Ride to the Spirit of Tasmania

The beginnings of another epic trip were in the makings on the last night of last years Snow Mountains ride. It was thrown out there to do another Tassie trip. Hell yes was my response after a dozen or so beers.......I'm all in even before I ask the missus, I never did get around to asking her......

Heading off on a cold thursday morning with Stu and Geoff into mist and rain I got to test out the heated grips, these are great. It was a quick stop in at Trappers bakery in Goulburn for the first pie of the trip. The weather was good after this.

Next stop was at Yass service centre to pick up the rest of the crew that had left the day before. From Yass we slabbed it down the Doom & Gloom Highway to Coolac where we then turned off onto back roads to Tumut.

It was another nice ride up and over the Rosewood raceway, I was following along behind Geoff here and a big Eastern Grey Kangaroo jumped out in front of him, just missed him by a couple of metres. Close call for the middle of the day too.

We stopped for a brief lunch stop and to top up the tank in Tumbarumba. The bakery does an excellent chicken salad roll, I couldn't have 2 pie's in a row now could I? 

From here I lead the group along the Murray River Road to Tallangatta where the Tuono's required fuel again.  Dave's bike seemed to be extremely thirsty using 3 litres more than Stu's???? An awesome ride along the river today, was flowing nicely with no traffic.

I stopped along the road near Granya gap for a break, when we got going again the others had actually stopped in Granya for the same reason so we had two breaks, before the Granya GP track.

Granya Road

Granya

A good fun ride through the gap was had by all and I was really surprised how fast I could push the big AT on knobby tyres. I was a little concerned before the trip I'd be so slow on the knobbies in the twisties but I shouldn't have worried about it, you can still go pretty quickly. The knobbies are fairly loud on the tar though but not a problem with ear plugs.

I lead out and down towards Dederang on the Gundowring road. However I wasn't exactly sure where we were supposed to turn. I just passed a turn off and noticed the others taking it. Well I guess that was the one, then we came into Tawonga and I thought we've come too far, it's back the other way. Oh well I wasn't leading this bit from the back. So we backtracked to the Dederang Pub, about a 30 minute diversion. 

Over a few beers Dave revealed his Tuono had a power commander fitted and his bike was using extra fuel, he needed to fill up now at 200kms instead of 230kms, so I'm getting double the range of his Tuono. That hurts when fuel is $2.30 per litre, ouch. The Dederang Hotel do a great feed and have cheap accomodation about $50 per person.

Next morning I was up early around 6.30am so got ready and took a few snaps. It was foggy and cool out this morning. Pictures on the trip will be from both my S9 phone and my Nikon D500. Usually days like this turn out to be warm and sunny and that's exactly how it turned out.

Fog on the barrow downs

We split up here with Geoff and Doug taking the high road to Myrtleford whilst the rest of us took the Tawonga Gap. I was following Dave down the other side and noticed that my fuel light had come on. I was trying to think where I'd filled up last which was Tumbarumba. I'd forgotten to reset my trip meter so couldn't tell how many kms I actually done. Filling up in Myrtleford I put in 16.5litres(18l total). A coffee stop was needed, they do good coffee here in victoria. The sun was biting quite hard now.

The ride took us up to Whitfield and up through the hills to Mansfield where we stopped at the bakery for lunch. The Mansfield bakery does a pretty good pie and they were flat out today. We then made our way up into the back country from Jamieson to Eildon. This bit of road is bloody fantastic we stopped briefly at the lookout. Looks like a bushfire or burn off in the hills across the lake.

I thought I'd head down the hill a little and get few shots of Stu and Dave coming up the hill. That didn't work out too well for me leaving the camera in single shot mode and having to rush down as I heard them coming up with those booming V4s brapping it up the hill. This was the only decent pic I got. Photo fail#1.

I pretty much rode the whole way from here on my own as I packed away my camera everyone shot off. About 5kms from the end I hit a large stick in the shadows and the front tyre rolled and tucked. That was sphincter puckering, so I slowed a little after that and found the guys waiting for me at the Eildon turn off.

