{"id":451172,"date":"2017-08-28T21:49:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T11:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bikeme.tv\/?p=451172"},"modified":"2017-08-29T21:52:27","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T11:52:27","slug":"good-time-made-on-lonely-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/good-time-made-on-lonely-road\/","title":{"rendered":"GOOD TIME MADE ON LONELY ROAD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I called Mick in Uralla and asked him if I could leave a bike at his place for a day. \u201cYOU can leave a bike at my place for TWO days, Al\u201d, he said. \u201cAlso, why?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I told him I had sold the VFR and I was going to replace the V-Strom 650 with a V-Strom 1000, and there was a pretty sweet looking one for sale at Uralla. \u201cI\u2019ve seen that bike\u201d, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great buy. It\u2019s blue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo it\u2019s not\u201d, I said. \u201cIt\u2019s red.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s parked at that abandoned servo on the highway where people park cars and bikes for sale\u201d, he said. \u201cI drive past it every morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo it\u2019s not\u201d, I said. \u201cIt\u2019s in Dumaresq Street.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s pronounced \u2018Doo-merrick\u2019\u201d, said Mick.<\/p>\n<p>I took Friday off and rode up to Uralla. I left at 0800, because I felt like keeping gentleman\u2019s hours. It\u2019s a great ride after you get off the motorway and on to the Bucketts Way and Thunderbolts Way. We once made a movie about riding it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v_0wsXcNcIc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the top of Thunderbolts you can see the road for thousands of metres ahead in places, so you make pretty good time if you don\u2019t see cars coming. I got there about 13:00 and booked into a cheap motel on the highway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that Dumaresq Street just down the hill there?\u201d I asked the lady in the office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo\u201d, she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the next one. And it\u2019s pronounced \u2018Da-mary\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I rode down to Dumaresq Street and inspected the bike. It looked pretty good, so we did the deal, and I rode my new bike back to the motel. I called Mick, who was in the middle of a group ride of the Oxley Highway and had stopped to drink beer at Walcha.<\/p>\n<p>I walked down to Dumaresque Street and rode the Wee-Strom back. Mick turned up half an hour later with about eight other people on loud bikes. The lady in the office looked us askance. The guys looked at my new bike sternly, and a couple of them kicked the tyres.<\/p>\n<p>We all went to The Brewery and drank some beer. Then we went to Mick\u2019s place and had dinner. Beer flowed, and banter. I told Froggy that there was a sign in the bathroom of my cheap motel room that reminded me of riding with him. He called me a rude name. It was hilarious.<\/p>\n<p>I left the Wee-Strom at Mick\u2019s place and got a lift back to the motel. I skipped breakfast and left the next morning around 0700. I had to chip ice off the seat.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a light on the DL-1000\u2019s dash that comes on when ambient is below five centigrade to remind you there might be ice on the road. It was right. There was ice on Thunderbolts Way. The light went off after an hour or so.<\/p>\n<p>The knobby tyres and the bags gave the DL-1000 a speed wobble around 130. I had a slow ride down Thunderbolts, but the scenery is spectacular. I\u2019d never noticed it before.<\/p>\n<p>I got home around 1300. It was Saturday. The guy from two floors up was in his garage. \u201cHi Al\u201d, he said as I was taking off my helmet. \u201cNew bike?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYep\u201d, I said. \u201cBought it in Uralla. Just rode it back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo shit?\u201d he said. \u201cI used to live there. Whereabouts in Uralla?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDumaresq Street\u201d, I told him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s pronounced \u2018Damarg\u2019\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I told Froggy that there was a sign in the bathroom of my cheap motel room that reminded me of riding with him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":451245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[221],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451172"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451297,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451172\/revisions\/451297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}