St. George Motorcycle Club - Touring
The January 2012 Spokesman Magazine is out now, located on the bottom of the News Page.
Upcoming Rides
An email will be sent and a notice on this site will posted as soon as a new date is confirmed.
Touring Ride to Robertson Sunday 12th February 2012
A touring ride is planned to go via as many back roads as possible to Macquarie pass and Robertson for a nice casual Sunday putter.
Leaving From: Caltex at Princes Highway Heathcote
Start Time: 8.00 a.m. Sunday 12th February
Stops planned at every turn for anybody to catch up and either Robertson Pie Shop, The Pub or any other worthy establishment in Robertson.
Any queries contact Rob on email: prophotography@optusnet.com.au
or 9521 4723 or 0402 810 031
Cruising ED
Sunday 1st May 2011 - Nerriga or Nowhere
(See the photo gallery)
A while after we left the town we turned in to a private road where we waited for the rest of the riders to catch up, once they turned in to the road I looked ahead and saw a flat, straight, wide section of road with a good surface and nothing in front of us.
I looked to the rider next to me, smiled, put my head down, revved my bike a few times and grabbed a handful of throttle dropped the clutch to the slip point and launched it. I slipped the clutch till I thought I was past the wheelie point and let the clutch engage fully and then the front wheel popped up a foot or so and stayed there till the tacho hit red, and I changed gear. Now I reckon the wheel didn't pop up in 2nd and 3rd but my start line buddy reckoned it did but at this point I wasn't too worried about the front wheel as I was travelling in a straight line so my main concern was red line, change gear, red line, change gear, check the mirrors, Oh! there's somebody there, so I gave him room and as he came alongside we both decided that since the private road disappeared not much further on it might be time to back off.
Now normally we don't have the usage of a private road for a bit of fun, but we were lucky to be invited for a quick look at one on this ride and I'm sure all the participants enjoyed the experience.
The start of the day was anything but exciting as we meandered down the Princes Highway with the rest of the traffic and we caught up to a bunch of cars which included a Porsche following some "turnkey" travelling between 60 and 80 kph in a 90 zone through the Berry Bends, stupid thing was, "it" was doing 65kph when "it" came across a speed camera and jumped on the brakes. We were happy to reach, Nowra fill up and head west for back roads for the rest of the day.
The road to Nerriga starts off as Braidwood Rd, then becomes Turpentine Rd and then Nerriga Road and goes past HMAS Albatross and the Aviation museum and it is now fully tarred all the way to Nerriga, which is half way between Nowra and Goulburn. It starts out wide and open with long curves and a nice hotmix surface and with very few cars let alone trucks using the road it is basically smooth as. It starts to tighten up the further west you go until you get close to Nerriga where it gets very tight. The roads still very new with no centre line for a lot of the way and the sign says some loose gravel on the road, so caution was needed but we didn't notice much loose stuff at all. We passed lookouts for waterfalls over rivers and finally you hit the pass where the road really tightens up as you climb up and down a nice tight section of mountain pass with a new surface and great bends and head into Nerriga. Everybody loved the road it was well worth the trip just for that part of the day.
There's not much at Nerriga besides the pub and some makeshift copy of Ned Kelly on a tree stump, so seeing we arrived hour before lunch was on, we decided to head to Shallow crossing and leave the Ford Mustang club that had just arrived on their own. The Shoalhaven River at this point is not massive but does flow a lot of water and in flood can send torrents of water over the causeway and bridge and as it's very wide at this point you don't go across if it's over the causeway. We stopped and had a look at where the Winter Rally used to be held on the banks of the river and headed off to The Loaded Dog at Tarrago for lunch.
The road still has a few kilometres of dirt and it's rutted with some loose gravel but relatively easy to negotiate except if you gas it up and have a cheap top box on, then the top box may decide to abandon ship and act like a soccer ball at speed, which funnily enough happened to one of our intrepid travellers. After we rescued to contents of the said box and donated it to the local wildlife we continued back on to the tar and more great country roads.
Keep the pace up and the roads out here are fun and exciting and you can almost miss your turns if your not on the ball, so we just managed to stop and turn for the Tarrago turn and not head to Willelama, then as someone else decided to take the lead we went flying past another turn we were supposed to take, and we all had to nail the front tyre into the road to stop before we ran onto some rough dirt road. A quick "u'ey" and a left turn had us back on track and belting into Tarrago to sample the fine dining at "The Loaded Dog".
Most of us got our meals quickly but one had to wait and wait for his, when it finally came out it looked liked the two big round things on his plate had just come off the local prize bull and been cooked and covered in gravy. Apparently they were rissoles but the name of the dish was called "Dogs Balls" in reference to the pub, but if the dogs around there were that big I wouldn't be going into any back yards.
Suitably refreshed we left the Old Porsche club and a few other bikers there and headed to Goulburn and the run home. Just before we got into Goulburn we turned towards my secret back route, and we had to stop and get everybody to sign confidentiality agreements, not to reveal the route to anybody under threat of severe pain or being locked up with the Tarrago Dog that donated his private parts for our mates lunch.
Agreements signed we headed at a brisk pace through the twists and turns and crest and curves of the wooded forests of the Southern Highlands until we finally had to succumb and exit on to the Hume Boreway for a while. And what a load of fun that was, once we were past Mittagong the traffic just stopped, but luckily we have narrow 2 wheel conveyances unlike the teeming masses of lemmings in their multi wheeled cages we were able to navigate our way through the seething throng of steaming stink boxes and be directed off the highway towards Yanderra and Yerrinbool. This looked like a recipe for disaster so instead we turned the other way and went through Hill Top and Thirlmere and found little traffic and good roads all the way to Picton.
We headed on Picton Road and then Wilton, Broughton Pass, Appin Road, and back up to where ever home is and a welcome relief to get our arses off that seat, our legs straight and a nice cold beer.
It was a full day as I thought, we left at 8.15 am did 532 k's of unbelievably good roads and back at 5.30 pm. and I was quite pleased to ride the recliner and operate the remote as the Portuguese GP was on that night. Yeeha!
See you next ride.
Trumpy
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