Wisemans - Putty Ride

After returning from MotoGP two weeks ago, geez has it been that long already and I haven't even put up a post about it yet. Yes I've been slack for sure but I have been rather busy with family, work and photo editing.

I had a few days off after the GP and rang Geoff to see if he wanted to get out for a mid week ride. It didn't take much convincing and Mark came along for the ride too. We hadn't ridden with him for about 4 or 5 years I think.

The general plan was a trip up to Wisemans Ferry, crossing the Hawkesbury River on said Ferry and then around to Spencer and Wollombi.

I dropped around to Geoff's around 9ish and Mark showed up on his new MT-09. I'm quite fond of the MT-09 after the NZ trip 2 years ago, I think it would make a great bike after its suspension get a touch up. We headed out some bake roads around Maralaya and up to the Ferry our first stop point. We were first in line to get on.

Rolling onto the Ferry we were first on board and there were only 2 or 3 cars making for a spacious trip across.

Mark was for hanging for a smoke and we pulled over so he could do that whilst we had did what grown men do in the bush. It was quite hazy out riding today as there was smoke coming down from Port Macquarie due to bush fires that they are having up there. I must be a huge bushfire for the smoke to come all the way down to Sydney some 400km away.

Besides the smoke in the air it was a fantastic day riding as the temperature was right in the sweet spot around 25° making for quite pleasant riding conditions. Continuing on we rode around the river along here. I swear this section of road hasn't been resurfaced for 15 years as its a pretty rough ride. Typical of most NSW back roads now. No wonder adventure bikes are so popular. Why does your car or bike have to have a road worthy certificate when the roads are not car/bike worthy?

Wollombi Tavern

 We stopped in at Wollombi Tavern and it was right on lunch time. Geoff order beers but when I asked about lunch he wasn't game to try eating here again. So we headed toward Broke for fuel and lunch. No I remember the food we had here last time was abysmal. Right on Geoff, you really do only give people one chance.

The ride into broke was a quick one and the road along this section was much improved over the road coming into Wollombi.

A quick refuel in broke and a excellent hamburger washed down with a powerade made for an fantastic lunch. Mark decided to make his way back to Sydney from here where Geoff and I continued around to the Putty road so we could ride the awesome 10 mile of twisties. An what a cracker of a day. There was only 1 truck in that section which I quickly dispatched.

We stopped in at the Grey Gums cafe for a drink and a break. A couple riding back from MotoGP started up a conversation with us and we had a good chat with them. They were on their way back to Brisbane so another 2 days ahead of them yet and also heading straight into the bushfire area.

All up another excellent day out on the bikes, thanks for the company Geoff, and hope to see you on the Alpine ride next week. Fingers crossed.

Got out for a ride and didn't run out of fuel

Bushpig suggested a ride on Saturday and the winter weather finally decided to play ball and put on a brilliant sunny 20°C(68°F) day. I was busting to get out for a ride, buying a new bike in the middle of winter is probably not the best idea if you want to ride it. The last couple of weekends have been bitterly cold with snow in the Blue Mountains closing the Great Western Highway and the Bells Line and not really inspiring me to get out for a ride.

Stewie and Bushpig met at my place and we headed for Mcgraths Hill maccas to meet up with Doctor Kwok. A quick coffee and breaky for some and we were under way heading up to the Putty Rd. I tweaked the suspension to soften it up a bit a couple of weeks ago, so I would get to see if they have made any difference in making for a smoother ride. I'd also changed the ride mode on the dash from A(race mode) to B mode. It was instantly a more tractable bike to ride. Throttle response in A mode is pretty brutal and it really seemed to be heavy on fuel consumption. Bushpig threatened me if I run out again I'd be walking so I made sure I filled up when needed.

Coming up the twisties at Colo river I'd rounded a bend and encountered a car doing about 60kmh, a little hard braking later and I decided to pull over to let them go. Also my first opportunity for a photo stop. It didn't take long and a large group of bikes roared past with Stewie and Dr Kwok stuck firmly in the middle. We caught up quickly and getting stuck in the group saw us doing 80kmh in places. Annoying to say the least

Dr Kwok

A quick fuel stop for me and Bushpig at Colo Heights and we were under way again. I would get to check the fuel trip meters along here as we rode up to Broke, in the Hunter Valley for lunch. It wasn't long before we were stopped again and saying our goodbye's to Dr Kwok. He had an appointment and had to turn around and go back.

The strumpet

Live long and Prosper

This will be the first time through the ten mile section on the new bike. There was quite a bit of water on the road today even though it was a warm day some sections along the river do not get any sun on them and the road stays wet and has moss growing on it. We were all taking it pretty easily because of the damp sections. So it came as a surprise to me when I touched my knee down on the road on one of the bends without really trying. It just goes to show how good the new R1 is and how sticky the bridgestone tyres really are. I don't think these tyre will see much more than 2000 km's to be honest, you can see the rubber peeling off them.

