Storm Front
Melbourne to Singleton in winter
A few years ago, when Triumph released its all-new Rocket 3, I rode it, and declared that were I to buy a bike, the Rocket 3 would be the bike I would buy. There are bikes that handle better. There are bikes that are more powerful. But there is no mass-produced bike upon this great, green earth that hoses 225 Nm of torque into a tyre fatter than biscuit-eating Catholic, and fires you at the horizon with more venom. None.
That’s a crazy number. And I invite you to compare it to other bikes. Go on. It also makes over 180 horses, so there’s that. But we ride torque, ladies. And 225 is a great and hairy slab of torque to ride.
So, one cold day in the middle of winter, I took this torque, and the stunningly malevolent black-and-storm-cloud blue English bastard it lives inside, and left Melbourne to run through the middle of NSW and back home to Singleton.
Triumph boss, Nick “Son of John’ Bloor (praise be his name), declared the new Rocket 3 Storm must be even more powerful in 2024 than it was in 2023. No, I do not know why he made that call, for it is not for me to know the reasoning of this great and good man. But it was the right call, because there can never be enough torque. It’s like clean water, pure air, and hot chicks.
And then, because Nick Bloor (may he live 1000 years) radiates glory like the sun, he had that insane engine dunked in matte black paint, permitted three fierce colour options (a red insert on a black tank, a black insert on grey tank, and the one I got and loved immediately, the thundercloud-blue insert on a hate-black tank. Then he made sure I found out about it.
I immediately called Chris “The Sheepdog” Harris at PS Importers.
“I must ride this!” I declared. “Give it to me! I will hurtle through the frozen wastes of outback NSW like a frost-rimed comet! I will measure my worth against the winter road. I will sing my Death Song!”
“I was waiting for you to call,” Chris said. “Yes, I wish you to hurtle around on the Storm. I could probably do without you singing your Death Song, though.”
“That’s only because you haven’t heard it.”
“Would you like the R or the GT? The GT has heated handlebar grips.”
“Do I look like I produce oestrogen? The GT has cruiser ergos. I want the R. This is about hurtling, not cruising.”
A few days later, Chris picked me up at Melbourne airport and we went to the Alladin’s Cave PS Importers tells people is “just a warehouse”. It was five degrees.
I layered up in good riding gear, hugged Chris, and left. I like hugging Chris. It makes him feel weird. And as you all know, Melbourne makes me feel weird. It’s whole dank and clammy fishing village vibe with great restaurants is utterly lost on me. Those eateries would be far better off further north.
Wending my way through Melbourne on the Storm was a doddle. It’s only a monster if you want it to be a monster. And there would be time for monstering later. What was needed now was to not get snapped by the unmarked speed cameras Victoria enriches itself with.
But the seat of the Storm was like a homecoming for me. God, I missed this glorious, unreasonable, unmatchable motorcycle. It doesn’t even sound like a motorcycle. It goes: “GWWOARRGH!” when you open the throttle, and “BRROGH-BRROGH-BRROGH” when you close it, like it’s muttering growled imprecations under its breath.
All of that is important to know. But what’s crucially important to know is that you must hang on. I’m serious. Twist that throttle, open the monster’s cage, and you’d best be holding onto those handlebars, princess. Nothing you’ve ridden takes off like this.
But this was not my first rodeo. I knew this. I loved this. I’m just telling you this so you don’t fall off the back and cry for when you go test-ride one.
My path home was simple. Get out of Melbourne by heading north. Avoid arrest. Find Shepparton. From there go to Tocumwal, which is on the NSW side of the Murray River. Avoid arrest. Then head for Narrandera, overnight in Ardlethan, really avoid arrest, then West Wyalong, Forbes, and Parkes. Then head west via Yeoval, Wellington, Ulan, Merriwa, and home. It’s a ride just shy of 1300kms. So two 650km days is no biggie.
