38
SEPTEMBER 2020
A HANDY RIDE
By Tony Gray, Member #3905
W
e all know that riding and drinking do not mix – but what about another vice: Gambling?
Last year we introduced the club to the concept of the Poker Run. It proved very popular so why not make it a calendar fixture? The second iteration of this novel concept was adopted for the August Club Ride but with some very important changes to the rules of the game. The game of poker has several variants but the most common and popular allocates five cards to each player and the winning hand is determined by the highest hand on a hierarchy of card combinations. As applied to motorcycling the participants proceed along a set course stopping at several waypoints to collect their next card and thus complete their hand of five cards. This leaves open the opportunity for players to swap cards and improve their hand along the way. In order to give every player an equal chance the rules adopted for this year’s game were designed to prevent such card swapping. A ‘secret’ hand was chosen at random at the start of the day and sealed in an envelope for the day. The prize winner was the person having a hand closest to but ABOVE the secret hand. In the event that the secret hand was the highest then the prize winner was the person having a hand closest to but BELOW the secret hand. The prize was a $50 Bunnings Gift Voucher so high stakes indeed. We were lucky that the Covid 19 lockdown kept notorious Poker King Shane Warne in Victoria. Another variation this year was to have Tar and Dirt options for the ride but with each group passing the same waypoints to collect their cards. The different courses were trialled by a group of willing volunteers as was the chosen lunch venue at the Royal Hotel Kalbar. All received an emphatic tick of approval so we knew we were on a winner if Mother Nature played ball on the weather front. A healthy group (talking numbers here not endurance athlete standards) of 20 assembled at the BP Blacksoil on a cool sunny winters morning for which the Sunshine State is famous. Apart from a bit of breeze it was perfect riding weather. The start time was 8.30am for 9am departure so Jane and I as ride organisers ensured we were there early but clearly not early enough. There was already a solid group there when we arrived at 8.20am. We
Wow! Is that really the legendary Gray Ghost? can only assume that others had wet their bed in excitement at what the day was to bring – a bit like kids on 25 December. The assembled bikes covered a good spread of BMW models from the K1600 to a R100GSPD, the regular two Triumph attendees of our esteemed journal editors and a Triumph Street Triple – are they breeding?
Everyone at the briefing was trying to work out how they’d cheat - none succeeded The first leg took the group through Walloon, Rosewood and onto Merryvale where the group split with the Tar riders turning to Warrill View and the Dirty riders continuing on through Rosevale with about 6km of smooth dirt on the way to Aratula. The Tar group covered a short section of the Cunningham Hwy before heading into farm country on the single track Kents Lagoon and Muller Roads. We all arrived within a few minutes of each other to meet Steve Maney who had ridden down from the Sunny Coast and John Eacott who was ‘just’ out for a ride on his K1600 from the Gold Coast. What