We were now on the outskirts of Melbourne. I'd bought a quadlock just a couple of days before leaving and we were about to enter friday night peak hour traffic with no clue of  navigating Melbourne. I put on google maps with the ferry as destination and it took us out on the northern outskirts on some nice country roads before dropping us down into the thick of it. We made it to the terminal with no troubles so parked up the bikes and got some diner and a beer into our famished stomachs while we waited for the boat.

It seemed to take forever to board the boat this trip. I think we waited for 1 and a half hours in the line before eventually getting on the ship.

Finally it's boarding time.

Where's the bar.....

By the time we boarded and got into our cabins and then hit the bar is was around 9pm, we were a bit beat but the beers made up for it. Tomorrow we hit Tassie........

The Worst Tyre ever

So finally the rains had stopped nad I managed to get the bike out for a ride on these new tyres. I always check my tyre pressures before every ride, however I didn't check today as I checked them 2 weeks ago, seriously how much could they lose in 2 weeks. 

Immediate as I pulled out of my driveway and into the round about 30m away I felt that the tyres were absolutely horrible, in only 2 bends. WTF?

I got to Geoff's and immediately asked for a tyre gauge, front was down 6 psi, back was down 5 psi. In only 2 weeks, wow. Maybe this is something tubed tyres do perhaps? As my tubeless tyres on my R1 would last months before losing this much pressure.

Now pumped up to the correct pressure we headed off. I noticed that they were better but not that much and there was something seriously wrong with how the bike was now handling on the front tyre.

We rode out on only a short ride to Nattai and viewing the Warragamba Catchment area. In 50kms I had recognised that this tyre was shite, the 50km return confirmed my initial thoughts.

After all the recent rains we've had the catchment area was brown and murky from all the run off, this flowed out into the ocean from the Hawkesbury river and could be seen by satellite.

My issues with the front tyre:

• Wanders around the road
• Unstable at highway speed, easily starts into weaving/wobbling.
• Turn in on slow speed bends is unstable.
• Noisy at any speed above 40km/h
• Due to knob size and height i believe on the tar this tyre is completely useless and a little on the dangerous side as it rolls around on the tall knobs.
• Unstable under brakes into a corner on any lean angle.
• Doesn't want to change direction easily
• Falls into bends and you actually have to counter steer out of the bend to straighten the bike mid corner.

This is the WORSRT TYRE I HAVE EVER USED in 30 years of riding make no mistake, I have no confidence in this tyre whatsoever.

Thoughts crossed my mind, would I get used to it?, or would it be the cause of me crashing due to these issues on my next ride. After  less than 100kms on this tyre I decided it would be much safer to get another tyre, any tyre to replace this one with. Anything would be better.

I had ridden Geoff's AT and he had Karoo3 on it. They felt 1 million times better than the Motoz front tyre. My choice was for a pirelli STR but they had none in stock, Dave suggested a Bridgestone AX41 another tyre I didn't know. At least I knew the Karro3 was good after only 20km ride, so I choose one of those to replace the Motoz Tractionator Adventure. What a crap tyre, I don't know how they sell any of these. Looks like my research let me down. Maybe some of those Youtubers were sponsored as I can't believe them saying how great this tyre is when in fact its absolute rubbish.

Karoo3

So only 1 week to go until my ride comes up and I'll be away this weekend at a wedding, so no trying out the new tyre. It will be run in during the trip.

Prep Work Who Me?

I've been well known for prepping for a ride the night before and not having things go to plan. Like fitting luggage rack to my R1 the night before a trip and having it not fit, get the ECU flash tuned and then have the engine light on in limp mode because I'd pulled out the EXUP motor. D'oh.

So then fast forward a few years and maybe just maybe I may have learned from this and have prepped my bike for it's next trip in 3 weeks time. Shock horror I know but I have to be sensible sometime.

First up was to fit up a set of radiator guards from Rad Guard, which required pulling apart the entire upper fairing pieces. Whoever designed this Africa Twin is indeed evil as it's a little complicated to get apart when you don't know how. 

