Seven of us turned up at Epping for my new ride route. To be fair the weather forecast was not real good so it is understandable that most of the regular riders stayed in bed. They missed out on a good ride!

Andrew, Cevat, Jack, Roger and two new riders, David and his son Alastair joined us. David on his Triumph Tiger and Alastair on his nice Ducati Multistrada.

The weather was fine in Epping as we headed east through a lot of new subdivisions and wound our way out through South Merang and Mernda and onto the lovely narrow but winding road through Nutfield to Cottles Bridge and St Andrews, then up the goat track to Kinglake where we turned left and headed to Kinglake West for morning tea at the bakery. Traffic was pretty good all the way as nobody seemed to want to be on the road with the forecast bad weather.

Over coffee we discussed the menacing clouds and black sky in the east as the plan was to head to Healesville then back to Yarra Glen. A change of plan was dictated in an effort to stay dry so we went up the Whittlesea-Yea Road to Flowerdale and across one of our favvourites, the Break O"Day Road to Glenburn. Then it was right onto the Melba as far as the Glenburn Kinglake Road which had a bit of tree debris on some of the tight corners. Left at Kinglake took us to Castella where we did a right and went down the Melba to Yarra Glen and the bakery.

David and Alastair had left us at Kinglake West to return home to Hoppers Crossing and Andrew and Jack did not stop for lunch in an endeavour to beat the rain home.

Cevat, Roger and I had lunch at the bakery and it finally started raining then so we put on the wet gear and headed home. Roger and me via Eltham and Cevat straight home.

All in all we were lucky to miss the rain during the ride but copped it on the way home. Thanks to everyone who turned up and Roger for doing TEC and look forward to seeing you next time.