We turned off the main road and headed across to Broke for lunch and check on how much fuel I had used. It's quite beautiful country across this section where the road sweeps through the vineyards.

There were a lot of bikes out today, like these bunch of guys' on their L's and P's out racing each other on their little 300's. It was funny coming up behind them and watching them come out of the bends and laying on the tank and opening up the throttle. It seemed like they just made more noise but weren't actually accelerating. I bet they can't wait till they can get something with a bit bigger capacity. Keep it up boy's you looked like you were having lots of fun.

Hunter Valley Vineyards

There was a queue for petrol so we decided to order lunch. 3 works burgers were hungrily dispatched in no time. The burgers were pretty good here. After filling up I had used 8.3 litres for 125km's. I decided to put some in anyway, by my calculation if it used the same on the way back I would use 16.6 litres for 250km's with only 400ml of fuel left. That's not a lot in case of anything going wrong. We were very lucky on the way back across the milbrodale road with the local constabulary looking for more fresh victims, luckily we dodge that bullet. 

Praying at the altar to the road god's

We were soon back in Colo heights and I fueled up to check and I had used the same 8.35 litres for 125kms. I could have made it back but there would have only been fumes left and it's better to be safe than run out again. A pretty good winter day's run out. The suspension was a lot more compliant than before but the rear still needs the spring preload softening up a little. I can't complain really, if you want a race bike on the road you can't expect it to be really comfortable, after all it is a track based machine. And that 200hp engine is very addictive.

A lovely monster

Sunday morning rolled around was much like Saturday, beautiful weather again. I'd given the bike its first wash after yesterdays outing. I thought I'd get out to fill up and just put a few more km on before I book in the first service. I picked up Brad on the way and we did some local back streets around eastern creek. We found two buildings like this one. The warehouse had collapsed in a freak hail storm a couple of months back, apparently there was about 10cm of hail. Obviously the warehouse roof couldn't take all that extra weight and it just caved in. Time to book in the 1000km service now that I've got 980kms on the dial.

Scooterbob visits the Hunter Valley

My good friend Bushpig joined in on scooterbobs adventure on Sundays ride. He was itching for a ride out and we decided to head up to some of our favourite roads and some roads that we haven't visited for a long time. I had the idea that for today's ride we would ride up through the Old Pacific Hwy on the northern outskirts of Sydney which is a notorious motorcycling road, and then after that continue on into the little hamlet of Wollombi for lunch at the pub then followed up by crossing the lower hunter valley and back down the Putty Rd(aka the putty motogp track - another favourite ride of mine with lots of twisties).

As we headed out through Castlehill we encounter fairly heavy traffic early on a sunday morning. Must be all the mums and dads going to church. Where else can all this traffic be going so early on a sunday? We were going to go up through Galston gorge but changed that idea at the last minute and headed up further north through to Berowra waters and across the ferry crossing. We just arrived as the ferry left for the other side. Plenty of time to show SB the sites. SB wanted to sit perched up high and look around the bay. He also decided he wanted a ride on Bushpigs trumpy.

Super Scooterbob

SB rides the trumpy

Crossing the ferry and heading up towards the old road now, I was feeling like a nice coffee. There is a new cafe that has opened up and I thought we would try it out as they also had some great views of the river. They weren't busy as we pulled up near the Hawksbury river bridge. We ordered two cappuccinos and then sat down to take in the views. 20 minutes went by and still no coffees. We went back and ours was next. Well the coffee was ok, but I'm sorry but over 20 minutes for 2 coffee's when your not really busy is unacceptable to me. I won't be coming back here again. Such poor shit service.

Whilst we enjoyed our coffee's SB checked out the views of the River and watched a myriad of motorcycles passing by on the bridge.

SB was impressed with the views

After downing our coffee's we rode up the twisty bit of the Old Pacific Hwy past the road warriors cafe, no we didn't stop in today but there was a lot of bikes in there. We turned off onto Peats Ridge road and headed out into the lower hunter valley.

The road along here is very scenic all the way along, but can be pretty rough in patches but there is also small amounts of new road so its a bit of a mixed bag. Beautiful green countryside, creek crossings and lemming corner. It was named Lemming corner by Cessnock city council in 2004 because there were 31 motorcycle crashes on it. It was along here SB told me he wanted to go a bit faster, I said "No scooterbob we are doing the speed limit", then he said "come on I'm just a slow little scooter you know". Not wanting to disappoint him, scooterbob un-officially became the fastest wooden scooter in Australia by joining the +200 club, and no we weren't practicing to become lemmings.

