WIMA Victoria: Roarer's Rally

Roarer's Rally, 1999

Liz and Jellybean Hello to everyone out there in two wheel land. It is Liz the L(unatic) Plater back from the ROARERS RALLY held at the Barmah Muster Yards over the weekend of the March 26-28, 1999.

I didn't make it up for the Friday night due to Jellybean being a prima donna as usual. By the time she was up and going after getting a new carby fitted it was getting on for four in the afternoon. I didn't want to travel the last hour or so in the dark so I didn't leave until Saturday morning.

Not being particularly adventurous I decided to go up the Hume, then the Goulburn Valley before cutting across to Barmah. Jellybean and I had strong words on the way up because she started to play up again. I called my mechanic from Nagambie and after speaking to him managed to solve part of the problem though she still loses power and over revs intermittently. I stopped again at Shep before cutting across to Barmah. The highways were not too bad but I could only manage to get Jellybean to behave at about eighty. Once I tried to push her past there she began to play up so the ride dragged out a bit. I suppose she's really not up to these long haul trips but at least I'm getting to know her a little better.

Barmah is so small I overshot the turnoff and crossed the river. So technically I made another little foray into NSW. The muster yards are 9kms from the pub. One of the reasons I chose this rally is that in AMCN it said "sealed roads all the way to the site". There were about 8kms of sealed roads, a crusty wooden bridge, a cattle grill and then about a kilometre (probably less but more than enough) of gravel and sand. I absolutely died. It was a choice of a little gravel riding or a 230km trip back to Melbourne. I have never ridden on gravel apart from when I dropped the bike in the gravel car park at Lake Hume. I kept thinking of what might have happened if I had hit the gravel in the dark on the Friday night. Am I leading up to something? Of course I am. No prizes for guessing what happened next...

I lost it, dropped the bike and ditched myself headlong into the gravel and sand. The score was

me - both shaken and stirred with a curious amount of gravel in my jeans pockets.
Jellybean - bent and scratched fairing, demolished right indicator, detached badge and sand from here to kingdom come. She lost a little bit of petrol too.

If the falling off part wasn't bad enough I still had to pick her up. It took me several attempts but as there was no one in sight I had to do it on my own. As it turned out I was just around the bend from the site and didn't have far to go before I could rest.

I stopped at the check-in and met the organisers. I told them what had happened. They were very apologetic about the gravel surprise and they were very friendly too! One of them even rode Jellybean over to the campsite because I was still visibly shaking from the fall. Kath, a nurse, checked me out to make sure I was all right. The boys thought I needed a drink and so a bit of first aid in the form of a can of Beam and I was on my way to recovery.

In the beginning I was a bit worried about not knowing anyone but I was welcomed from the word go and felt at home before I even had the time to feel lost. The rally was organised as a fundraiser for the Lions Club of Nathalia. A few of the members are riders so they thought they would try their hand at a rally for a bit of fun. The site is a good one with plenty of good possies for camp fires, reasonable toilets, some under cover areas to shelter in and a good spot for the gymkhana. If it had been warmer I might have ventured down to the river but it wasn't so I can't tell you what the river is like or how far it is from the site.

There was a turnout of 30 or 40 people which I thought was not a bad effort for their first rally considering that the weather was pretty ordinary and that it was a bit of an unknown quantity.

The gymkana was good fun with a few events that I hadn't seen before. I had a go at the horizontal bungee and hurling a hunk of red gum across the yard but was still too jumpy to try the slow ride. They hadn't organised a band because they didn't know how many people would come, but it was well catered. It was a pretty good night just hopping around from campfire to campfire. I met heaps of people, none of whose names I can recall, from all over the place and I got invited to more rallies than I can remember.

I had a fairly easy night since I had to be zero BAC on my L(unatic)s for the next morning. This was probably a good thing as I had a mini panic attack about riding out across the gravel just as it was time to leave. I had an escort to the bitumen. Once I said I was all right they took off heading home a different way. I was still physically shaking after 5kms of crawling along in 3rd gear. If only the gravel had been the worst part of the trip.

I'll try and condense the trip home because it took me about 5 hours. From Barmah to Shep the wind was coming straight across the road. I struggled to keep up a speed of 80kms but at least the sun was getting a look in every now and then. Shep was sunny so I stopped for a while. I called home to let them know I was alive only to find out that the rain in Melbourne was almost torrential. It was at this point I began to wonder whether I had taken on more than I had bargained for. From Shep to Murchison the wind was coming straight but once I turned for Nagambie it was hacking straight across the road again. To add to my woes there were significantly more trucks passing me and I was being buffeted every which way. I stopped at Nagambie briefly for fuel and to get my wet weathers on. I met a guy that had just ridden up from Melbourne on his way up north. He said there were showers on and off all the way.

"Showers, that can't he too bad can it?" I said to myself. Did I mention that I hadn't ridden in the rain before? It was my living nightmare, raining basically non-stop from Nagambie to just before Kalkallo. Rain plus strong winds plus large trucks flying past plus temperamental bike equals one absolutely terrified me. My mantra for the trip home was "Look where you want to go." (Thankyou to Susie and Jane, I had that chin pointing thing happening all the way.) It go me home so much wiser than when I left.

When I got back home I began shaking and became teary. I was absolutely physically and mentally exhausted. It was probably the most harrowing experience of my life but even though it was, I have no doubt that I'll be doing it again. It's funny, after I came off, one of the guys at the rally said to me "Will you get back on again?" I said "Yes" without hesitation. He said that once they tumble a lot of people don't get back on. I wasn't going to be one of them.

So here I am back in Melbourne. Still very sore and a little sorry for myself. I have sprainded my transverse oblique muscles on the right hand side. Which means I've got a very sore tum from spending so much time leaning into the wind. I have started to patch Jellybean up so I can get going again - where to I'm not sure.

They are planning to have the rally again next year. If there are any of you that are local to the area (or not so local, as the case may be) have a bit of a sticky next year. If you are looking for another reason, all proceeds to the Lions club charities. So I suppose you could even say that you would be performing a humanitarian act to support the event. Will I roar again next year? I think so. See you out there somewhere.

Liz Loke