You know that thing bout buses? You wait for ages and the, just when you’re ready to give up, three of them all come along the same time. Well it’s been a little bit like that with me this week or perhaps I should say last week. Last Monday the weather forecast said it was gonna be great so I decided that I’d go for a ride. I didn’t want to take all day so I decided I’d leave very early as it turned out that had its benefits as well as its disadvantages. The Northern Road is now complete nearly to Penrith so I decided I’d give it ago instead of using the Oaks Road which is great but is starting to get very patchy in places and not quite as comfortable as it used to be I guess. I guess that’s because a lot of trucks are using it these days more so than what they used to.
I made good time getting out of town but then ran into some misty fog heading up Mt Keira that persisted all the way out onto the highway and pretty much until the sun was well and truly up. From there it was still quite cool after all it was very early in the morning. The Northern Road is good there’s no question about that. It’s double lane all the way and while there are lots of intersections to allow traffic into all the new housing estates along there, the main road gets the priority. It does get pretty go dicey after about where the old army munitions depot is on the old road those of you have been up there will know what I’m talking about. And the last 10-15 km into Penrith is about as diabolical as it can get especially early in the morning and especially when it’s still a little bit misty and especially when everybody’s doing their “I need to get to work in a hurry” routine that Sydney drivers always do.
I filled up at The big new servo at Cranebrook and then headed across to Windsor and onto the bottom of the Putty Road. It was still a bit misty but nothing too much to worry about. One thing I didn’t have to worry about was traffic because once I got past Windsor I hardly saw a car a bike a truck or anything. Of course the Grey Gum Cafe is closed during the week so there wasn’t any point stopping there for coffee but I did do a quick pit stop there and then headed on to the entertaining part of the road. Unfortunately once I got past Grey Gums the fog came in much more heavily than what it had been further down the mountain and negotiating even a familiar road in fog can be a little difficult. Added to this was the complication that the sun was now up and I was riding north east almost directly into the rising sun. The dappled effect of the sun shining through the trees and catching me by surprise on sharp corners was a little bit disconcerting.
However press on as we do and I got a good clear run through the 10 mile although interrupted by roadworks which are continuing through there and I’m not complaining about that at all because anything they can do to make that road better I’m definitely in favour of. I was having a great time just me and the bike and the road and in fact it was such a great time that I went straight past the tree which is my normal turnaround point and noticed it too late in the corner of my eye. I thought crap that’s the tree and realised that then I was going to have to find a place to turn around.
So I had to go all the way through to Milbrodale to find a place to turn around. Not that that was a problem because the road between the tree and Milbrodale is very enjoyable still and is filled with lots of nice twisties and is probably a road that I should use more frequently rather than just stopping at the tree which has become the tradition of course. I wasn’t anxious to spend the whole day on the road so I turned around straightaway at Milbrodale and headed back home again negotiating roadworks on the 10 mile and cruising on past the Grey Gum Cafe until I reached Colo Riverside Cafe which is where I stopped to have my brunch lunch before tackling the last part of the trip. I opted to do the Northern Road again just to see what it was like in the reverse direction and there’s no question it’s a good road,it’s got very little traffic, great surface and pretty good flow-through of traffic once you get past the minefield of roadworks right up near in Penrith but after that it gets very very boring as I said and I don’t think it something that I will continue to use. Apart from anything else using it means that I have to ride past where Oran Park Raceway used to be and the site of thousands of boxes covering the hill sides there where we used to enjoy watching the racing is a little bit too much to bear. I had a good run down through the old road in the Oaks and got in home fairly early in the afternoon since I left very early. About 560 km for the day and a very very enjoyable ride in the saddle indeed. The adjustments that I had made to the rear shock absorber backing off the pre-load by a couple of notches to soften it up a bit certainly helped and I believe that I’m heading in the right direction there in terms of making the bike more comfortable. It’s also interesting to note