Mangrove Creek Dam Ride - 10th May 2025

-

The weather forecast had threatened us with a miserable day of cold and showers.

As usual they were wrong and the day started bright and sunny if a little chilly.

There were six starters at St. Ives for the ride to Mangrove Creek Dam. Because the dam is only 80 odd kms from St. Ives I decided to go the long way round just like Ewan and Charlie!!! Originally I wanted to go via Galston Gorge but I was out voted and so we went via the Berowra ferry and Old Northern Road to Wisemans ferry for smoko. Even that was too much for one of us who decided to go via the PITS and check if Suitcase was lurking there.

The remaining five struck out for Berowra and the ferry. Unfortunately the ride leader had an error appear on his dash "FRONT TYRE BELOW NOMINATED PRESSURE PULL OVER" which I immediately did but the tyre looked fine so we rode on to the Seven-Eleven in Berowra where I checked the tyre pressure with John O's high tech gauge. It was showing 28 PSI so I inflated it to 36 PSI hoping that there was not a slow leak. At the same time Keith the Canuck's vintage Triumph was leaking oil. "So what", we said "those bikes always leaked oil!". To be safe he purchased a litre of very expensive oil from the servo. So off we went to the Berowra ferry with Keith muttering about the expensive oil. The rest of the ride to the park at Wisemans Ferry was uneventful. We had a pleasant morning tea and discussed how Trump's tanning  machine wasn't making it. Two ferries were operating so we didn't have to wait long to get on our way to Spencer and beyond. The weather started looking a bit iffy and we encountered some light drizzle which got a bit heavier the closer we got to Mangrove Creek Dam. It didn't bother me as my VERY EXPENSIVE Rukka was handling everything mother nature could through at it.

When we arrived at the dam there was John with his three wheel charabanc plus Suitcase and his Gladdie cooking up a storm on the Barbecue. We joined them and had a merry time with our various repasts.

More bullshit and then it was off to the PITS for final refreshments. There were various threats of "I'm not going if it rains!!!", but we all turned up except John O who had urgent business to attend to.

Not a bad days riding even with the threat of some dodgy weather.

Cheers

Alan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bathurst Ride 13th Mar 2025

-
Image
  The ride this week was to Mount Panorama, Bathurst. It was amazing after all the inclement weather over the past week, rain, storms and cyclones that we were blessed with a nice day. The Good Lord must have been looking over us all because it was a perfect day for a long ride. Well, my bike says 372 kms round trip arriving home before   5 o’clock .   We had 15 bikes leave Maccas at McGraths Hill at the earlier starting time of  9.30am .  Except for a short stop for roadworks and a slow moving little white Kia that kept flashing its brake lights at every shadow it was a good run along the Bells Line of Road with the temperature at 22 degrees at Bilpin.  After morning tea at the Service Centre at Bowenfels Kim and Peter left to return home because of other commitments but we picked up two more riders Rob and Andy who were caught up in heavy traffic and missed the earlier start meeting point.  It was  12.45pm  by the time we arrived at the top...
Read more

Ulysses Motorcycle Social Club

-
Image
  Welcome to the Northern Beaches Branch of Ulysses. To contact the group and subscribe or unsubscribe to our newsletter please use the Contact Form available under the pull down menu. To comment on items you will need to be signed in using a google or gmail account. You can add our ride calendar into your calendar by subscribing to it from your calendar app
Read more

Bulga Ride 19th June 2025

-
  Thursday 19th June, my turn as ride leader   Destination - Bulga - via the Putty Rd    The morning was pretty cold - 7 to 8 degrees on my bikes temperature display, some dew on the grass alongside the road edge, but Dry road, sun trying to appear, and no wind.   We had a starting crew of 14 riders at Macca's Mcgraths Hill, no virgins, a couple of riders from the Hills group. For the ride we had 3 riders on Kawasaki 1000, watch out BMW riders.   The Bulga ride is head north, stopping at Greygums for smoko, then onto Bulga. Minor road works near the end of the twist bits - repairing road subsidence It was a good fast ride - nil corner making and TEC nearly always in sight.   At Bulga, we lunched in the parked, servo closed no fuel, later we were joined by 3 riders who had started from Berowra, they arrived as we left, one of those riders was Danny - there to celebrate his 28th birthday - but as Ste...
Read more

Frazer Beach Ride 8th December 2022

-
Image
  Thank you to the weather gods for a near perfect summer riding day. Not too hot, no rain and a breeze to keep us comfortable in all the gear.   We had two new Dave’s riding with us today so they were given an obligatory dose of the clap. One on a VStrom and the other on a Harley but sadly only one made it to morning tea. We also lost the dromosagnosian Danny at the same time 🙁   So here’s the thing, apparently the new corner marking system, whilst very effective, needs a couple more tweaks to go with the TEC not waiting for latecomers to refuel.   The Leader has an obligation to pick a spot for the corner marker that is safe, gives enough warning to the ride group AND    is very visible. The Marker has an obligation to mark the corner as and where requested, with indicator and arm signals to the ride group and not randomly decide to turn into the corner, stop in the shade where they are hard to see, side on so ...
Read more

Dungog Loop Ride 17th November 2022

-
  It was a beautiful sunny if cool day for a ride to Dungog. I picked up my trusty GS from Procycles, Hornsby after they had replaced my front and rear wheels following an incident with a giant pothole on the Hume Highway south of Seymour on 13th October. I haven’t ridden since then so I was itching to go. The only problem with the bike was the left turn indicator didn’t work so I would have to revert to the old hand signals. There were sixteen other riders at the Seven-Eleven Berowra also itching to go including a virgin, Jeremy, on a hotted up Royal Enfield. He proudly told us that he drags it and did the quarter mile in 13.7 seconds hitting a speed of 101 mph. So I told him he might JUST be able to keep up with us. The route I planned was Old road to Calga then continue on same road to Somersby where we would take the M1 to the Wyong exit. After that it was The Triangle, Hue Hue road, Wyee road, Freemans Drive to Freemans Water Hole for morning tea. We set off on...
Read more