Today’s ride to St Albans was scheduled to be led by Mitch (Hollywood) Chapman, but he’d forgotten it was his wife’s birthday!! I drew the short straw so quickly mapped out a route that was well known to most of us and required little corner marking. About 20 riders turned up at Berowra for a ride and we were blessed with lovely weather. At last, some sunshine!! Rod (not May) very kindly had volunteered to go TEC, so off we headed up the Old Road, only to get as far as Brooklyn before being slowed by a small (x8 pax) group of vintage bikes travelling at vintage speeds… ie SLOW!! I took the executive decision to wait it out behind them to Calga as I thought getting 20 faster bikes past 8 slow bikes fraught with hazard. Anyway once we got to Calga the road opened up and we managed to leave them behind   Morning tea was at The Hub at Mangrove Mountain bathed in glorious sunshine. Then on to Wisemans, the asphalt team took the two ferries to get to St Albans whereas the dirty bo...

  Today’s ride to Currarong. I didn’t expect anyone to turn up due to the forecast, it was a bit misty at departure so we all agreed to head straight to the Robertson Pie Shop as it was looking bleak along the coast. The ride to Robbo was brisk and dry up the mountain. Pies were hot and weather mild. Post pies it still looked dodgy along the coast so we scratched Currarong and went for a skid around the southern highlands. All good all the way home, never trust a forecaster.   Cheers Rod

Venue: Kemp’s Creek Sporting and Bowling Club, Elizabeth Drive, Kemps Creek. Branches attending: Eastern Creek, St. George, Northern Beaches, Wollondilly, Nepean and Hills District. There was no set agenda. Tim Shelton reiterated the reason for the meeting was to develop ideas to increase the membership of the Ulysses Club. Each attendee introduced themselves and spoke of ideas their branch had to encourage membership: (1) More combined branch rides as they were seen as being very successful. More than seventy riders to the last ride to Grey Gums Café. St. George branch are going to organise the next combined branch ride to Woronora Dam, date to be decided. (2) Create a combined ride calendar Facebook page where the Ride Co-ordinators from each branch can add their rides. It would have ‘public’ access but only the ride co-ordinators would have admin rights. (3) Combined branch overnighter to Mudgee on June long week-end. Nepean branch to organise. (4) There is still a strong p...

 Due to a delay in getting the recce done, we had two trips to Finchley Lookout this week. After a couple of days of showers G&J drove up in the Rav4 on Friday to check the roads, and accordingly revised the route for the Saturday - avoiding the badly pot-holed Murrays Run.  Just a small band of four keen dirt road riders started off from St Ives at 8am Saturday. Very light traffic and a sunny and cool run over Galston Gorge to the Glenorie Bakery for a coffee stop. Then down along to Wisemans Ferry, crossed over and turned left onto the Settlers Road. Only about 8kms of wet, shady, slippery dirt was enough of a thrill for MTC who then headed to Wisemans via Webbs Creek and then back through Galston. Three kept on, and the next 35kms of dirt was smooth and dry and pretty good up along the St Albans Common and up the Mogo hill to Bucketty where we joined the tar towards Wollombi for a bit before another left turn onto Yango Creek Road.  Up and over to Wollombi Creek an...

  The first detail to report was that we didn’t go to Taralga!! It’s a 3 hour plus ride to Taralga from McGraths Hill with a long motorway ride home, so I took an Executive decision and decided we’d go somewhere else, Oberon being the choice. Thursday dawned overcast with a forecast of showers for most of the day, nonetheless 13 riders gathered at Maccas McGraths Hill on 13 th April, so my thinking was that luck would probably be against us. In fact, it was quite the opposite, the only rain (light showers) I got all day was after arvo tea at Bilpin for about 10 minutes, so sometimes luck can be on your side!!   Anyways, after the briefing we headed out through the grass farms and out over the mountains via Bells Line, a pretty good run with only a couple of caravans to pass, and morning tea was at the South Bowenfels Shell servo. Rod suggested a different route from there to Oberon, via Tarana, O’Connell and Mayfield Rd, and led us into Oberon. I suspect the road name had some...

 A fine and sunny day with a just touch of autumn cool. Seven UNB riders assembled at St Ives for chat and coffee. Welcome back to Jim D and Mark K, both of whom we haven't seen for a good while. Also arrived MTC, John W, John O, Bonny and yours truly. Departed 9.05am via Galston Gorge to Round Corner, then Annangrove Rd. to a stop at World Burger at Vineyard. More coffees, peel a layer off, top up the tank. On again at 10.30 for a short leg to Gov. Macquarie Park at Windsor to meet with the assembled group of around 60 or 70 bikes and riders from the Sydney Basin Ulysses Branches.  This is the third Combined Multi-Branch ride organised by the group, and numbers are swelling, with more riders coming from the Central Coast down the Putty Road today to meet with us at Grey Gums Cafe.  Welcome and ride info given by Eastern Creek Branch Pres.Tim Shelton, then off we went up the Putty Road. Bikes in front and behind as far as you could see, very nice, all well behaved and kee...