Lemming Corner courtesy google maps

We stopped in at the Wollombi tavern for lunch. Both of us hadn't been up here for lunch in a few years. We both ordered a steak sandwich and chips. What came out was probably the worst pub meal I've ever had. For the princely sum of $13 you got yourself 2 pieces of toasted bread with a small piece of steak slapped between, no lettuce, no tomato, no beetroot and with a hand full of over cooked chips. I should have taken a photo to show you how bad it really was. And we were only an hour out of Sydney. Bushpig got us a mid strength beer to wash it down with also over priced at more than $6 per beer. Another place with poor/expensive service. That's 2 from 2 today and another place we won't be back again. Beer was nice though.

Wollombi Tavern

After our very ordinary lunch we packed scooterbob away for the trip up through the lower hunter and across to the top end of the Putty road. This area is a very large wine growing region of New South Wales and attracts thousands of visitors every year. You can stop at many different cellar doors here and there is even a couple of brewery's at Pokolbin.

No time for that today as SB was itching to get stuck into the 10 mile of canyons at the top end of the putty road. Yeah he really enjoyed that, I think he's getting a taste for riding the twisties. I think he's going to enjoy the coromandel peninsula.

Yet another fun day out showing scooterbob the sites of this big wide land of ours. It will soon be time for scooterbob to continue his journey around the world and head off to New Zealand to continue his down under tour before heading back to the northern hemisphere. Maybe one more trip out.

Stay tuned for more amazing adventures of scooterbob as he slays the streets of Sydney.....

Touring on a Sportsbike

Being on holidays, plans were being hatched to do some serious sports bike touring. Thanks to my beautiful wife for letting me get out for the day with the new born and all, or more likely she could no longer stand to be couped up with me after 3 weeks and wanted me to get the hell out before she went nuts and belted me with a frying pan. Now all that's left to do is to just decide on a route that would be long enough to have a good day ride and take some pics along the way.

Maps were consulted and different routes calculated until I finally settled on 2 of this states famous biking roads and 1 not so famous one but it is gaining in popularity. This trip would take in the Putty road then across the lower hunter valley wine region and onto the Bylong Valley Way of which I have only been on twice before and I promised to come back and take some photos on a previous post. Then it was back home via the Bells Line of road across the blue mountains. There is some serious cornering to be had in all of this with 575 kms(357mi), 8 hours riding according to the website travel calculator(maybe they should get a sports bike calculator) and 1138m(3733ft) at the highest point, what a great way to spend a Friday morning.

A quick look at weather zone before leaving said 40% chance of showers and 9 to 27°C(48F to 81F), I could see rain on the weather radar heading for the top of the Putty Road right where I was heading. I'm not too concerned as it will take at least an hour and a half before I make it that far and it should have passed by then. I step out the back door at 7am to be greeted with thick fog which surprised me but I was also very happy as I knew that it would stay cooler for longer and usually foggy days here tend to turn into great sunny days. Well it seems I was right on all counts.

It was 11°C(52F) when I left and it was a bit on the chilly side for the next hour or so. I had just passed Windsor northwest of Sydney and thought I'd stop and take a pic just to show you the cool foggy morning.  The sun was trying to peak through the fog. There are many acres of grass farms out here as you can see they disappear into the foggy distance.

Continuing on the fog began to lift as I got into Wilberforce and the sun was attempting to warm me up. This made for much better riding. There seemed to be quite a bit of traffic out this morning

I decided that I had better take off the baby seat as it may act like a big wind sail or top box and make my normally rock solid stable R1 turn into a tank slapping beast from hell. Just as well as there were quite a few corners to negotiate on this trip.

That's thoughtful of our Roads and Traffic Authority to put up signs telling us how to ride safely, well I guess better to put those up than more speed cameras.

These particular curves in the pics below rate as some of my favourites along this stretch of the Putty road. There are a series of 65kmh  switchback corners that follow along next to the creek here and the scenery is spectacular. The road surface along here is excellent if not a little damp this early in the morning. Still the riding was spirited along here as it always is.

After this section of road it was time for fuel in Bulga before continuing on, I'd made pretty good time as it was 9.15am and I had stopped several times to take some happy snaps. Further along following the Golden Hwy in the Hunter Valley I couldn't help but notice the stark contrast in scenery from left to right hand side of the road. On the left hand side we had beautiful vineyards overshadowed by mountainous vistas and on the right there was a drab barren wasteland of open cut mining operations with Bayswater power station in the distance. I didn't stop to take a photo of it preferring to push on.


Bylong Valley Way winds along the valley floor in between the mountainous plateau of the Wollemi National Park and the Goulburn River Nation Park. The road itself is more like a back road than a main highway but it is pretty good although some sections have a bit of patch work. There are some new wide sections with road markings and then lots of sections that are unmarked.