Next was a set of Barkbusters and some heated grips. I got a set of Oxford grips as they were pretty cheap and readily available. The left grip went on quite easily but the right grip got stuck halfway, with the cyanoacrylate going off rapidly I had to give it a quick tap with a hammer that was close to hand. It went on with 2 quick taps, but the grip was catching on full throttle and not coming off, damn. Geoff and Scotty dropped past after their Borowa ride and a bit of WD40 freed it up again.

The original Bridgestone AX-41 road tyres on the bike were quite well shagged and in desperate need of replacement. I checked out multiple youtube videos on adventure tyres and road tyres. I wanted to get something a little more aggressive for riding on gravel roads but had no idea what I was looking for, and still don't as I write this. I felt a bit overwhelmed really as I must say this is an area I have no experience in whatsoever. I wouldn't know a good dirt tyre from an asshole or an elbow.

My bro put me onto Tyres for bikes, yeah the ones that fitted his tyre on backwards. So last Saturday I was going to take the bike up but was pissing with rain here. Yep time to take the rims out and take them up and get fitted, stay dry and with the $60 I saved by doing it myself I bought a case of beer. Win Win.

Tyres for bikes is in Dural so about 30 minutes from my place. They have the most bikes tyres I've ever seen anywhere. Plenty of choice here.

I went in there with a picture in my mind of leaving with a nice set of Pirelli Rally STR, but somehow came out with a set of Motoz Tractionator Adventure tyres. Err dunno how that happened, I went from 80/20 Road/Dirt tyre to 20/80 Road/dirt tyre. Oh well lets see how this adventure turns out I guess. I felt much better when I got home and my bro asked what I got and he says "Worst front tyre ever"........

Well only time will tell, if it is shit then it's only $170 down the drain and I'll put something else on. Suggestions welcome from the adventure riders. So far we've been inundated with biblical rain for the last 2 weeks and haven't had a chance to take it for a spin to try them out.

So the last bit of kit I got was a new set of gloves when I was in MCAS Auburn picking up the heated grips. My gloves had been pretty much worn out for the last year, the velcro keeps coming undone and the finger tips are starting to get tears in them so a new set was on the cards. My old Alpinestar gloves had 3 velcro straps to do them up which was quite painfully slow to be perfectly honest, so I wanted to get something with only 2 straps at most. I was happy with the old gloves aparts from the 3 straps so a new set of Alpinestar SP8 came home with me. They have a touchscreen device friendly finger tip on each index finger which should be good for using the phone or screen on the Africa Twin.

Hopefully the rain will stop soon so I can get out for a test ride on these tyres and decide if I'll keep the front or not. Only 3 weeks now until another BIG trip.

The Return Trip Home

A few days spent in my home town helping dad out around the place was time well spent. Chippin burs, cleaning, shopping yeah all the mundane tasks that a now 81 year is starting to find difficult. He's got the most dangerous edger in the entire world, with unguarded spinning blade and the engine vibrates the handle so much your hands get numb. Can't believe he made us use this all the time when we were ten, I guess us kids back in the 70-80's weren't the pussies like the new generations are. We just have less fingers......

Dad mentioned to me about the Sculpture trail on the Lachlan Valley way. So we took a drive out to have a look. The floods had washed away some parts of the road in several locations. Photo below was one of the better ones, in some places there was no road.

Bedgerabong Road

I was pretty impressed actually that that put all these sculpture works of art out here in bum fuck nowhere. So I came back on the bike to check them out in a bit more detail. The one below is made entirely of chainlinks welded together, it must have taken many, many hours to put that together.

Bird in the Hand

Over the last few years Forbes has put in place a number of sculptures and now has a government grant to place these along the 100km Sculpture trail along the Lachlan Valley Way to Condobolin. Its called "Somewhere down the Lachlan". Click on the link to check it out.

Amazing

The one below was the first one we came across, but there was actually another one hiding off the side of the road a couple of kilometres before this one but I missed it.

