Uralla SOO 19.02.10

Once again we headed up to the beautiful region of New England for a long ride and a drunken weekend. It all started off with everyone trying to figure out where we were going to leave from. Initially I posted a route suggestion which was Sydney, Twin Servo's, Gloucester, Walcha, Uralla. In my experience, which isn't vast, those are some of the best roads in that area of NSW. Mannie, who is usually our ride captain, replied to my post and said "we will see what its like on the day".

Well on the day it was raining and we still went headed along exactly that path. Woot one right for me!.

The ride out of NSW was supposed to meet up at Berowra Mobil at 9:00am for a 9:30am departure. I got there about 20 past 8 as its only about 30 minutes from my place. At 9:30am with no one having arrived I was beginning to wonder if I had the time wrong or the meeting place had been changed without my knowledge. While I was hanging out drinking coffee and smoking I got talking to two guys in a pickup truck. Turns out one of them was the ex president of the Mountain Men. We chatted for about half an hour about my bike, his bike, riding in general until him and his mate took off for work.

I love that no matter whether you are a Ulysses member, a 1%'r, a weekend casual rider there is always something to talk about when you love bikes and people are always willing to be nice and chat.

Finally everyone started to show up, we all fueled up, sorted out our coffee and chocolate fixes and headed up to the Twin Servos to pick up Gazz and Wazza. By this time it was past 10 so we were running well and truly late.

Finally we were on the road and heading north. We took the F3 all the way up past Raymond's Terrace and turned left heading up to Gloucester. By this time the rain had which had been threatening all morning had started to come down in a mix of thick haze and pelting rain.

Gazza going home

The rain got worse and my visibility went past terrible and into downright dangerous. You see I have to ride wearing my glasses and if I ride with the helmet fully closed up either my glasses or the helmet fog up or both.

This time it was both, so after giving up on the idea of riding with my helmet closed I ended up doing 120 through to Gloucester in the driving rain with my helmet open. I can tell you that rain at that speed fucking hurts.

Petrol stop

The guys all got to Gloucester well ahead of us and had happily had lunch before we got there

Southern Armada Raid blogs

I am still slowly doing them, I have fixed the text in the weeks up to week 32 and now just have to hand paste the images across. I will get a few more done now as I can do this while playing EVE.