I am a 55 year old Motor Cyclist with an insatiable passion for Sports Touring. Being mostly based in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, I’ve ridden many trips over 20+ years, up and down the East Coast from Noosa to Tassie, riding most roads along and over the Great Dividing Range and Victorian Alps. I’ve done a 15,000k ride from Lismore to Kununarra and down through the middle to Uluru and onto Victoria back to Lismore, with my 15 Year old daughter on the back of my Honda VFR 750. I love everything bike.
At the end of 2015 I had a crash in Victoria on the Omeo Hwy near Anglers Rest. I was lying on the side of a mountain for 6 hrs, being tended to by local S.E.S and then treated by Ambo’s, all of whom I thank immensely. I first became aware of my predicament when I woke in the Helicopter whilst being air lifted to a Melbourne Hospital, with 4 fractured vertebrae, punctured lung, broken ribs and shoulder. It was 2 weeks in hospital and 5 months of re-hab before I could get back to work. I thought that to be the end of my riding. I was done. To this day I don’t know what happened. I remember having a pie about 40mins before and then waking up in the chopper.
My sister lives in Melbourne and kindly let me stay there for my re-hab period, after which I managed to land a job in Sydney. Over the next few months, as I settled in, I was feeling a bit empty with no bike in my life. A hole in my soul. I just wanted a bike in my garage, to tinker with and talk to.
I am a firm believer that if you think about it enough, you might just get it. As it happened, I was helping a friend move house and I stumbled onto a one owner 2001 Aprilia Futura RST 1000 for sale. The owner told me to take it for a ride. It was pretty close to a year after the crash. So I did. Loved it. I knew nothing about this model so did a bit of research. It was Sports Tourer brought on to the market to compete directly against the Honda VFR800 and the Ducati ST4. It won the industry comparison tests for best all rounder. There were only 53 ever shipped to Australia in 2001. This was the actual PR bike used in the launch in Australia. I read reviews and forums. After 2 weeks of umming and ahrring, thoughts spinning in my head ‘should I really get another bike? don’t be a dickhead! what if…?’. I bought it, for no other reason but to have one. I had no intention then, to do what I ended up doing.
For the next 10 to 12 months I rode once maybe every 6 weeks, or less. I was riding the Old Pacific Hwy, The Putty Rd, The Bells Line and out to Oberon. It was all busy city riding and although still enjoyable most times, I was a bit hesitant to be out there on city roads and never really felt at ease. I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I knew I could. Like any good drug, I needed more. I needed a bigger fix to be satisfied.
I thought about trips I had done in the past. I wanted something new and challenging. I wanted to prove to myself that the Omeo stack didn’t dictate where and how I rode. Don’t let the bastards win. The Lap of Australia idea came about when I thought back to my 2009 trip to Kununarra with my daughter. That was big. I thought If I keep going past Kununarra, then I would be on one of the biggest rides you can get.
The 18 year old V-Twin Aprilia with 74,000k’s on the clock was the perfect bike for the task, having a reputation for bullet proof reliability and good cruising speeds over long distances. It’s a bike capable of over 300k’s per 20 ltr tank which is what you need for this mission if you don’t want to carry extra fuel. So, 18 months after swearing them off, I was ready to embark on a journey that many others only dream of.
A Lap of Australia on a Motorbike.
Preparation
I bought a map of Australia and put it on my desk. I will always remember unrolling it. I sat down and thought wow, I’m doing this. This is the start. I looked at the map, taking it in. After maybe 10 mins of just looking and scanning it was “hmm, now which way?” ….. and the journey began.
There are a few different ways you can do ‘point A’ back to ‘point A’ which go from about 13 or 14,000k’s to over 26,000k’s. My idea was 6 weeks and close to 18,000 kilometres on only sealed roads.
I have done Lismore to Darwin and Kununarra before as well most roads east of Port Augusta. The west and south were new lands for me so I thought to try and work it out allowing for maybe getting off the bike during the day somewhere other than a service station and having some looks around. I actually had 7 weeks to complete the ride but planned on 6. At first glance I thought 2 weeks to Darwin, knowing I had visits and pop in’s up the east coast, 2 weeks to Adelaide via Perth and a week to get back to Sydney. This left me with 7 to 10 days for stops for whatever reasons. From experience, after 4 or 5 days riding, I will try and have a 2 night and full day break, otherwise the exhaustion can sneak up, which as we know, does not make the optimum rider.
The only planning I thought I could really do was when to go, which direction to go, and organising bike servicing and tyres. I chose Winter for the time of year with least rain. I chose to go anti-clockwise, mainly for Western Australia and the Nullarbor where I believe the winds are predominantly blowing westerly. I envisaged a cold and blustery Great Australian Bight, so any assistance would be appreciated over the 2000k’s. It also saves fuel going anti-clockwise as it’s about 150 mtrs shorter, I’m told.
I figured Perth, being about 10,000k’s into the trip, was where I would need a service and tyres. The bike is recommended to have servicing every 7,000k’s. I thought getting to Perth won’t hurt with it being long distances with no real stop starting. After a bit of research I found Dale Britton Motorcycles where a French mechanic knew of the Futura and it’s V Twin Rotax engine. I told them what I was doing and could only really give an estimate of when I would arrive in Perth. They said if I could give 3 or 4 days notice then there shouldn’t be any issues. So I ordered a set of Pirelli Angel GT’s, which is what I already had on. They are my regular tyre and I have done over 10,000k’s on them before. This was going to be a bit different for them though as I will be doing maybe 15,000k’s pretty well sitting on the centre of the tyre.
My camping gear was light summer set up, with a sleeping bag, micro fibre blanket, a very light tent that had seen a few erections in the past, and a self inflating mattress. I snuck a blow up pillow in there too. As well as my normal set of bike tools under the seat, I carried a puncture kit and a can of pump up liquid, a big can of chain lube, some electrical and race tape and various size cable ties. Thinking that there is surely something else to take, I threw in a larger flat blade screw driver, a bigger pair of multi grips, a little hammer and an old clutch lever for no other reason other than I saw it sitting on the bench. I probably took more than I was ever going to need, or not enough. I’m not all that familiar with the ins and outs on this bike as I’ve never really had a need to work on it in the 18 months or so that I’ve owned it. I’ve only ever had the 2 middle fairings off when I washed it one time so hoping of course for no issues to arise that are out of my basic skill set.
I also had an iPad given to me by my kids. I had never thought to bring one as I would have no use for it. Turned out that having downloaded movies and music was a welcome luxury.
After a bit of what if’s thinking, as a final back-up, I joined the NRMA. If I was more than 200k’s from home which at this time is Sydney, I would get picked up from wherever I am and transported to the nearest mechanic as well as accommodation until I was mobile again
Motorbike Touring 