Weather predicted to be windy with showers. Ready to roll from Point Cook weather looked OK then 1^st shower came across, on with wet weather gear. Good turn up at Point Cook.Phil Pilgrim – Vincati,Michael Dietrich  – 48 Chief,Dave Kimpton – Valencia Chief,Mick and Paul – Daves mates on Suzukis,Peter Kime – Yamaha,Sally and Jason Douglas (Peters Daughter and Son in Law) Driving back up with the HR Holden and Trailer.Picked up Daryl and Georgia Colt in Geelong.Decided to head down the freeway , the clouds looked black over the You Yangs so Little River was avoided.Ride down to Geelong was uneventful , wind had picked up and blew us around a bit, but no rain. Easy ride with every one keeping together.Turned off the freeway at the Hamilton Hwy exit and picked up Daryl and Georgia Colt waiting at the exit ramp. Had brief chat then back on to the freeway heading for the Anglesea turn off.Got about 3 km down the Anglesea Rd when the rain hit again, fairly heavy but only lasted a couple of minutes before the sun came out and we enjoyed a pleasant run down through Anglesea and on to Aireys Inlet. Paul Freemasons ‘60s Diner is just outside of Aireys Inlet, we turned into a newly laid carpark and parked right at the diner door.They have now opened a store next to the Diner which sells all sorts of Man Cave stuff and was worth a look through. They have also opened a Malt Shop in the front of the Diner which has a 57 Chev highly modified with a  sound system under the bonnet that looks like a blower. Before lunch Paul Freemason took us on a guided tour of his cars. The car area is not open to the public but Paul is very obliging when a club asks for a tour. He gives a run down on every vehicle in his collection and a bit of a chat about himself. Paul originally started racing on bikes and still has his Honda 750 that he raced back in the 70s.Lunch was standard 60s tucker, hamburgers you needed to dislocate your jaw to get your mouth around. We all enjoyed the meal and the view from the diner. Sat around chatting for a while and waited for the wind to die down and the showers to stop.Left Aireys Inlet about 2:00pm, fuelled up and headed back towards Melbourne. The short section of the Great Ocean Road to Anglesea is a great ride, not too many tight twisty bits and provides great views out over the ocean. The ride back to the highway was uneventful except for the Kookaburra who tried to play chicken with the Yamaha missed the bike and hit me on the leg , he did 3 barrel rolls, hit the road bounced twice and I think got air born again.Dropped Daryl and Georgia at the Geelong turn off and headed back down the highway for pleasant cruise to Werribee for a refuel and split off to head for home. Lost site of the HR for a while, mud guard broke its bracket and went for the bush. Jason stopped and retrieved a rather sad looking mudguard.

Peter Kime

Some time back I discussed that the only way to preserve interest in Indians was to encourage younger generations to participate in our hobby Old Motorcycles and of course our favorite brand. This has helped recently with Indian on the comeback trail, so we wont end up like Henderson, Ace, Flying Merkle,Thor etc still that has given the brand a good kickstart but what about heritage versions? These days modern motorcyclist’s are amazed at the amount of input that we take for granted, hand change, foot clutch, manual advance, and even chokes, not to mention insignificant brakes or a left hand throttle, this leaves them very little time to multi-task and actually enjoy riding as you know they are into “riding the wheels off” at such speeds to think about anything but the basics, ie:changing gear for the next corner that they have lined up. So what do you do, a couple of suggestions if your new Indian dealership offers a ride day or BBQ day go there on your heritage model you will be made most welcome and some of the generation Y people will be eager to talk to you about your model, some may offer large lumps of money to buy your machine, this does keep the interest up, & you might even get a test ride on a new Indian, the plus side is that the old models are and will be more sought after.

Scooters are the flavour of the month in many countries around the world at the moment, Indian thought so to well before Vespa or Lambretta, but as often in the Springfield’s marque’s history they jumped the gun to early, another failed attempt that helped the company eventually go bankrupt

CityLink to toll motorcycles

CityLink has advised us that from 1 January 2014 it will begin tolling motorcycles that travel on CityLink; being the South-Eastern and Tullamarine freeways in Melbourne.Under CityLink’s contract with the Victorian Government, it was always expected that motorcycles would be tolled at half the rate for cars.   CityLink has adopted new technology, similar to that used on Eastlink, which includes video imaging (of your rear numberplate) to toll motorcycles accurately. Motorcycles won’t need a tag to use CityLink, and CityLink won’t charge any image processing fees for motorcycle trips. That’s the same as when using a motorcycle on EastLink.If you have a motorcycle and it’s already registered on your Breeze account, from 1 January 2014 each trip on CityLink by that motorcycle will be charged to your Breeze account.   If you have a motorcycle and it’s not yet registered on your Breeze account, CityLink advise that you should consider registering it on your Breeze account by phone on 13 LINK (13 54 65) or login to your Breeze account online.From 1 January 2014, if you ride a motorcycle on CityLink and the motorcycle is not registered on a valid tolling account, CityLink will offer the choice of buying a CityLink Pass or Melbourne Pass, or waiting to receive a late toll invoice.

Smoke Signals  the quarterly Magazine is out those who get it hard copy will have it early next week, the e-mail version you will have it in hand very soon. The Committee Meeting is on this Tuesday night, and the General meeting on the 28th dont forget. Just received a link to a amazing 3D printer excercise building a 1927 Miller Indianapolis race car 40th scale, I know its a car & not a Indian but this is well worth a view, pattern makers are really de-funct now with machine like this

1927 Miller race car  (click link)