that the Putty Road is much rougher heading south than it is heading north. I’m sure that this has something to do with the trucks that use it and whether they’re loaded or unloaded but there’s no question about it it’s a great deal more uncomfortable heading home that it is heading up and I’m certain that that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that on the way home of course you are you’re more tired and you’re more susceptible to these things. Anyway as I said 560 kms, pretty happy with that and once again the VFR did exactly what it supposed to do which is the main reason why I love it so much. That was Monday and a very enjoyable day it was as well. This past Saturday was supposed to be a big meeting at Nowra Speedway and I was really looking forward to it until Thursday when we had a massive thunderstorm and the resultant rain ruined not only the track but also the pit enclosure as well and led to the cancellation of the meeting. There’s actually been more meetings cancelled the season and they have been run which show shows you the real pain that it is being a speedway promoter I wouldn’t have the job for quids. So the question of what we do on the weekend came up and I wasn’t surprised when Paul contacted me and said, “Hey do you want to do a ride on Saturday?” and I answered immediately that I would love to do that so we set out not quite as early as I had on the Monday trip to do another ride. This one was a different one though. I wasn’t going to do the Putty again so we decided instead to do an Oberon run and that’s always an enjoyable ride. So it was up Macquarie Pass, down Pearson’s Lane and across to Fitzroy falls then up the old road to Bundanoon and out to the Hume Highway passing through Tallong and Penrose and Wingello. We stopped at the Maccas at Goulburn for our pensioner breakfast and then headed off up the highway to towards Oberon. Despite it being a weekend the road the road was completely deserted and we had a fabulous run all the way to Oberon with the exception of the run down at into the Abercrombie River where, on the Goulburn side of the road, the surface is appalling. As soon as you cross the river and start climbing up the other side the road surface improves dramatically my only guess is that they’re administered by two separate local councils and one local council is doing his job well and the other local council isn’t doing its job well. We gassed up at Oberon and then headed out on the delightful road that takes you out to the Great Western Highway just east of Lithgow. Not the best of runs, a little bit of traffic but we managed that alright and it’s always a delight to ride that road. Out onto the great Western Highway we headed are used on a fairly deserted road until we got to Little Hartley where we stopped to have some lunch. While eating our lunch an older gentleman rode in on a early model Moto Guzzi and he looked like he had been riding for about 200 years. Of course he hadn’t but he certainly looked like it. While we were eating we chatted and it turns out that he was heading from Sydney to Orange to visit a friend and from Orange on the next day (Sunday) he and his friend were going in his friend’s car all the way out to Broken Hill to do a job. I remarked that the job would need to be exceptionally well paid in order to compensate him for such inconvenience but he seemed to think that it was well and truly worth it. Over the years my experience with the great Western Highway hasn’t always been pleasant. The road pretty much winds through all of the Blue Mountains suburbs and the traffic through there especially on a Saturday afternoon is never particularly good. However to give them their credit the RMS has done a terrific job on the highway and most of the towns if not bypassed certainly have a double lane of traffic in both directions heading through them and less traffic lights than what I remember them having. So while the 60 odd k’s from Lithgow to Penrith still seems to take quite awhile at least it’s not quite as frustrating as it used to be. At Penrith we had to choose if we were going to go down the old road through the Oaks or continue on and take the Northern Road and the decision was a unanimous one that we take the old road anyway simply because of the fact that as noted above the Northern Road is pretty damn boring. We stopped at Mulgoa for our customary stop at Peppercorn which has now been renamed again for reasons it completely escape me and then we proceeded on down the old road till we got to the Mount Keira turn off cut down about Keira Road and then headed home. Another very very good day in the saddle around about 520 k’s and very little traffic to annoy us at any stage of proceedings. It’s always good to be able to say that at the end of the ride. I hope you enjoy the ride report and I hope you enjoy the photographs as well some of which are mine and some of which are Paul’s and I’ll catch up with you next time on the blog, see you later.
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