merriwa 06

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06 Newcastle Pink Ribbon Ride & Merriwa River Rally

If you had seen that alien spoof “Men in Black”, and the comedy Robin Hood, “Men in Tights,” then you could have been forgiven for thinking that anything involving ‘men in pink’ would be a bit of a laugh as well. Therefore, had you been at Hexham when a few blokes dressed in pink T-shirts and other pink adornments lobbed up for a ride with the ladies from “Just Girls” on their ‘Newcastle Pink Ribbon Ride for Breast Cancer’ then you might very well have had a justified bit of a chuckle, that is, until you realized they had worn that, somewhat un-bloke like colour, to show their support for the amount of effort “Just Girls” put into the very serious cause of Breast Cancer fundraising each year, mentioning support, on behalf of “Just Girls” I would like to again thank the two ladies in the car, who, after asking me what the ride was for, as I stood in the middle of the road taking photos, handed me a plastic bag containing all the change that they had, reckon I might have to take a pink bucket next year, you never know, I could be onto a winner with the cage drivers stopped at the traffic lights.

This ride has no hard and fast rules, apart from having a stop at Jerrys Plains and finishing up, after a fairly scenic ride, at the pub at Merriwa, you can ride as far as you want to, or, as a lot of the riders do, carry on to the Merriwa River Rally for the rest of the day and camp overnight, it should also be well noted that despite the weather looking really bad, that, on the day with about 60 or so riders, the ladies far outnumbered the men.

So, just food for thought for all you blokes down Newcastle way, who, perhaps, when they looked out of the window that morning and upon seeing a few clouds, rolled over and went back to sleep, thinking “too cold and wet for me,” that it might well be that the next person affected with Breast Cancer could be your mother, sister, wife or girlfriend, so what do you reckon, see a few more of you there next year?, you don’t have to wear anything pink, just lobbing up to buy a few raffle tickets and going for the ride will more than show your support.

Well done “Just Girls”, and on to the Merriwa River Rally.

Ok, so like last year the weather on the coast was not looking the best, but again like last year it was fine at the rally site, so where the hell was everyone? I know there were rumours and a bit of uncertainty about the rally being on again this year, and that unfortunately the flyers were a bit late getting out, but, it only takes a couple of phone calls or logging onto the internet to check around and get the info as to what’s going on. Bear in mind that low attendances for a couple of years in a row can see the smaller rallies fold due to the big upfront expenses for each event, and if it happens to enough of them, all we will have left will be a couple of the bigger somewhat commercialised and to a large extent impersonal ones in major cities.

Even allowing for the low attendance there was still a good variety of bikes in the show and shine and the gymkhana was a source of entertainment for both the contestants and onlookers alike, as usual there was a swag of trophies up for grabs, and I reckon the judges did a spot on job that must have been very close to who the crowd thought should win as there were no complaints about the results.

Plenty of hot food in decent sized serves and grog at around about pub prices kept the tapeworms happy, and the band Switchblade was knocking out a lot of tunes that most of us slightly older folks in the crowd knew the words to, their 50s and 60s rock music may not have been quite to the taste of some of the younger people there, but I personally thought they were quite good. Unfortunately this year, with the total fire bans in force, there were no fire drums around the stage area, so this meant, when the sun set and the wind picked up a bit, that, almost everyone had rugged up in all the gear that they had bought with them whilst a few less hardy souls took to their beds early, even so there were still a few diehards that saw it through till dawn, and the following morning proved to be the same as last year, with good clear weather for the ride home.

Keep an ear to the ground for this rally next year and try to combine the Pink Ribbon Ride with it, because, as the organisers have put a lot of effort into it over the past ten years, it would be a bloody shame to see it fold the same way as so many others.

- Crusty & Kaz

Thanks to “Budge” for his contribution of additional photos. Pure gold they were and u can see which ones they are by their gold boarder. Bloody rippers!