Mt Tyson Via Esk – Jun 14, 2009 – by Michael Ross

Sunday arrived and the day was a ripper. The morning had started with a slight chill - nothing like the -2.1° Amberly copped on Friday – but had warmed to somewhere around 4.5° by the time I headed to Blacksoil for Ado's Mt Tyson ride.

Arriving at the BP I parked in front of a trailer which, of course, needed to be accessed and so had to move my bike. The Ulyssian helping Spirit kicked into gear as we helped the trailer's owner hook up his trailer. Some physically helped. I supervised - you know what they say about too many cooks.

As people arrived they gathered in the back corner under the shade. Odd behavior for a cool morning. But then again we are an odd assortment or sorts. And as the numbers grew a Noisy Miner bird landed on someone's bike and pecked at the shiny back of a mirror. Not getting any result – or maybe getting all the dead bug it could from that mirror – it hopped to the bike's other mirror. Then looked over the top at the reflective side before leaving us be for our ride brief. How odd.

We were given a visual treat as some old Morgan cars also used the BP as their mustering point, took some pics and then had our detailed ride brief. After which we saddled up, waited for a break in the traffic, then the 29 bikes and 2 trikes hit the road - including balaclava-wearing Marmite Jr (a Sheriff with another set of eyes to spot infringers, look out) and some friendly new faces from Springfield. Crossing back over the Warrego and heading to Esk.

Avoiding the odd pot hole, road kill and Learner Driver, we arrived in Esk, took over the car park at the Enigma Cafe much to the astonishment of the public near by and piled into the store to get some hot beverage into our bellies. There is no feeling quite like wrapping your semi-frozen fingers around a cup of hot brew. And the cafe people were more than obliging. They even kindly held up traffic on the street so we could all leave as a group. (Next time we visit, maybe some of the photos they took of us in their car park will be on display – wink wink.)

Leaving Esk we headed back into the cool air and aimed for Hampton via Ravensbourne. A nice lot of twisties with some crossing the double whites going on on some of the tight bends (not a good thing to do with the Sheriff two bikes behind. Good thing my bike blocked his view of the infringement). And a ride section that saw King James pull over to check something - probably the same odd something I was hearing that sounded as if something had fallen off and was scraping on the road - but which was all good in the end.

Stopping at the Hampton Visitor Centre on the new England highway, we asked a passerby to take a snap of us under the tree of knowledge. He accepted our invitation and the photos reveal some funny shenanigans going on from one Hagar (busted). They also show Lizzie thinking she was on a surf board - or - feeling the earth move under her feet - or - still recovering from the Hampton Esk Rd twisties. Odd.

From here we rode down the New England into Toowoomba. And this is where the fun really began. While we had taken over the BP servo a guy who lives next door decided he'd start up his bike. So he pushed open his wobbly garage door and propped it up on only one side with a piece of 4x2. He put his bike right under it so if it fell it would scone him on the head and worked on his bike while the wind tried to make it fall on him.

Leaving him to his tempting of fate, we kind of made our way to Picnic Point, around the park and then right back out again - that was odd. Before we figured it was time to have a rest at some road works, be entertained by Queen Julie's and Happy's banter over ride proximity while stopped and get a friendly wave from a bike cop while we were at it. Eventually the road gang decided the lane they had blocked was the one they actually wanted open, and the open one was the one they really wanted blocked. So after that odd confusion was sorted, the stop sign was spun to slow and off we went. Passing the Close Encounters Of The Third Kind UFO mountain, traveling along the flat country roads until we came to Mt Tyson and our lunch stop.

A quaint cafe thing whose food service is painfully slow. The staff are all very nice - and their chocolate and fudge is doubly so . But the time from placing the order to the food arriving at the table was so slow our table started to hatch table-raiding plans. Where we would raid the food from other tables. But before we could finalize the plans, the food began arriving. And poor Happy, who ordered the simplest thing there only to get his food last. Odd. While over yonder table Young Bob decided he wanted to be sticky so spilled a sweet beverage on himself and a helmet instead of drinking it. More oddness from a day of oddities.

And so with hordes fed and many having stocked up on chocolate and fudge (no, I didn't buy it to bribe my wife, HA!), it was time to turn our backs to Mt Tyson. Our engines roared to life and the White Mischief cafe faded into the distance as we made our way back to Toowoomba & The Range.

Managing to somehow get a lot of green lights as we rode through the town, we also found cars getting out of our way as we descended into the valley below. And had a good unimpeded run to the BP at Gatton (I think) where some gave their steads some go-go juice and we made our farewells.

Apart from a little GPS misdirection the ride itself was quite enjoyable and the company fun. The roads were fairly good – they had bitumen on them – and the mix of straights and twisties thus had something for everyone. Not too fast nor too slow, it was baby bear just right. A good effort from POTULB Ado. (First one to decipher POTULB gets kudos - a bag full of kudos, in fact.)