At about 10am, I was still maybe half-an-hour out of Shepparton, and the sun was yet to make an appearance. Cold fog, an iffy road surface, and the temperature still in single digits does not make for a happy ride. But I was happy. The Storm is an English bike. It likes its air thick, cold, and wet. We rumbled along in top gear, effortlessly passing what needed to be passed. That’s the thing with the Rocket 3. Its acceleration in any gear from any speed is effortless. Well, on its part. You best be hanging on when you decide you might like your overtaking to be vicious and ruthless and go down a gear or two. So, effort is required on your part rather than its part. The Storm doesn’t give a shit. It’s not even breathing hard at 180 in fifth.
The road from Shepparton to Tocumwal is utter shit. It’s dead flat, dead straight, and filled with trucks and potholes. I hit some of those vile pits at speed – they are hard to see when the road is reflecting the sun, which was finally making its noonday appearance. The Storm soaked up what it could, which was most of it (it’s got superb suspension), and my spine dealt with the rest.Just outside of Tocumwal, you hit a forested section thanks to the waters of the Murray. Things like magnificent red gums grow easily here, unlike farther north. I was looking forward to a break in Tocumwal, but massive contraflow roadworks was what I got first. My normally cheery disposition changed. The Storm would be terribly enfilthened by this greasy mud-shit I was idling though. The cars in front of me sprayed the front of the Storm with more filth. Because the Storm’s rear tyre is immense and its rear-guard is not (lest it shield the fat rubber from admiring glances), mud was also being flicked onto the sides of the Storm. Filth was everywhere as I idled past a few stopped cars to make my way to the front of the queue at the red light.
Someone beeped his horn at me as I went past. I stopped. I put down the sidestand and walked back to the beeper. It was a middle-aged bloke in a Prado. He immediately raised his window and stared ahead. Still, Prado’s are not sound-proof.
“Something wrong with your horn, champ?” I asked politely. If there was, I could have shown him how to disconnect it. Would have only taken a second.
“Blink if you’re all good,” I grinned. He blinked. I got back on the Storm and rode into Tocumwal. The town gets its name from an Aboriginal word for “deep hole” in which legends say lived a spirit that would, when the mood took it, emerge from the hole at a place called “The Rocks”, which is a bit out of town. It’s not really much to see, and resembles a murky pond in a paddock. And the hole apparently bubbles when the Murray is low.
The Murray was not low, but my normal merry mien was at an ebb after being rudely beeped at, and needed to be recharged. I randomly chose the first pub I saw, which was the Tattersall Hotel. And what a find this joint was.
The pub was virtually empty of people, but it was full of some quite astonishing bric-a-brac, including suits of armour, statues of beasts, and the biggest mirror-ball I have ever seen. It also boasted a magnificent kitchen, which served me amazing soft tacos and some big-arse chips covered in American cheese and shallots. A beer settled all that nicely in my belly, and I felt ready to proceed.
And old man stopped to stare at the Storm as I was zipping my jacket up.
“What kind of bike is that?” he asked.
“It’s a Triumph,” I replied.
“Is that its engine?” he said, peering at the matt black nuclear reactor Nick Bloor (blessed be his name) had caused to be where a bike engine normally sits.
“It is,” I grinned, because I knew what the next question was going to be.“How big is it?”
“Two-thousand-five-hundred ccs,” I intoned.
“Oh golly-gee,” he said, and I am paraphrasing for the easily-shocked. “It’s bloody beautiful!”
I headed out of town and pointed the bloody beautiful Storm north. I had wanted to stop in Jerilderie, which sits on the longest creek in the world, but lunch took longer than I figured. Now I’m not sure why the Billabong Creek fails to make river status. Some estimates reckon its 506km long and runs from Moulamein to north of Henty. But it remains just a creek.
