NIGE Motorcycle Club

It was a bit cloudy at Jerry’s as all the Niges gathered with great excitement for the annual ride to Bathurst for the Moto GP. And there were heaps of us.

“How many this time Nige?” asked Lucky.

“Heaps Lucky. Numbers too big to count.”

“So more than 10?”

“Nuh”

” Roll call time then.” an exuberant Lucky exclaimed.

“Yeah nuh. Too many” Nige said, barely hiding his irritation and furrowing his brow and raising and lowering his eyebrows and scowling for all he was worth.

“Yeah, sorry Nige” Lucky replied then, whispering quietly and quickly, “Nige, Moey, Boris, Rocky, Barnaby, Ajax, Sideways, Lucky.” Then, “Present” which nobody heard but it was enough for Lucky to move on.

With ride leader self-appointed Lucky leading the way, everyone headed out towards Denman. Moey, still nursing a newly replaced left shoulder drove his car like a man who had never been smashed to bits by an emu earlier that year and subsequently scraped and scratched the undercarriage of his Sportage on all the dippsy doodles along Bylong Valley Way.

Now approaching the climb uphill towards Rylstone is a causeway that we have all ridden through many times. This time it had a few inches of water in it that saw a few riders wiggling on exit.

“Listen, lads, we should be sure to take that a bit easier on the way back” suggested Rocky and we all agreed that would be a good idea. Noticeably, half the riders didn’t come back that way so were spared the horrors of what would come in a few days.

We didn’t stay at the Knickerbocker this time but accommodation at the George was pretty good. We did the usual ride down to Burraga although Lucky headed out to Orange to coffee up with his mate Dave. But we all gathered later in the day for the excitement of the Moto GP.

It did not happen.

Sadly, and despite wandering all over Bathurst for a venue that was broadcasting the race and settling in on the super screen of Bathurst Panthers, the race was cancelled because the “Girly men” as Barnaby pointed out had agreed not to ride in the wet.

“That’s ridiculous” an angry Moey shouted at the screen, “I survived a near-death high-speed accident with an emu and I managed to organise myself to be here.”

Disappointed and bedraggled, we wandered back to the George. That afternoon we lost three to outside commitments. Rocky headed home to care for his wife Sue who had injured herself in a fall. Boris had an unspecified appointment to attend, and Barnaby had an early doctor’s appointment the next day. So Moey Nige, Lucky, Sideways, and Ajax spent the evening eating and drinking beers and complaining about miscellaneous subjects. 

The next morning we headed towards home. Moey left ahead of us with a view to meeting up in Rylstone. The morning was sunny and the roads were dry. A nice pace was set by Lucky (RLSA) when only a half k short of the Castlereagh Highway Sideways went, well, sideways. As number four, and bringing up the rear, he followed the other riders around a small pantech when things went horribly wrong. His big blue Thunderbird suddenly lost its footing and skewed down the road in front of the truck throwing Sideways sideways down the road. Luckily the truck managed to pull up before Sideways became Retreads.

So there we were. Lucky, Nige, and Ajax turned back to find poor Sideaways in a bit of a state on the side of the road with various drivers and well-wishers stopping to see if they could help. Lucky began an impromptu requiem mass and was furnishing a makeshift crucifix from a broken jacaranda branch but was taken aside by Ajax and reminded that you had to be dead and Catholic to warrant that. Sideways was neither. “Limbo then for you then old fella” Lucky muttered under his breath and threw Sideways a furtive sign of the cross just in case.

Anyway, after an hour or so an ambulance arrived and Nige was back in high spirits when he realised it wasn’t him on the road writhing in pain. “Did youse bring a shovel with ya mate?” he asked the paramedics, roaring with laughter at that pearler. Anyhoo, the ambos took him off west somewhere to a hospital of some kind and we all agreed that that would probably be the last we’d see of Bobby. 

Eventually, Nige rode the broken Thunderbird to a local’s house who promised to care for it lovingly till the insurance mob picked it up; finding out who they were was a whole other story by the way. Apparently, the guy did clean it up a bit and Nige was pretty certain he’d try and make babies with it once we’d all left. It was all a bit suss.

Meanwhile, Moey was still waiting for them at that terrible cafe in Rylstone and was surprisingly nonplussed about Sideways, quoting a myriad of I-told-you-sos about him and that monstrously large motorcycle as he swallowed another coffee and cake from that awful collection of stale factory cakes that wait for them there on every trip. “You boys take it easy for the rest of the trip and look out for that causeway. I’ve got a bad feeling about that one. After my near-death Emu experience, I have gained spiritual awareness. Particularly since i walked back from the light” “Yes Moey, we’ll be careful” chorused the three remaining riders in unison. 

But they weren’t careful. Having come down the hairpin turns of the mountain leading back to Bylong, the flooded causeway came into sight. Now Lucky was, of course leading and, via the coms, suggested they should perhaps slow down a bit this time just to be sure. He hit the water first and felt pleased as he began to climb the light gradient out of the causeway. He hit the ground before he knew what happened and parted ways with his mighty Tiger finding himself on his back and looking skyward. Then he heard another bang and spotted Nige belly up in the undergrowth just behind him. Checking to see if he had use of his arms and legs, Lucky sat up to see Ajax parked on the other side of the causeway. Nige, meanwhile had found his legs were also working and, after Ajax tippy-toed across the water, we managed to get both the Trumpy and the Beemer upright. Both bikes had taken the brunt of the fall on their crash bars so damage was limited to them. A quick check over and we were all on our way with no noticeable harm to the performance or handling of either bike. “Didn’t you two see the slippery water warning sign back there?” Ajax later asked. Neither had and probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

“You know I saved your life back there Lucky?” Nige said as we sped through the bends towards Bulga.

“Did you Nige?” Replied Lucky struggling to see through the scarred visor of his Shoei helmet. He hadn’t noticed this damage until he pulled it down after their hurried exit from the causeway. “How did you save me?”

“Well Lucky, when I saw you fall I knew I had to either ride over your head or bravely drop my beautiful BMW GSA on its side and steer it off the road like a cowboy roping a steer. I was magnificent”

Lucky was dumbfounded. “Really truly? I mean I knew you were a skilled rider Nige but now you’re a hero and I owe you big time. Thanks, old friend. If there’s anything I can do for you please just ask.”

“Well, you could pay for the repairs to my mighty Beemer.”

Lucky thought about this for a while but decided he really didn’t like Nige that much. 

“I don’t like you that much mate”

Things went quiet between the two for the rest of the ride back to Jerry’s. Nige may have turned his Sena off. Lucky did turn his Sena off.

Eventually, they said their farewells and no further incidents were reported.

On a final note, Sideways did come out of the hospital with a few broken bones and collapsed lungs and mashed up inner organs. His beautiful Thunderbird died on the operating table and Sideways has once again vowed never to ride another of those “Death Machines” ever again. Both the Trumpy and the BMW also survived. The Beemer needed new crash bars and engine covers which cost about forty thousand dollars. The Trumpy got new crash bars, driving lights, and other peripherals which cost about forty dollars. Happily Nige and Lucky remain friends although Nige still insists he purposely and with only milliseconds to decide threw himself away from Lucky’s disaster to spare his friend. Lucky, meanwhile, accepts that was a possibility but was highly improbable. He didn’t pay for Nige’s repairs.

Before the crash

After the crash

Denman. As Usual.