PILGRIMAGE '08

The HP2 west of Bilpin

Fuck, I thought, there seems to be quite a few starters for my little indulgence. I mean, I know why I go there each year, but I hoped no-one was expecting too much, 'cos I hadn't planned, booked, or organised anything. I was just going to Sofala and then to Bathurst, like I do every year.

Then a familiar Aprilia pulled in.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked Guy Stanford, the President of the NSWMCC.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world," he grinned. "I remember the Mountain and it's about time I remembered it up close."

I stopped counting bikes after 16 showed up, looked at my watch, saw it was one minute to 8am and put my helmet on.

At 8am we rolled out and headed for Bells Line of Road, with the sun shining gloriously and early morning mist glowing luminously in the fields around us.

The HP2 immediately advised me it was a serious motorcycle that wanted to be ridden at 160km/h everywhere all the time. Or, if I felt so disposed, 200km/h was perfectly alright with it as well. And provided its appalling lean-angles didn't scare you, it was happy to do those speeds regardless of what the corner-speed advisory signs reckoned.

The Pilgrimage road train thunders over the Bells Line of Road

We stopped briefly for a re-grouping at the servo past Bilpin. But it had no petrol and Lithgow was only 35km away, so with most of us re-grouped, we choofed off to Bell, and hung a right down into Lithgow.

But not everyone made it off the Great Dividing Range -- which does tend to divide folks according to their abilities all the way up and down the eastern spine of this great land.

As we fueled up and regrouped in Lithgow, I was astounded to see Cricky ride into the servo astride Nick's barking Duke. He was smiling like a murderer.

Cricky the Invalid came up by 'plane, and didn't expect to get a ride

Cool, I thought. He's snapped, killed the young fellow and taken his bike.

"Nick had an incident," Cricky grinned.

"He is dead?"

Le Duc d'Armco had to sacrifice a working leg to keep from binning his KTM. A small price to pay.

Boris offers advice from the rear as Al re-attaches the Bellagio's exhaust

"Nah, he just ran up against the Armco and hurt his legs a bit. He's having a recovery session in the car and we have dubbed him the Duke d'Armco."

There was some giggling and shaking of heads when this news filtered through the crowd, but it was all good natured, and I wondered (not for the first time), if it was possible to throw this many eclectic and disparate motorcyclists together for two days, feed them thousands of gallons of piss, and advise them the nearest cops were at least an hour away without it all ending in tears -- and that's before the Southern Clan and Quoll's Posse injected themselves into the mix at Sofala.

We trundled out and set course for Ilford, where we'd turn off for a very fast and breath-taking hoot into Sofala.

But first thing was first. It was 10am and it was time for beer.

The first pub we found open was in Capertee, and I copped a few funny looks from various people when Biffa and I emerged from the bar with our morning beer. Biffa's kinda new to riding, so I've taken it upon myself to groom him in the Old School methods of touring Australia, i.e. ride for an hour, have a beer, repeat until destination is reached. He is an excellent student.

Al, astride the new Moto Guzzi Bellagio, also wanted a beer because his exhaust pipe had fallen off and he couldn't fix it until it had cooled down. Capertee also proved to be the downfall of Youngduffer's Aprilia, which suddenly developed some Italian electrical thing, superheated his battery and refused to leave.

As we milled in front of the lovely old pub, I noticed that some people had a beer in their hands, others drank water, but all were smiling and breaking the ice with each other. The road does that -- and if you ever wanna know anything about people you've just met, go for a long ride with them.

We left and the pace rose a little, even though I knew that many Highway Patrol cars like to lurk between Lithgow and Mudgee. Thankfully, we reached the Ilford turn-off to Sofala without incident and I saw an evil glint in Guy Stanford's eye. Evil glints scare me, so I gave the HP2 its considerable head and set out for Sofala -- quickly. The roads into this ancient gold-mining town are brilliant, and sparsely policed, so while you're playing the odds, they aren't too bad. I figured if I got nailed by an oncoming one, by the time he turned around, he would be surrounded by other motorcycle maniacs and would forget about me.

Some of the bikes outside the Royal Hotel, Capertee

Youngduffer's Aprilia celebrates its Italianity. With friends.