Chef's Nom Ride

Members : Clubs , Gadgets, Scorpion, Dobbo, Whitey, Chef (Nom)
Supporters : Maria , Reaper, Jas , Lorraine, Adam
Guests : Fossil, Anita , Nathan, Jenny,

After it raining cats and dogs on Saturday evening at Hoppers, I thought this is a good start for my Noms ride. Thinking a wet one to SKANC then on to Point Cook Sunday morning where the sky will be black with aeroplanes and should impress all gathered.

What could be further from the truth? Sunday Morning sunshine pouring through my bedroom window as I got out of bed I looked out side and the weather was a bit dark and sinister over toward Frankston and St Kilda, with patches of blue in between the clouds with no rain over Hoppers yet! Had arranged to meet Scorpion at 10:30 at my place then off to SKANC to meet with whoever turns up.

After a fairly windy ride up the princess highway with Scorpion and Reaper in tow we rode over the Westgate (sorry crawled , speed down to 60KPH due to the hurricane cross winds at the top of the bridge, I can see why Gadgets wanted to wait for us at the shell servo at Todd road now when he spoke to us at SKANC.)

Arrived at SKANC and fought our way through the St Kilda market crowd on the way. At SKANC we met Whitey and Clubs and waited for Gadgets and Lorraine to arrive, a couple of durrys and we were ready to roll. We dodged about six rain drops at SKANC on leaving. Then eased our way back on to the esplanade road and back over the west gate. Thanks to Clubs who played safety officer for the day we got safely back on the free way and out on to the point cook road. Up to now I'd led the pack safely to the point cook exit with the Japa riders deaf from the tractor noise at the front of the pack thanks to Scorpion and myself, their bikes over heating from the lack of speed that effected the cooling of their engines.

So we then joined the traffic crawl into the point cook base and were directed to a parking area where we chose to park up against the old clothing store instead of mixing with the cars and the footy oval. On our way up the main drag of Point Cook we were frantically flagged down by Dobbo who had just come out of the twilight zone from Leongatha which he was about three hours in front of our time. We were met by Nathan, jenny, fossil, Anita, Maria and Adam.

After securing all our equipment in the safe storage box inside scorpions LTD (ford). We then took off to the airstrip to face the urban crush. Whitey was getting hungry so it was all decided to have a fang and fall in line with the two kilometre food queue with somebody only to ready to relieve us of our hard earned cash at the end(I thought we were at the MCG as the food prices were the same).

Whilst we were eating, our attention was moved to the air strip were the RC Jets(Russian Sucoy) was going through there paces. Scorpion was convinced, and trying to convince his Mrs that the cold war was over and a pilot had managed to defect and gate crash the air show.

Then the real planes took flight starting with the early aviation to the later ‘stuff' (for the pussas benefit a Catalina flying boat).

The group split up with MIA's reported. Had an opportunity to go through the RAAF museum see the Long Tan helicopter which was newly displayed. There was a regrouping of members for more food and much needed R & R, as knees were starting to click and crack, heads were starting to burn(no sun block propositioned in the forward area) and backs were being put out.

I was pleasantly and greatly surprised with the presentation of my Patriots Patch by Clubs , this will be worn with great pride , particularly with what the patch represents and what it stands for. Many thanks to Scorpion as my mentor he was a great inspiration and an excellent example to the club as a member. We said goodbye to Dobbo who had to ride back to Traralgon and catch the right time zone to get home I cannot say enough thanks to this guy for taking such an effort to ride this far for my noms ride.

To round off the day and beat the rush home of traffic we decide to head off, I invited the members back to Hoppers for a Quick Beer and Sausage Sizzle before they headed home proper. On our way to my place Scorpion decides to play decoy to Clubs by loosing his new Tri Service patch out of his vest. Clubs dutifully does a U turn to pick up the patch while the main group disappears into Hoppers Crossing proper.

With no grid references to follow , and no mobile Clubs decides to head straight for home while we dined on freshly grilled onions, continental sausages, and plenty of icy cold beer. We asked whitey what happened to Clubs? He said that he had an early four o'clock start and must have changed his mind. Now I know that this was so far from the truth and felt like shit once I knew.

I would like to thank all that came on my Noms Ride as a good time was had by all. I hope that these type of outings will continue with the club.

Till next time we meet ride safe and keep your face to the wind!

CHEF (the recipient of the first shared Hammer award)