Snowy Ride Report

Last weekend (11 & 12 November) I took part in the Honda Snowy Ride. This ride occurs every year and raises money for the Steve Walter fund for fighting childhood cancer.

Getting there

Riders from all around Australia pay $50 dollars to be involved and meet at Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains passing through at least 3 checkpoints on the Saturday. Along the way the towns are encouraged to set up food stalls and events to get the locals and visitors together and to raise more money for charities locally.

I left Canberra at about 9am on Saturday morning with my gear and camera and headed down to my first stop Cooma. The ride was fine, I was able to maintain the speed limit of 100Km/hour nearly the whole run, only one large long incline reduced my rate to about 90km/h.

At Cooma the town put on a fair with rides, stalls, food and activities with revenues going to different local charities. I was able to park, get my card stamped and take a couple of photos. I also filled the Scooter up at Cooma even though I had only travelled 120Km. At the service station a few guys that had passed me earlier had a chat about the scooter and were a little amazed I was doing 120Km/h (75mph) when they passed.

Leaving Cooma I headed through Berridale and onto Dalgety stopping for lunch and a drink. At Dalgety I saw the strangest sidecar I have ever seen. this thing was a modified Kawasaki Sports bike.

Dalgety to Jindabyne is a short but wonderful ride. This little country road was smooth, tight and twisty fun even on a scooter. Stopping in Jindabyne to get my card stamped for the last time I headed on up to Thredbo, knowing this would be the hardest part of the journey. Thredbo is near the highest point in Australia and I know the climb might be a little hard for my 250cc Scooter. However I should not have worried, the Forza performed well, only slowing to just below 80Km/h (50mph) on the steepest of inclines.

The last part of the ride was a mass ride from the “Ski Tube” to Thredbo, with the riders many children with cancer are doubled on the back of a pack of Goldwings. This chain of bikes was at least 2 Km long.

Coming Home

After a Huge breakfast at the Station Resort I headed out (with Dani in tow behind in the car) and headed towards Perisher to see the country and take some photo’s. However the weather closed in and we had to abandon the trip and head back down to Jindabyne. With the weather predicting storms and gale force winds for the area we decided that we had to head home as soon as possible.

So after filling up and chatting to another group of riders from Canberra we headed off. Fighting the cross winds on the way home was not fun however I did fine and the Scooter performed wonderfully.

So after 640Km and $34 of fuel with an economy of approx 4.4 litres per 100Km’s (53mpg) I am very happy.