Jerilderie is somewhat blood-soaked. And famous because our very own Irish outlaw, Ned Kelly, made it so when he robbed the bank and basically captured the whole town 1879. He was there for four days after locking the cops up in their own gaol, and holding 30 townspeople hostage. He also wrote the 8000-word-long Jerilderie Letter, seeking to justify his actions and seeking justice for the Irish settlers who were being victimised by the cops, three of whom Ned had shot the year before at Stringybark Creek.
A few years later, in 1884, Jerilderie was again in the news thanks to a Kelly. This time, a woman, Margaret Kelly (no relation to Ned), had cut her child’s throat with a pair of wool shears, then decapitated that child in front of her other children. She then had a go at them with the shears before running off into the scrub.
Almost hundred years later, in 1978, the infamous Homestead Murders occurred. Wife beater, gambler, and gun shearer, Mick Lewis, and wife Susan, had been shot in the head, and their two small children were left on their own in the house. One of the kids, four-year-old Tanya Lewis, answered the phone on Day Four. The transcript of that call made headlines all over the world…
“Hello?”
“Hello there, is your mummy at home?”
“She is, but she’s asleep.”
“Well, is Daddy there?”
“Yeah, but he’s asleep too. He’s sleeping on the kitchen floor.”
“Oh? Could you go wake mummy for me and tell her to come to the phone? I need to tell her something, can you do that for me?”
“No, no. I don’t like mummy any more ’cause mummy’s turning black.”
Mick’s insurance agent, John Fairley, was eventually arrested and confessed to the crime.
There is certainly some darkness in Jerilderie’s past, and it’s a typical Riverina town today, unfortunately given almost entirely over to the cult of Ned.I was now on the Newell Highway – a blasted, dented, ten-bastard road full of road-trains and potholes that made every effort to swallow everything. I hit one such pothole and I thought the Storm had been broken in half. I didn’t see it. It was just there. Then the jolt, then the air whooshing out of my body, then some pretty lights exploding in my head. It knocked the Storm’s cruise control to off. Which was probably just as well because for about 200-metres I was not actually riding the bike.
I pulled over and checked for damage. Nothing. I rode off slowly, mindful of any wobbles, and gently accelerated to 100, then 150, then a bit more, then quickly buttoned off. Nothing. The Storm was as sound as a bell.
I fuelled up in Narrandera, where the Sturt Highway meets the Newell, and the road trains get bigger. Its name means “goanna” in the Wiradjuri language, but that afternoon, as the sun eased its way to the horizon and the temperature started to head towards the low single digits again, it was full of pork. The Highway Patrol kind. And they were busy belting around the place with their lights and sirens. Looked to me like they were chasing each other.
But this was a good thing. Because I needed to up my pace if I was to get to my resting place without a face-full of sunset-kangaroo. Reason dictated if the cops were busy in town, then I could get about my business out of town.
I was heading for Ardlethan, which is less than 70km away, and my bed for the night. I picked this place for a reason, and the reasoning was simple. My bike would be safer in a small town than a large town like Narrandera or West Wyalong, where the Road Gods only know what kind of criminal bastardry is afoot when the sun goes down. A prize like the Rocket 3 could be swapped for maybe a week’s worth of bathtub meth, and my days of fighting with foaming speed-gronks are long over. And I was unarmed because I had to get on a plane to get to Melbourne in the first place.
Ardlethan was simply magnificent. But to this day I am not sure how to pronounce it. Some say: “Ar-dull-thn”, some say “Ar-della-thn”, and some say “Ard-elatn”. Don’t know and don’t much care. I just want to tell you the London Hotel and its publican, Dale, are brilliant.
Ardlethan is a tiny town. About 500 people live in it. And its epicentre is the London Hotel. It’s an old tin-mining settlement, and the tin-mine has recently been opened again so the tailings could be combed over. And I can’t remember the last time I’d enjoyed a pub and the townsfolk so much.
