It was time to stretch my legs and take my Super Tenere for another IBA run with a social agenda, lunch with friends in Mallacoota Vic. A three day 5000km ride seemed in order. As I understand it it’s our metric version of the SS3000M or three back to back SS1600K’s with and extra couple of hundred k’s thrown in to round the number out. Last time I did an SS3000M I didn’t know about the SS5000k’s and was few k’s short of that, it felt like an omission.
Time planning was short, I spent a few hours trying to work out something that made sense that would see me arrive in at the check in at Mallacoota without having to ride too many k’s after lunch to get home. After half a day of trying to sort out routes to squeeze the k’s in I decided to keep it simple. An out and back to Ceduna with a dog leg detour. To make day 3 simple and unrushed I decided to do the heavy lifting in the first two days.
So up early for a 3am start at the local servo. I met a couple of the local long distance riders there who were there ready to go for an early morning ride after signing my witness forms and seeing me off. Sadly there was no premium unleaded to be had there, so the start location was moved to the Shell at Wallsend. No biggy.
The New England Hwy route through Branxton, Jerry’s Plains, Denman Merriwa, to Gilgandra has become very familiar to me this year. The ^&%$ roadworks traffic lights are still there just before Denman and I was stopped again! The only time I’ve ever got green there at night I was nearly run down by a semi that didn’t care about the red light his end.
A new fuel strategy saw me fill from a jerry just past Gilgandra for my first stop in Nyngan. I as going to just fill the front tank and use that and the remaining 10l jerry to get me to Broken Hill. My maths isn’t that good so I put 5 litres in the empty jerry and I’m glad I did. The wind came up and I needed every bit of it!
At the Shell at Broken Hill I was very pleased to see a familiar face. Liz (a long distance pillion) had seen me ride in and stopped to say g’day. Small world really. Leaving Broken Hill, this is still there, waiting, waiting, waiting……..
And the obligatory Border Crossing shot at Cockburn.
I was running off my ride plan for my recent ride to Ceduna and beyond on a CBR250R but my goal for the day was 2000ks and some spare change in 21 hours. I usually reset on dusk in Port Augusta but the sun was still high so I rode through, kept going through Kimba and stopped to reset at Wudinna (filling from the jerry can parked in the servo).
At that stage I was running about 10 minutes ahead of my goal time. Because of the late decision to do this ride I didn’t have time to fatten up before I left so I made the decision to eat more. I usually lose 1 – 1.5kg per day riding at IBA pace. I had two plain hamburgers. I shouldn’t have.
From Wudinna it’s only a short run to Ceduna and I arrived smack on Midnight, 21 hours (minus the 12 minutes wasted changing servos at the start). The secret to the day for me was that except for an unscheduled self care break at Yunta and taking my time at Wudinna the four fuel purchase and jerry can strategy worked really well in keeping my stopped time right down. Sadly the Etrex went flat at Gilgandra so I can’t analyse that day it properly.
One thing of note in SA at the moment, it’s very dusty. I seems that it’s crop stripping time, my eyes, nose and throat copped a hiding and you could smell the “organic” dust and see it in the lights.
2000ks or so on day 1. A great day's ride through familiar territory.