Black Dog National 1 Day Ride Bendigo To Echuca

My first ever BDR has been done and dusted, and I am bloody well wrecked. The morning started out cool, slight breeze, down by Lake Weeroona and the Bendigo Rowing Clubhouse. On inspecting the bikes, someone points out that my rear tire is almost down to the canvas! WTF? So that ruined my whole day basically, worrying if it was gonna get me all the way to Echuca (91kms) then onward to Swan Hill (another 150kms). Lucky for me, I also met up with a guy who lives not far from me, and said we would ride home together just incase.
Anyways, around 118 people registered to ride, and pillions, and around 100 bike, left Bendigo at 11.15am. We had a straight run, traffic stopped for us, and got into Echuca around 12.30. The local Lions Club ran a bbq caravan for us, and sold drinks, so had burger and coke, and then i was on my way. Oh boy, everyone heard about the tornado that hit North Eastern Victoria this week, right? Well, the winds on our way home werent much better. Suzy got down as slow as 80 kph in some parts, flat freakin country, pig shit smells, smoke, and thankfully no road kills. I am going to sleep well tonight, before getting some quotes for new tires tomorrow, afterall, tomorrow is another day!
Here is Winston, in his jacket and harness that I made up for the tank bag.
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A couple of the bikes
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And a couple of younger girls on Ninjas, with a mum...
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And resting at Echuca river front...
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Now i want to know, who was the guy, with his wife, who approached my loner husband today, at Mannum SA? He cant remember your name!

That would be me

xpalan wrote:That would be me

Aha! Its not Andrew, but Alan! Pleased ta meet ya... via hubby

Glad that you had a good day out SS, despite the ever present concern you undoubtedly had for the rear tyre. Nice pics for the report too.

Thanks Ewok. Yes the stress of a possible blow out or flat really ruined the ride home. Also the smell of piggeries, road kill and smoke, kinda ruined it too lol... oh well, the hazards of riding the boring flat roads around here.

We started at Launceston and got soaked all the way to Campbell Town which was the official start of the Black Dog Run. Dispite the atrocious weather, 150-odd bikers still turned up from all over Tassie. Ride was delayed for about 30 minutes as we waited for the worst of the rain showers to pass, so by the time we left at 11:30 it was only just a light sprinkle, 20 kms in and it was drying up. The sun was out in Bicheno for our sausage sangas . The weather hadn't finished with us yet, the same as Suzi mentioned, the ride home was full on cross winds, even my lump of a bike and sidecar with the two of us and Winston on board acting as ballast, we still had a hard time keeping it on the black stuff. Anyway all ended well, made some new friends, in the draw for the BMW K1600GT-L ($40k worth of bike, only 1000 tickets @ $100 each) and got to put another 389 kms on the clock.






This just in:

Our final tally for Tasmania was:
120 Winstons on bikes
167 Bikes
207 Riders

National totals:
1,728 Winstons on Bikes
3,784 Bikes
4,825 Riders

Sydney had the most dogs on bikes with 306
Central Coast had the record of Riders with 842

great report Barry. Hope you win that bmw