I talked for ages with a bloke who’d moved here from Melbourne because he’d had enough of the rat race. After he got too drunk to make sense, I yarned with an elderly bloke and his hefty, middle-aged, tin-mining daughter, who wanted to know if I would take her for a ride on my “gorgeous bike”. I respectfully declined. My days of improving rural gene-pools are well behind me.
The food was sensational, the service genuinely friendly, and Dale, who also rode a Triumph Thunderbird Storm (the upright twin cruiser), turned on the outside heaters to make sure I was warm “because Triumph riders look after their own”.
The London has pub-style accommodation as well as a few motel-type rooms. The beds are soft, the linen clean, and the shower has great water pressure. A man could ask for no more. Highly recommended place to spend an evening.
That night, my hands ached and throbbed. This is a common ailment for Rocket 3 riders. I see it as badge of honour, and I am entirely to blame. Because you’re only slightly canted forward in the seat, and there’s no fairing, and the bastard accelerates like a missile, you have to hang on, like I said earlier. So, when I come up on something at say 130 and it needs passing, and because I am aroused by utterly ferocious acceleration, I knock it down a cog. I don’t have to. But I do anyway. I hit a 170 before I’m halfway past the road train.
This makes me grin like an idiot. And it makes my hands ache at night. I’m good with that.
The next morning it was 3.5 degrees. I had another coffee and waited until it was six degrees. Then I headed off to get petrol in West Wyalong since there’s none in Ardlethan.
I stopped to take some pictures in Mirrool. Giant grain silos adjacent to a lovely two-story pub, and a perfect sky made a nice backdrop for the Storm. I posted them on my Facebook feed and was informed by Mick and Steve there was a story to the pub and the silos. Seems a pro footy player, Billy Brownless, was bet he could not kick a ball over the silos. Billy won the bet and the ball-kicking thing is now an annual event.
I arrived in West Wyalong and got to chatting with the couple in the servo. They too were amazed at the magnificence of the Rocket and asked me where I’d come from.
“I was in Ardlethan last night,” I said.
“Ah,” the bloke grinned. “The Sunrise Hotel.”
“I could swear it had London Hotel painted on it,” I replied.
“Yeah, it’s the London, but lots of us have greeted a heap of sunrises out the front of that pub.”
I felt I should break my fast in Parkes, which was past Forbes. I needed to make better time if I was to get home before dark, and the amount of time I was spending being friendly, then stopping to take pictures, was eating into that.
Forbes was prettier than I remembered. It’s a sizable town with lots of parks and a big-arse lake in the middle of it. And it’s surrounded by smaller towns with some of the greatest Aussie names I have ever heard – Bedgerebong, Bundabarrah, Corradgery, Daroobalgie, and Oomah North.
Parkes, just a bit further along the Newell, is about the same size and has devoted itself to the annual Elvis Festival. It used to be all about the radio telescope. But now it’s more about The King, because staring at a largely motionless white space-peering thing does not bring in the revenue that 25,000 Elvis fans do. Elvis had never been to Parkes, but one night in 1993, at the Graceland restaurant, an impersonator thrust his pelvis and sang You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dawg to 300 people, and it became a thing. I reckon it’s great. More towns should do stuff like this, and I’m thinking Singo is gagging for an annual Bruce Springsteen Festival.
I had a bracing light breakfast at the Paragon Café and felt it was time to get off the wretched Newell and seek quieter roads. The Storm is a superb touring bike if you’re not after rubbish like fairings to shield your softness from the wind. The seat is all-day good, and if you’re not an acceleration junkie, your hands will not hurt at all. Shut up. I am what I am.
I found the Renshaw-McGirr Way, and set off for Yeoval. This is a good road. It’s possible to have a crack and while there are no sharp bends, there’s a whole lot of sweepers the Storm enjoys greatly when you’re going…um, a bit quick. I was mindful of kangaroos, because there’s a lot of tree-cover on both sides of the road, but the surface is pretty good, and it’s a quiet stretch of bitumen. I passed four cars in the time it took me to get to Yeoval.
