After talking to Phil at the last meeting he agreed to swap his usual 2nd Sunday of the month to the Saturday to allow for Mothersday commmitments. I woke to the sound of heavy rain and my first thoughts were I wish I was riding tomorrow when only a few showers were forecast. So off I went to the usual meeting point at a Healsville cafe. When I arrived Phil, Ian D and Alex Peacock were there. Alex was only passing through with work. We headed off to the starting point where Lefty joined us. I think the weather scared a few off so we were to be a group of 4. At the preride talk Phil appointed me ride leader since i'd done this ride a few times and Lefty tail. I've been in AMTR a little while and this was to be my first go at leading a ride. It was made quite easy having Phil there. Each time I needed directions I just had to wait a little while for him to appear out of the mist and we were on our way again. This is a good area to learn you can't really get lost due to the triangle of sealed roads aroud it. I was enjoying it out front., I saw a lot of wild life and had no one blasting past. We did a few of the usual loops and I found my way to the hard part of Phil's usual hard/easy area. I recognised the top of quite a long down hill and headed to the bottom. I should have stopped at the top and gave the others the option. We soon retraced our steps back to the top of the hill and with the rain getting heavier the decision was made to head to the Bakery at Marysville for food and shelter. We ate and chatted for about an hour and with no sign of the rain letting up we decided to head back to the cars a more direct route than usual. The only difficult track on the return was to bring me undone. While crossing a couple of small ruts on a VERY slippery up hill I somehow high sided and ended up jamming the chin guard of my helmet into the slippery clay resulting in a bit of a cut to the nose. I had my helmet camera on so it should have some interesting footage to check out. I regained my composure straightened the steering on the old girl and headed to the top of the hill for our last regroup. Three more tracks and we were back at the cars at about 2.30 having covered only about 60 Km's.

It wasn't the longest Marysville ride I've been on but due to the rain it was fairly demanding trying to stay upright and maintain a bit of speed.
Thanks to Phil for organising the ride and helping me out with a bit of ride leader training.
Thanks to Lefty for tail duties and Ian for all the corners.

Michael N

Thought Phil may have snagged it for a sunny day !!! Didn't happen, cleared up when I got to Healsville but wet through out the day. Man that shinny red clay plays havoc with your mind.  Thanks to Phil for putting on the ride, Michael for his first lead ride and Ian (dark horse) for showing us how its done..

Cheers,
Lefty.