ALBANY VINTAGE & CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE CLUB

August 2009 Club News

Out of Gas at Shannon River

Shannon River is normally a popular ride, but the weather was a little cooler and the forecast hadn’t been that flash, and there were a few regulars away, still 16 riders turned up at the Information Bay. First stop was Bow Bridge, and on the way through Denmark we picked up Chris Sainty who had rang about the Club and wanted to go on the ride. At Bow Bridge we were met by Richard and Daniel - both Moto Guzzi fans.

Peter Malins was on (I think) his first Club ride, although he’d been a member for a while, riding his 1982 VF750 (V4) Honda - don’t see many of them around. But unfortunately Peter and Tony had to return to Albany after the coffee break.

The rest of the crew carried on. Stopping at Walpole to refuel, rather a large contingent of riders were once again drinking coffee and had decided for various reasons to return to Albany enjoying a return ride through the North Walpole Road. Chris Sainty, Jo Harrison, Max Taylor, Richard Rees, Colin Hinkley, Bob Jackson and myself headed off for Shannon River and its fabulous BBQ.

I asked the bloke at the servo in Walpole what the weather was going to be like. He said, “There’s an old expression in Walpole, “Rain before seven, gone by eleven”. Had it rained before seven I asked? He assured me it had.

He was wrong. It rained or drizzled for a lot of the way to Shannon and back through Walpole too, but on the plus side there wasn’t much traffic around. The fabulous Shannon River BBQ wasn’t so flash either with no gas!

We took a ride over to the camping area, but the only BBQ’s there were wood and they were very wet.
So we took the decision to head back to Walpole to use their magnificent BBQ. Luckily it worked. Richard, who has skippered many a boat had brought with him a tank bag full of King Prawns to cook on the BBQ for everyone to tuck into - see what you missed out on ha ha.

They were beautiful, complemented my steak sandwich nicely. There were too many for us to eat, even with Max getting stuck into them. The 7 of us had a lovely lunch with a few stories being told. Jo captured the imagination with a story about a 30 second erection, but it turned out to be something about putting a tent up - the mind was on overdrive for a moment though.

By the time we got back to Denmark the rain had stopped. As Richard Rees emailed me later: “A fine ride and good company today. There’s something about riding through the twisties in the rain in those forests that is good for the soul. Then the hot shower and the wood fire afterwards.”

True isn’t it, the rest of the email said: “I noticed that the crutch in my w/proof pants was somewhat threadbare, which dampened and reduced my pace. Reduced a lot of other things too. What was that about 30 second erections? No chance of those. Serves me right for buying cheap waterproofs...”