Roadkill

There are a few more I didn't take photos of and a few in town that I'd taken photos of previously below.

 

The dog is outside the post office and the one on the right is down by the lake. There are others scattered around the lake at various locations and opposite the post office in the park.

The time had come to leave and turn my wheels towards home. It had just started to spit with rain as I was loading up and getting ready to ride, typical. Saying goodbyes to dad I pointed my front tyre out of town. I was rolling and I still hadn't decided which way I was going to ride home yet. Damn 4 days to decide and I still couldn't. Better come up with something and fast.

I was think of riding via the snowy mountains, but that would have been a big trip and my front tyre was pretty much on the wear markers and needs replacement. I ended up heading through Eugowra, Canowindra(Fuel stop) to Mandurama. Back to where I came from on the way up. I didn't want to just do the same route back so changed it up. I was also staying ahead of the rain clouds that had followed me from Forbes.

Back of Neville

I track through Neville and then went to Trunkey Creek on the Goulburn Road and headed towards Crookwell. It was tuesday before Australia Day and the roads out here were practically empty so was having a ball.

I decided I'd stop in at Abercrombie Caves to take a look around. I was starting to get hungry so decided to not stay long and keep going, it's 75kms to Crookwell from here and I knew I was going to stop for a few more photos.

The road along from the Abercrombie River is an awesome bit of blacktop. The road follows along a ridge line for a while with views over the valleys to either side of the road. I spied a few gravel roads off to the side that I'd like to come back later and explore when I've got the tyres for it.

Goulburn Road

I finally got into Crookwell around 2pm and started to look for a place to eat. One I'd been to previously that was really good seems to have closed, maybe covid shut them down. 

About the only food place open was Pauls cafe on the corner. I ordered a hamburger and iced coffee to wash it down with and sat inside in the air conditioned comfort. It was warm outside even though the rain clouds were chasing me. Damn the ice coffee was good, could have had 2 of them.

After about a half hour break to refuel myself it was time to keep rolling. It was now 2:30pm with about 4 hours to home still. Just as I was getting ready to go a guy pulled up next to me on a Royal Enfield. I got to chatting with him and he was from Goulburn out for a bit of a ride looking for some gravel roads. After about 5 minutes I had to get going and he was getting a coffee at the cafe. I was heading across to Laguna then on to Taralga. I noticed that the road across to Taralga is now all tarred, was hoping it was still dirt but that was 6 years ago I rode across it on my old R1. I decided I wasn't in any hurry to get home so I'd ride on up to the wind farm on the outskirts of town. There are many wind mills here now between here and Crookwell.

Back on the road again and up towards Oberon on the Abercrombie road. I love this road it's all open sweeping bends with fantastic views of rolling hills, it' much like a roller coaster ride. So much fun especially when its go no traffic on it.

I couple of years ago I did a ride out here on my 00 R1 just before I got the 15 R1 and the pine tree's below had only just been planted and you could see over the hills for miles. Now the trees are 10m tall, they'll be cutting them down again in a couple of years. I love riding through these pine forested hills.

I turned off and took the shooters hill road up to Oberon which come's out on Edith Rd, which goes out to Jenolan Caves. Shooters hill is a great bit of road with fun sweeping bends through the forest and some bit straights. Last photo for the day before getting fuel in Oberon. It started to spit a few drops of rain while I was talking to Geoff on the phone.

It was getting late and I was all photo'd out by now and just wanted to get home. I must say the Shad topbox and tank bag combo works great. Can put my camera in the tankbag and the topbox was big enough to fit all my gear in. I think I might see if I can get a bag to put all my stuff in so can just carry to and from the bike because I don't want to carry the top box around, it can stay on as a permanent fixture. Now to sort out some new tyres as these one's are now completely shot on the front, probably get a couple thou more from the rear, but going to change to something a little bit more off road orientated, maybe an 80/20 or possibly knobby front and 80 rear. The current Battlax touring tyres are great on road, but need to try something different I think.

Cheers

Steve