Today I travelled the road from North to South and I seem to think that it is better riding this way as most of the winding bits are all uphill, much easier to ride uphill than downhill in my book. Almost all of the road is unsign posted on the bends. The very first bend on the first winding down hill section coming from Rylestone is a real doosey coming into it, it looks like a 65er but turns into a decreasing radius 35er, the first time through there I nearly shit bricks I was going in that hot. You've been warned.....

The bridge looms as the gateway to some serious biking fun in the hills beyond.

 

Riding along this section I saw about 15-20 cruisers going in the opposite direction on a group ride. They seemed to going at a pretty good pace.



 

It is now well into spring here and when I stopped at two of these locations to take photos I got swooped on by angry magpies. Luckily I had left my helmet on so they didn't really concern me that much. It would of been different if the helmet was off though. I had to stop to take a picture of the canola fields, the golden yellow stands out in this environment.

 

The following curve signals the start of the first uphill winding mountain section which is steep and very tight to start with but then opens up. As I was stopped here to take some pics and set up the gopro a guy came by on a Triumph Daytona 675. I could hear him winding it on going up the hill. Sounds like he was in his element.

Here is the first set of twisties up the hillside here on my gopro, and no I wasn't a hero today. Looks like I picked up a freeloader on the lens half way up. Don't mind my poor display of riding but you  get what the road is generally like.



http://youtu.be/0zCkYPOFS_w



There certainly is no shortage of huge buffs and sandstone cliff faces along this section of road that just seem to jut out from everywhere. I was fascinated by the scenery here. That cave looks big enough to drive a bus into if you could get one up there.

After the second set of uphill twisties it was near on 12:00 and I was starting to get hungry so it was time to get some lunch in Rylestone, I was looking forward to a nice counter lunch at the pub and a beer. When I got into Rylestone the council was ripping up the main street and had a detour in place so I kept going around to Kandos and had some lunch there instead. This was also my second fuel stop for the day. I found the Kandos Hotel in the main street and had a $8.50 chicken schnitzel and an ice cold beer to wash it down with. Sorry no food porn pics. Does it get any better than this? After about an hour stop for lunch it was back on the road again for the homeward leg.

Kandos

Following the Castlereagh Hwy back down towards Lithgow I came upon a lookout near a little place called Capertee. The view from the road across the valley was breathtaking.

Gardens of Stone National Park

On the way home I could see the cooling tower and smoke stacks from Mt Piper Power station peering over the tops of the hills. It soon passed by and then I could see the smoke stacks from Wallerawang power station looming ahead. I once did a tour of the Mt Piper power station many years ago when I was at TAFE doing electrical trades and was blown away with the sheer size of the thing when you actually get to go up inside.

I decided I would stop by Wallerawang for a bit of a look around as I have only ever passed by but never stopped in to have a look. The power station itself is a coal fire polluting machine but I guess its a lot safer than nuclear.



Wallerawang Power Station

These cooling towers are bloody huge, I'd like to see the size of the pumps that have to pump the water around these bad boys. They had two identical sets of these cooling towers as well as the main concrete tower. Most people think that the large concrete tower pours smoke out polluting the atmosphere but its actually water vapour. Heated water enters the top and as it falls from the top to the bottom the process of evaporation takes place cooling the water so it can be re-used to cool the boilers again.

Cooling Towers

Lake Wallace in the back ground, where there is apparently some good trout fishing. One thing that power stations need and that's lots of water for the supply of the steam generators and the cooling towers. Lake Wallace is a man made lake built by the electricity company but can be used by the public for fishing and kayaking.

Lake Wallace

It was getting on a bit in the early afternoon now after all these stops to take photos and look about so I decided that it was time to make for home. I'd taken that many photos that I was getting over it a bit. I thought I'd give it the berries across the Bells line on the way home, which I did. I must have overtaken at least 30 - 40 cars on the way back. I did decide to stop one more time just coming up the twisties out of Lithgow which starts the step ascent into the blue mountains and took a photo back down the road towards town.

Lithgow from Bells Line



Monument to Ex POWs

The last 80kms of the trip I was starting to get a bit tired as I would describe my fitness level as non existent. My ass was feeling like it was copping a bit of a pounding by the end of it. That's what touring on a sport bike does I suppose. I looked at the odometer at the end of the trip and I had done 638km's(396mi), I did turn around several times to go back to either take photos or more gopro movies and I didn't exactly follow the map.

What an absolute fabulous days riding out on some our countries roads with no rain and sunny weather. This really puts a smile on the dial. I can't wait for the next trip, as I type this 2 days later my thighs are aching still but I am happy.