KoroJ's Blog

Today hailed the introduction of Police Rodeo riding to the Wgtn Ulysses.

We’d organised the day for a short ride around Whitemans Valley and Moonshine Road for the members while I set up the courses at the Riverbank Carpark and although I intended to get there at 0900, I was a bit early after putting some fuel in, and arrived at 0830. Ron & Sue turned up a minute or two later and we got into it. Starting from the Northern end, Sue & I set up three ‘Shield’ courses at 40% oversize, 20% oversize and standard, then a ‘Mid-Atlantic Cone Weave’ (standard size but with a 20% over loop at the top) with an ‘S’ turn (20% oversize) on the entry and a ‘Figure 8’ on the exit.

I then had time for a tester through the courses, after which we decided to up the ’Figure 8’ to 20% oversize as well. By this time Ann had turned up so her and Ron had set-up the gear for teas & coffees, sausage sizzle and soft drinks to keep the punters fuelled, as well as make a few bucks for Muscular Dystrophy. (We ended up making $68.05 for that cause.....every little bit counts)

The punters arrived around 1100 and after a short briefing, they were into it. I assisted for a bit guiding some through the courses until they got the gist of it, then I joined in the fun. 26 bikes had left from Brown Owl and as well as myself, a few more turned up direct at the carpark, so I expect we ended up with 30 odd bikes in the end. There were a couple of minor drops (one while parking) and all in all, it was a pretty good day with positive feedback to have more of the same.

It was good that Andrew Templeton turned up as he was able to pass on a few tips as well as demonstrate the riding level we should be aspiring to achieve and it was great to see the range of bikes and riders having a go, stumbling, persevering and improving. It was good having the various course sizes as the riders were able to work at a level they could cope with.

It’s a slow process but I’m certainly finding my slow skills are improving, although I still lack any consistency. As usual, the bending over etc played havoc with my dodgy hip and by the end of the day I hobbling about like a doddery old fool, but I enjoyed the ride doing 40Km for the day at 12.3Km/Ltr (including the return trip from home), and the bike now has 116,855Km on it.

It’s not often that ‘Long John’ enjoys rides of less than a few hundred Km!