Museum Ride to see WW1 Exhibition (Sunday July 21st)

It is great to see RIDE REPORTS coming through. It helps create a degree of involvement and allows those who were unable to participate to see what the rest of our group gets up to.  Hopefully it will encourage more members to join our rides and activities.
Well done to Guy (his first) -  and according to Wikipedia 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy is considered an epic in scale and listed as one of the longest novels of all time ..  this would give it a fair shake.   (only joking ) .
Well done Guy.  cheers ,, FONZE.

LOL. No problem. Thanks. Just pumping myself up!

Apologies to Tony Garner re the word 'curmudgeonly'. I thought it meant old, bad tempered and surly.

Well done, Guy, good coverage of the day,and very informative, right down to Eric's timely arrival. We need to encourage more members to 'have a go' at a ride report, as we all like to read them and any other topical events that may be going on! I have no doubt you did a sterling job as T.E.C, but shouldn't have had to thank yourself. Regards Mick.

I noticed this hasn't been reported on, so I'll try my hand for the first time at a quick summary.

Unfortunately the ride leader, Kelvin Blair, was quite crook over that weekend and had to give it a miss. I'm reliably told that Kelvin's nickname is 'Kelvinator', but he seems more of a gentle giant to me and thus I put forward an alternative, 'Paddington'. (As in Paddington Blair.) I know how much you all like bad puns.  

Club stalwart (I won't say 'elder statesman' or I'll get a clip over the ear) Ed Kuppens stepped up and took on the responsibilities of ride leader at short notice. Unlike the day before, when it was so foggy you couldn't see your own snout, it was a lovely sunny winters day, bit bracing, but as good as we could have hoped for.

We assembled on the corner of Sringvale Rd and Maroondah Hwy in the car park of some local business. The owner, who appeared to have no customers, got very interested and came out and chatted and I caught him taking a few snaps of his new mates as we left.

About 14 people turned up from memory, though Homer can and probably will, correct me. One was a new bloke whose name escapes me, as do most names these days. Two of the bikes carried pillions, so I guess there were 12 bikes, if my arithmetic holds up.

We waited until 11am to leave, because we wanted to arrive at the precise moment that the pensioner discount kicked in. A good idea, as the exhibition wasn't exactly cheap and the impecunious amongst us were worried about blowing the budget. Being a night owl, in my opinion 11am is a civilised time to launch a ride, but I'm fully aware that some riders have completed a 300 km round trip and downed a couple of bacon and egg McMuffins by that time of day.

Anyway, notwithstanding the beautifully timed arrival of Eric at 4 seconds to 11 (he didn't even have to take his helmet off) we sallied forth at the appointed time.

I'm used to rides behind Homer being fairly sedate affairs, which suits me, as I ride a Yamaha 950 cruiser with floorboards that touch down if you so much as think about leaning, plus I've cleverly had the handlebars raised in order to further impair the handling. However, on his gleaming new black Goldwing, Eduard has rediscovered his inner hoon and took off at a good pace along the freeway, like a 21st century pirate with motley crew straggling out behind.

I don't normally like riding 'in', it's always the valley and hills for me, but I must admit I enjoyed our little blat along the freeway into town. Ed took us left along Hoddle and right into Gertrude and we cruised through Carlton. (Go Hawks!) At the museum we were able to ride up onto the concrete concourse and park right in front of the exhibition. No four bucks an hour rip off for us. Bikes definitely rule in crowded inner suburbs.

I'd already been to a WW1 display a couple of weeks before with Fonzie out in Nar Nar Goon, scoping out a possible ride, so I decided to sit this one out, along with Placid. TG is not one to beat around the bush, so when I asked him why he wasn't going in he simply grated in his most curmudgeonly voice, 'Not interested'. We sat in the cafe and chewed the fat while the others checked out the exhibits.

By most accounts the exhibition itself was a bit light on, but I guess that's not so surprising given that it came all the way out from England. Bryn was probably the most positive about it. The only incident was when Fast Eddy had to shoo a kid away from someone's bike   when an entitled parent decided little Johnny just had to have a play on it without thinking that maybe asking first could be a nice idea.

Despite the show not exactly knocking anyone's socks off, all would agree it's the journey rather than the destination and everyone had a good time. The ride back got a bit ragged, (as they often do) and when I departed Eduard was parked by himself on the corner of Whitehorse Rd waiting for the pack, who may or may not have been following, to catch up.

Many thanks to Ed for his usual great leadership and commiserations to Kelvin on coming down with a mild dose of the plague on the wrong weekend. And well done me, on an impeccable job as Tail End Charlie!