I hardly ever ride at night these days, which is a strange perversity because my bike has the best and brightest headlight of any bike I’ve ever owned. When I first started riding I used to ride at night all the time despite the fact that the headlights on my various bikes were pretty poor indeed. It probably has something to do with the fact that, when you’re first starting out, you ride every chance you can regardless of the conditions.
In 1974 I was living in Wollongong and my brother was living in Denman, a little town up in the Hunter Valley. His wife was teaching at the local school and he was cooking in the Officers’ Mess at Singleton army camp. From my place to Denman was 330 kms, or just over 200 miles. We would either visit them or they us a couple of weekends a month. And, when I started riding, I would often ride there, either solo or with Bob Holden, me on my 350/4 and he on his TX500.
I’d get home from school, get the bike ready, wait till Helena got home from work, have some dinner and then head off. The end result of this was that, more often than not, I’d end up covering much of the journey at night time, especially in the Winter (yes, I rode the Putty in the Winter, too, also stupid but that’s another story).
Back then the Putty was much more of a lottery than it is today. For a start the road was much narrower, the surface was very poor and there were no services available should something go wrong. Once you got past The Wooden Spoon at North Colo, there was nothing until the servo at Garland Valley and it didn’t stay open late. Wildlife was much more plentiful back then and the “Road Not Fenced For The Next 40 kms” signs were to be taken very seriously indeed.
But all of these factors were not the major danger. Back then, many trucking companies took advantage of there being no weighbridge on the Putty to use it as the first leg on their overnight hauls to Brisbane. Semis were not common, I guess because of the nature of the road and especially the Ten Mile at the end, but there was a plethora of big Kenworth pentachs. Double bogie chassis and a van body that could hold about 20 tons. Mostly they carried under 10 tons each trip and, fitted with massive driving lights on their bull-bars, they ruled the Putty after dark. Grossly under-loaded, they were capable of ridiculous speeds along the flats and the hills barely slowed them down either. You could see them coming for miles and hear them too and you knew to not impede them in any way.
And yet, as an inexperienced rider on an under-lit bike, I braved the Putty at night on the way to Denman and again at night if I had the temerity to over-stay at Paul and Hazel’s place before heading home. When Helena and I went up in the little Corolla we discovered just how intimidating these big rigs could be. It was “Stand aside or lose a limb” when those boys got going.
Having said that, I never broke down at night nor had an incident worthy of note. By good luck rather than by good management I am sure.
As I got more experience, I also got better bikes and the quality of the lighting improved along with the quality of protective gear so riding at night was something I did a lot. On a few occasions I toured at night as well but the extra dimension of kangaroos and wallabies deterred me from doing it too much. I hit a wombat in the car at the top of Brown Mountain one night and that was enough of a warning to me to not be too brave!
Once I moved down here I again had newer bikes I did a lot of night riding, both solo and, more often, as part of group rides. One of our regular night rides was the Harry’s ride to Sydney. We would meet in town and then ride up to Harry’s Cafe de Wheels in Woolomolloo, have a pie and a chat then head out to the airport where we would have “dessert” at the Krispy Kreme near the domestic terminal. Then we’d head home and, once past Waterfall, the semblance of a group ride evaporated and everyone took off down the freeway at warp speed. I only got caught with that once and thereafter took the Old Princes Highway home by myself at sensible speeds.
But occasionally I got caught out, so to speak. Returning home from the MotoGp trip in 2007 the small part of the group that had decided to stay together and ride home somehow got delayed, I can’t remember why. The result of it was that, well before we arrived in Bombala it was already dark. Cooma was our scheduled overnight stop (we’d booked in at a motel there) so the decision was made to press on. And “press on” they did. Suddenly the ride leader decided that it was necessary to go faster and everyone else took the hint and it was on. Now you know I don’t speed, but, for whatever reason, I got caught up in the moment and I decided to stay with the group. Now, fortunately, I knew the road extremely well as we had a property just down over the Victorian border and this was the road that we took from Canberra to get these. All the same, there was no excuse. I suddenly found myself looking down at my speedo and realising that I was way, way, over the speed limit. Why I decided to press on, I don’t know. I knew where we were staying and I didn’t have to stay with the group in order to get there. But the “red mist” had descended and I stuck with them all the way to Cooma, booming through the inky-black night, the gutted pipes on my VTR 1000 making all the right noises.
It was only when we hit the speed signs on the outside of town that the brain cut back in and I thanked my lucky stars that I had survived a long period of complete stupidity. The details of that night ride are etched on my brain still and I still pinch myself from time to time and wonder how it was that I didn’t end up a victim of wildlife, poor road surface, my own stupidity or a combination of them. As a postscript I should add that, the following day, I got booked for the first time in over 20 years for doing 73 km/h in a 60 km/h zone in a small town further up the road. My immediate reaction was one of outrage but it soon became tempered with the knowledge that I’d gotten off pretty light. If the cop had seen me the night before doing more than DOUBLE that, I’d have had a LOT more about which to worry.
Can I please share two more anecdotes about riding at night?
Some years ago (it must be more than 10 because I was on the black VFR750) I felt the need for an ice cream so I posted up on the forum that I was heading down to Kiama for one. If anyone wanted to join me they could meet me at the usual spot. When I got there there were already four or five guys there so we headed off, across to Albion Park, down the Jamberoo Road and into the western end of Kiama. Well, I did, at least. After pulling in, taking my gloves and helmet off, I looked around to see where the guys were. They were nowhere to be seen. Each passing moment increased the worry level until, finally, I saw a group of bikes coming down Collins Street towards me, phew. When they got off the bikes the (mostly) young blokes were amazed that I had gotten there so much earlier than they did. It transpired that most of them had not ridden at night at all and none of them had ridden Jamberoo Road at all. They were all asking me how come I could ride that road that quickly and in the dark! Well, extreme familiarity with the road was one reason and lots of experience riding at night was another. It was a good reminder, however, about how different the conditions are when riding at night and how it is not something that comes naturally.
Finally, a more recent one. After attending the MotoStars even at Toowoomba a few years ago, I decided that, since the meeting had wrapped up relatively early, I’d try to get some of the 1000 kms of the trip home done that afternoon. I gassed up in town and hit the road. I made sensational time and was feeling pretty fresh. I started considering whether I could try and push straight through and be home early in the morning. However, the further south I got and the darker it got, my resolve started to falter. Sure, the road was good, there was no traffic and I was still feeling pretty chipper. But the thought of an errant roo or wombat wandering into my path started to intrude. Then, once I started thinking about it, I started to get the heebie-jeebies and the whole romance of me and the bike, alone on the road, booming along lost its appeal, like very quickly.
It was still 60 kms or so to the next town according to the road sign and that 60 km was negotiated with eyes out on stalks and rider radar running overtime. I pulled into the first motel in town, climbed off the bike and asked myself just what had I been thinking.
I often ride down to Nowra Speedway because I can sort the summer holiday traffic much more easily and the ride home up the Princes after midnight is always great, but that’s pretty much the limit of my after dark shenanigans these days.
