With Chris Horner announcing the Gypsy Tour in 2018 following the old Hume Hwy I can’t wait, obviously it won’t be like the road pictured above pictured over 100 years ago as it was well sealed by 1950 in Victoria anyway, NSW wasn’t but by the early sixties was. The problem with the Hume freeway today is that’s it’s possibly the most boring piece of road around I remember going up the old highway with my parents as a youngster and although the cars were slower and hotter in summer there was always a chance for a stop and a cold Tarax along the many little towns it passed through and that’s part of our fabric that’s missing today. So needless to say I’m booking pronto as the cutoff at around twenty souls is all that Chris will cater for, if you are thinking of going contact him,it will go to Sydney and come back on the Princes Hwy so quite a number of miles for your Indian and probably be in March for about 12-16 days , think about it.

A couple of years ago, I had a “Eureka” moment and bought a large rubber mat with lots of holes in it, the seller at Rare Spares assured me that they would trap small spares eg:collets in the holes and hours or days would be saved, enthusiastically I parted with my well earned sheckels and dragged it to beneath my work bench. This seemed to work initially except for the majority that bounced off the rubber and still disappeared under the bench, “Murphy”s Law” dictated like toast landing butter side down that 75% of my collets still went into a parallel universe annoying to say the least, recently I was in Ireland and you can see why the Irish are like they are and “to be sure to be sure” they must loose lots more than collets.

Garry Hogg recently asked for more Harley material as above the last time I saw him, well possibly the two best H-D’s I’ve seen the first cures all the engine problems of the venerable “Boat Anchor” by fitting a Honda 4 engine, this doesn’t alter the Honda as they handled like a “camel with a broken back” so no worse. But for the Harley its a better machine all round, the Topper would be a good bike to attend a HOG owners run on with your son and matching caps!

With last weekends run in the depths of winter, and new ride coordinator Owen Jones concerned that numbers would be down it seems that the run had massive support, I know that The Moto-Bean at Malmsberry is a delightful place to visit as in the past it was not to far to travel and the atmosphere during lunch surrounded by various classic machines is a popular destination. All well and good I know my mate Pete Kime was chuffed about the support this event gained, and also to others that lead the ride that day, I think personally this is what the IIRA is all about, riding your bike and preferably a Indian “chewing the fat” with fellow motorcyclists & with a meeting once a month to see what’s planned for the next event. A non-political club is all most people want, and heaven knows our Federal Politicians are giving us the opposite of that presently. I’m striving for that (less political) in our future,our charter says “We are here to have Fun,Fun,Fun that’s all I want.

The uniforms look Canadian to me but maybe not, strange not a 741 to be be seen only WLA’s