Ride Report Sunday 28 September 2008 Clearing showers then fine with showers developing again later in the evening. That was the weather forecast and we were to find out the clearing showers would go for a little longer than expected, especially in the hills, but more of that later.  

This ride was our “Bring A Mate Along” ride where any TRC member could bring along any of their friends to see how the Triumph’s go. We have decided to have a “Bring A Mate Along” ride for our September and March Sunday rides. This gives other riders who you may go for a ride with every now and then a chance to come along with us and enjoy the day. With the numbers along on the day it was obviously popular with other riders.  

We started our ride at the usual spot for our Sunday rides, Café Next Door, Burnside, with 35 willing soles. Frank Pellas was ride leader with yours truly, Shane Ince and trusty pillion Deb, “tail-end-charlie”. The roads were a little wet near Burnside with a shower just before we left and a darker sky in the hills. Heading up Greenhill Rd in to the hills we soon found light rain and fog, always a good start to a ride. The light rain and fog were with us to the famous Cork Screw Road which made it a slow ride down this particularly steep road. By the time we got too Mt Pleasant, our first stop, the weather was clearing up with the sun breaking out every now and then.

After we had our break here to have a quick drink and pit stop we headed of to Cambrai, Sedan and Angaston. For those of you who know the road from Mt Pleasant to Sedan and then back to Angaston the drop from the foothills to the plains has some fantastic corners. There are some faster sweeping corners and a couple of tighter ones. This happens both down towards Sedan and then back up again towards Angaston. As we were at the back of the pack when we headed back up towards the hills again from Sedan Deb and I slowed down a bit to let the group go ahead and had a bit of fun up the hill. No traffic and no other riders in front of us so I could just concentrate on the road. YEE HA! 

We arrived at Angaston for lunch at the Angaston Hotel. With the numbers we had, the lunch stop was a little longer than planned but people came away pretty happy with the food. We then headed of to Nuriootpa to fill up and then to Eudunda (pit stop for Frank to relieve a bit of pressure build up), Marrabel, Kapunda with some fantastic roads around this area with very little traffic. We left one pissed off brown snake behind in this section as one of the bikes had run over it, apparently it had had a go at bitting the front tire of one of the riders. Buy the time Deb and I went past it, it was writhing around and I made sure my legs were not hanging down.

Then on to Lyndoch and finally to Inglewood to finish the ride. Frank had planned a slightly different ride but with the Bay to Birdwood Rally on he had to change the ride route slightly to not get caught up in the rally. The ride was 311 km from start to finish and while a long ride it was still enjoyable. While the rain had cleared up a lot of the ride was with nasty side winds so made some of the ride a little bit of a challenge. We all headed off to our own destinations form here with a couple of old bones knowing they had done something today. Deb and I travelled 420 km from door to door and we arrived home about 7 pm so we were both glad to see the old homestead. 

So another great day with a great ride route planned out by Frank, with no detours or wrong roads like some other ride leaders in the past. One of the comments on the day was someone asked wether I was leading any rides. Chris Roberts replied “We sacked him as ride leader as he keeps taking us the wrong way, We just let him lead the weekend rides now”. Don’t tell Chris, but the last weekend ride to Burra I talked Frank into leading this ride as well.

Pictures below by Paul O'Reilly