JUNE ClUB RiDE

The June club ride started at BP Yatala, or Staplyton as some like to call it. There isn’t a pie shop at Staplyton so it tends to be the lead role understudy on the playbill. Destination? The Gold Coast Motor Museum, who knew that place existed? Luckily the ride leader and tail end Charles/Paul did. The objective of the ride was to avoid straight roads, which is reasonably easy to achieve in the Gold Coast hinterland. All ready, it was inevitably west along Stanmore Road, left onto the Bowdezay - Beenleigh Road, and a right onto Veivers Road, very scary for corner markers. Wandering along “Room for a Pony” country and into Tamborine, the first serious twisties were had heading south into North Tamborine, a little impeded by 4-wheeled loiterers. Tolerably crowded riding was had to Spice of Life Cafe in South North Tamborine Mountain, where coffees and pastries were pursued like a 12 year old Tribute in the Hunger Games carrying a groin injury. Carbo’ed and mounted up, the rather predictable route continued through Tamborine-Whatever and east off the cliff down Henri Robert Drive. This was last attempted on an F800GS on a GS Experience day back in 2017, so there were a few nerves but I swear the road has been upgraded as the expected suicide corners (with grabbing of the front brake lever like it was the last bottle of American Honey in Dan Murphys) didn’t appear. Following some cars down resulted in giving thanks that asbestos was no longer used in brake pads, as the smell of burning indicated pad wear was in the upper quartile. Poor old automatics - one pedal for go, one pedal for stop.

Safely to the bottom, it was back up the hill - damn you closed Goat Track - to Beechmont Road. A brief re-group pause due to a minor mechanical drama on a non-BMW conveyance, and we were heading south. Traffic was surprisingly light, only the odd scary sports bike rider or hopeful koala spotter was encountered. We advanced into Advancetown, or nearly did, making a reverse advance to end up on the same road we’d started on. The GPS had been given total control over the final bit, and all my whinging about its ability to do things so completely at odds with logical process was silenced. At least until next

Donna presented the “Smack my Arse and Call me Cindy” hot chilli sauce to someone appropriate

time it does something insane. This was Gold Coast hinterland like I’d not previously experienced, winding roads through the gentle rolling foothills, lots of room for Ponys/ Shetlands/Potbelly Pigs/Mega Fauna, a very pleasant approach to the Gold Coast Motor Museum, which by now we all knew existed.

Glorious day for it at Stanley’s Bar and Restaurant

1958 236cc BMW Isetta microcar, top selling single cylinder car in the world Don and Kate (with Elvis just over the bonnet) very happy with their trade-in for the K1300R

Comfortable that the R1200RT is not a chook chaser