I love that pic of Jim on his Montesa, I had a King Scorpion 250 for awhile, it was a great bike, but it had a dodgy ignition and parts were near impossible to find here, so I swapped it for a Suzuki GS1000.
Ride #5. I'd spent the morning on Thursday stripping grease, oil, and finally horrible old paint off my CB750 chopper engine, and I needed some wind therapy. I'd put a new footpeg and mirror on the VMax, and it fired right up, even though the voltage meter keeps telling me there's only around 11.5V in the "who knows how old" battery that came with it. We've mostly agreed that it's fine to talk to our machines, and the VMax reminds me of a big happy Rottweiler dog that just wants to get out and spend a few hours doing it's thing, running fast and making lots of noise. Yeah, I'm on a lot of different drugs, so don't mind me.. Anyway, I wanted to do another "Pie Run", but as most bakeries here in Oz really cater only for breakfast and lunch and close early, I decided that I better get my pie first, then continue my ride with a full belly, as I hadn't had breakfast, and was pretty hungry.
I basically did a reverse of one of my favourite rides. I rode up the freeway north to Wandong, turned west then north again and headed to Kilmore. I needed fuel so I stopped at a big gas station, which had a "Pie Face" shop. Now it was around 2pm, and I didn't know what would be left at the bakery in Kilmore, so after I filled the big dog with 98 RON, I wandered in and ordered a steak, cheese and bacon pie. To cut a longer story slightly shorter, it wasn't great, and I can't help but think that looks like a picture of a dick on my pie? Either that, or I'm thinking about dicks too much......
VMax Thursday 29 January 2026 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Anyhoo, I rode on past a sign that said "Kilmore Jail" so I thought that would be a great backdrop for a pic, but overshot the street, and couldn't find it. I was happily riding around aimlessly (not thinking about dicks) and I looked up to the right and saw a massive bluestone structure, that turned out to be "Saint Patricks Church", which made me laugh, "Saint Patricks" must be the Catholic equivalent of the "Railway Hotel", little pubs in pretty much every Australian town and city. I'll explain, when I was a young rebellious teenager I was sentenced to a year at Saint Patricks College in Sale (that's a place, not an event) before I punched out the football coach, (who'd attacked me in a case of mistaken identity, but I did enjoy sitting him on his arse) Brother Bernard, and was expelled. Then a few years later I was married in Saint Patricks Cathedral here in Melbourne, and over the years, I've seen "Saint Patricks" churches in many little towns and a few major cities. Still, it was a nice old building.
VMax Thursday 29 January 2026 1 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
After that religious experience (no, I didn't go inside, I didn't want to collapse the building) I continued on to Lancefield, Romsey, Wallan, and home again. I don't think I've done that ride in reverse before, but I really enjoyed it. I saw so much more than I'd seen before. The only down side was the last 10 miles or so on the freeway where I got stuck behind a cop car, and as the VMax is very loud, I decided to stay behind it, and I'm pretty sure the cop saw me and so I ended up following him home, well almost, but it was the most boring 10 miles of my life, creeping along at the speed limit. Oh well, there was a bright side I guess, when I got home and parked the bike, I saw that the left indicator was broken off, and hanging by the two wires? WTF? I guess it must have broken when the bike fell over on ride #4, but didn't actually fall off the bike until I went over a few pot holes on my 103 mile ride, so I was lucky I stayed behind the cop, he probably wouldn't have been happy with me. Anyway, I've fixed that now, so #5 down, and I think I might do #6 tomorrow.
VMax Thursday 29 January 2026 4 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
