In Which A Treemendous Catastrophe Occurs

Although we have become accustomed to Crasher’s impressive arrivals at Woori Yallock it did not take long to realise that something major had happened. Most weeks Crasher likes to arrive a few minutes behind the peloton with stories of “how he had to sit on 40 clicks” all the way from Mt Evelyn. This inevitably evokes cries of admiration from the more gullible riders in the group. Crasher then usually goes on to recite stories of his halcyon National Title winning glory days (somewhere back in the 1930s).

This time we all knew that something was wrong. Bob wobbled unsteadily to the station with his face as white as a sheet. I could only imagine what might have happened to bring about his deranged state of mind – had he taken a steroid overdose ? had he seen the ghost of Hooters ? or had he been passed by another rider with better looking legs than his ?

It took some time for Bob to stop trembling and recite his amazing story of woe. When he finally settled down he stammered out that he had been riding along near Killara (at his usual 40 clicks) when he heard a noise ahead of him. To his horror it was a couple of lumberjacks who had just dropped a HUGE tree right across the trail, just a few metres ahead of him. With his ageing reflexes he had no other alternative than to hit the fallen trunk at full speed ! The bike gave a tremendous lurch and sent old crasher hurtling over the handlebars and high into the Yarra Valley skies. Apparently he landed a few hundred metres away and bounced a few times before coming to rest on a nice soft pile of freshly laid horse manure.

Fortunately, since Bob has already had almost all of his bones replaced with bolts, brackets and screws, there was nothing left to break and he was able to continue on his way, although a little the worse for wear. After recounting his amazing story, he proceeded to roll up his leggings and sleeves to examine his body for cuts and abrasions. There was nothing we could do except laugh and tell him that he should have sued the careless lumberjacks for their inept display of serious OHS breaches.

The crash did have some positive outcome – for the remainder of the ride Bob actually rode in a quiet, sedate and sensible manner befitting his advanced years. I could almost believe that the crash had knocked some sense into him, but I will reserve judgement for a couple of weeks.

Apart from Crasher’s incident with the tree the rest of the ride went without a hitch. On our final Thursday ride for Autumn, it was again encouraging to see so many riders out on the trail. The weather was chilly but quite good for riding. I was pleased that the Milgrove Bakery still had one pie left for me to eat for lunch. And no one suffered any punctures.

Now we head into the depths of winter – only time will tell how well we fare.