And what a dreary wee place that is. There’s about 300 people living there, you can’t drink the tap water, and it was the childhood home of Andrew Barton “Banjo” Patterson. There’s an eponymous museum celebrating him in town, but it was closed when I rode through, and I cannot imagine what it might contain. Patterson was a great poet and writer, so maybe pens and paper, a desk, perhaps his cot, and some old newspapers. I will never know. The whole town actually looks like it’s dying.
I left and enjoyed a whole bunch of bends and wild scenery as I made my way to Wellington. The Storm likes corners, once you lever it into them. I don’t mind that levering thing. The beast is long, the beast has fat tyres, and the beast requires you to ride it. So, while there’s an argument for and a pleasure in bikes that handle almost as an extension of your thought, there’s also an argument for monsters you need to ride into a corner and which then power out of that corner like the wrath of a dark god.
I refuelled in Wellington, the ice capital of NSW. It also boasts a massive prison and an even bigger solar farm, and it was once, a long time ago, a pleasant little town on the way to Dubbo. I left as quickly as I could, and stopped in Gulgong, the town on the ten-dollar bill and the home of Henry Lawson. It’s quite a unique little place and certainly worth a visit.
I got to yarning with a famer at the servo, and an hour later, I was still listening with rapt fascination as this good man first told me what the road was like from Gulgong to Ulan, then how he’d hitchhiked all over Australia, shearing, fighting, and collecting spoons, and finally how he’d once also owned a Triumph Bonneville, which got him laid so many times he reckons he might have a dozen bastards running about the place.
I made for Ulan keeping an eye on the sky, which was starting to resemble the angry blue colour of the Storm’s tank insert. You needn’t bother to visit Ulan. It’s basically a tiny, barely settled adjunct to the mine is services. But it does have a store which sells booze, so I guess if you’re into beery miners, ladies, you might have a fine old Friday night there.
The storm was upon me just out of Cassilis, where I did not stop because I have been there before, and there’s little to recommend it. It has a pub which is only open on weekends, and is trying to be all hipstery and up itself. Besides, it was about to Stormageddon on me, and I was relatively close to home.
I stopped to take a very cool pic as the thunderheads approached. Storm with a storm kinda thing. And then I rode through a massive downpour to arrive at a freshly washed Merriwa. I fuelled up and then went inside to pay, where I strongly fought the urge to commit murder.
People are such dicks, don’t you think? I do. I don’t have much time for them, generally. The bloke at the front of the line was clearly from the city. His puffer jacket, screaming kids, and fat, sour wife gave it away. And he was a cheap and inconsiderate cock. Instead of going to any of the four coffee shops that sell good coffee in town, old mate felt he had to have a two-dollar Mocha Soy Cuppashito from the servo. So the single bloke serving had to go and make this thing for him, while me, three truckies, and a farmer, waited to pay for our fuel. We death-stared him the whole time he stood there staring straight ahead, while the servo bloke fooled with the shitty coffee machine and searched for the town’s only carton of soy milk.
The roads were wet all the way home, but it wasn’t raining, and the Storm has excellent wet-road manners, despite the girth of its tyres. I’m not sure what kind of witchcraft Nick Bloor (may angels bless his progeny) used to make these Rocket 3 monsters such capable, well-made bikes, but its definitely good ju-ju.
I was home before dark, as planned. My ride had been superb. Not a screaming cornerfest, but I get a kick out of riding those crazy big roads out west. I always have. It’s a different kind of riding. You have to be on your game as much as ever, but all that booming, empty space under that vast and endless sky does give you some much-wanted thinking space.
Granted, most of the things I was thinking were spoken aloud and went along the lines of: “Jesus! I friggen’ love this bike!” and “What is that idiot doing in that car ahead?”, which was invariably followed by “Watch me disappear, idiot…”
So, yeah. It was a great run.
