a little more spare cash that I do now, so that became a bigger and bigger factor. So I stayed simple. A front clean and re-oil, new seals for the first time since I bought the bike. For the rear I replaced the shock with a new Honda stock item. So both ends refreshed and I am happy that it won't be worse. I realise many will say that it's still terrible, but I am happy with the way it rides, and I don't ask a lot from it. I have the Daytona now for that. I've only ridden it home on the freeway, its first real test will be the when I head to Canberra in the new year to start at my new position. On a road I know fairly well and have ridden recently it, it will be a good comparison. Service all done as well, with no problems to report. 141,000km. Described as immaculate (I'd probably argue that, there is a few minor scratches and other normal wear and tear about), but happy to hear praise like that.

I'm in the middle of a job relocation from Sydney to Canberra. The moving truck headed down yesterday, so it was time for me to get down there as well. I had planned to fill the top box on the VFR and head down, but I realised two things – I didn’t need to take much as I was only going overnight, and the weather was forecast sunny. So it was time for the Daytona to head interstate for its first away trip. I packed a couple of things (mostly chargers for my iPhone and my Bluetooth comms system) and headed off. I had most of the day, but I had to be at the agent’s office to pick up the house keys before 5pm. From my place I took the freeway to Picton Rd, turning off there towards Picton. After a top up I turned up towards Thirlmere and avoid some parts of the Interstate. This route eventually winds its way back to the Interstate, I can't avoid it forever, but I get a bit further along the way without slabbing it. Staying on the Interstate until Golden Vale Rd, I turned here headed for Exeter and Highlands Way. A fun road, that I've travelled several times. This drops me back on the Interstate at a convenient spot just before a petrol station. Topped up again and a few hundred metres later I get off the Interstate and head down the back way to Queanbeyan that I really enjoy. I found the Daytona a delight to ride on these roads. So easy to flick into corners, so much power with just a small twist of the wrist. The suspension is stiffer than the VFR though and that occasionally had me bobbing about like a bobble head on some of the rough patches. The Daytona proved a capable, extremely fun and comfortable over the distance that I’ll happily take away again. The VFR will still overtake it in luggage capacity and in miserable weather. It seems like some of the roads are shorter, but I’m sure it’s a combination of being faster and more confident on them, the Daytona’s rapid acceleration up to (and over) legal speeds helped too. On the return trip I tried a variation of up through Berrima, but it cemented in my mind that exiting that leg on Golden Vale Rd, is the best compromise between riding fun roads and not increasing the journey time too much. I found my choice today lead me simply into some towns and just sucked time rather than adding enjoyment. At least now I know. I’ve also been trying some new places to break up the rides, get meals or snacks along the way. I recommend the cafe at Exeter and the Pub at Tarago (those towns aren’t big enough that you’ll be confused if you want to try them yourself).