4 Ferries Ride 6th June 2024

 6th June ride report.

Well who would’ve thunk it!
Every day this week the weather predictions for Thursday were so dire that even an unnamed wet weather rider was questioning whether it should even go ahead. With up to 50mm of rain predicted on the forecast the night before the ride I knew desperate measures were called for by the ride leader aka me.

I mentally reached out to my contact “upstairs” asking if anything could be done to which the answer came “Sure, no guarantees for the entire day of course, but it’ll cost you”. How much I asked, the response “a gonad from one of your Thursday Riders Committee”! “Deal” says I without hesitation and lo and behold the morning dawned blue and dry. I should point out to our illustrious committee that this debt is payable by midnight Sunday so expect a collection visit 😜

In planning today’s ride I took into account the possibility of rain so looked for venue options that had shelter and were open. Amazingly there are a lot of our old haunts (like the Stone Cafe) just not open during a Thursday ride anymore. So I contacted Ted at the Church who said they had put a roof on one of the pergolas so we would be good there and he’d warn the ladies. He didn’t of course!

So I settled on Ebenezer Church for morning tea and, depending upon weather, either Wisemans Ferry Park or Spencer for Lunch. When checking for roadworks en route on Live Traffic I discovered that the Lower Portland Ferry was out of action for the whole week. So the ride became 3 Ferries with a bout of indigestion! Also the River Rd is pretty bad at the best of times so since we were going to have to cross back over via the Sackville ferry I decided upon the safer/faster option of Sackville/Wisemans/Old Northern as the path to Wisemans Ferry from the church.

So the pre ride briefing was completed whilst the only member of the committee on the ride was conveniently otherwise engaged so’s not to cause premature distress. I was anxious to make clear to the other 12 riders the sacrifice their committee was making whilst, of course, taking all the credit for organising the weather. I’m not sure the first part of this message got through though🧐

Anyway we duly departed a minute early and had a slightly hesitant trip down to Berowra Waters Ferry due to all the water and debris on the road. Crossing made the roads on the other side were drier so faster and corner marking was working well so I didn’t bother with a regather any where on the ride. Wait time at both ferries was tolerable. At the church Tea/Coffee and Scones were ordered in abundance, so we were treated to a full blown table cloth in place of the normal trays and doilies.🫖

After the Devonshire feast we set off for Spencer since the weather was still looking good. The roads were relatively clear and the pace was brisk. After recrossing at Sackville we arrived at Wisemans to see the ferry loading on the other side of the river. All good we thought but no, the ferry sat and waited a further 10 mins and finally a big tipper truck from the Settlers Road works arrived and was loaded. Friends in high places obviously. 

Finally we loaded onto the ferry only for the message to pass to the front that one rider had been unable to restart his bike after the wait and was not on the ferry. Tracer Pete had stayed with him so I rang Pete but could make nothing of the garbled conversation from the other end (apparently he couldn’t understand what I was saying either) other than they had got the bike restarted.

The trip up to Spencer was “interesting” with several challenges set by the road repairers including vast quantities of  gravel liberally distributed, potholes on the sections they hadn’t repaired and rivers, sticks and stones on the rest. Nevertheless the intrepid ride group soldiered on and made it through to Spencer. We all parked ourselves at the bench and were stuffing our faces when two members of the constabulary came wandering up and pointed to the line of bikes exclaiming “that’s the one”.👮‍♂️

You could see the panic in the faces at the table as we all tried to ascertain which bike they were pointing at. Only for the two comedians to acknowledge they were only winding us up - phew was the collective sigh!😮‍💨

Eventually the missing two riders turned up at Spencer, the mystery of the non-starting bike unsolved other than “maybe it needed a rest”😴

After lunch it was more of the same from Wisemans Ferry Rd until we climbed out of the valley and had a good spirited run home with the lead  changing a number of times. Back at the Pie tales were told and ears were bent, especially by some random guy at the next table who claimed to be a New South Welshman but supported Queensland in the Origin. The gathered riders were suitably uninterested so he then started on about his motorbike skills and how he “doesn’t ride in the rain but had to once”. There’s always one isn’t there. 

As we left the Pie wets were donned as the rain was starting, all in all though I think we got a pretty good deal on the day.🤝📑

Anyway, thanks to all 13 for the company today, that’s 12 more than I expected to get. Thanks to Mark for TEC duties admirably executed. Another great ride - until the next time!😁

Andy