Unfinished business
- Thread starter tabledrain
- Start date
Hi all, I managed to catch @IBA-Tiger and @OX-34 at BP Heatherbrae not long before @tabledrain stopped to grab a well-earned meat pie. I had not met IBA Tiger or Drain in person before... thankfully I survived! 
After a quick chat, we bid IBA Tiger goodbye and hit the road. It was a good ride until the stop-and-go traffic once in Sydney. Upon arriving at Ampol Blakehurst, Ox and I gave Drain a hearty "well done mate". Our thoughts were clearly with Bam at this moment.
I had intended to present a collage of Ride Around the Big Paddock photos to Bam upon his return to Sydney. It felt fitting to present something similar to Drain, as a personal BIG thankyou for undertaking this tribute. It's just a framed collage of photos from the Planning A Ride thread, but for me in some small way, I needed to see Bam's big smile with us in the same location from where he started his lap.
It was great to meet @cjmckay for the first time too, who brought his young family to say hello. No doubt we'll be attempting a challenge together in the near future!
EDIT: A couple more photos. thanks CJ
After a quick chat, we bid IBA Tiger goodbye and hit the road. It was a good ride until the stop-and-go traffic once in Sydney. Upon arriving at Ampol Blakehurst, Ox and I gave Drain a hearty "well done mate". Our thoughts were clearly with Bam at this moment.I had intended to present a collage of Ride Around the Big Paddock photos to Bam upon his return to Sydney. It felt fitting to present something similar to Drain, as a personal BIG thankyou for undertaking this tribute. It's just a framed collage of photos from the Planning A Ride thread, but for me in some small way, I needed to see Bam's big smile with us in the same location from where he started his lap.
It was great to meet @cjmckay for the first time too, who brought his young family to say hello. No doubt we'll be attempting a challenge together in the near future!
EDIT: A couple more photos. thanks CJ
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Hi all, I managed to catch @IBA-Tiger and @OX-34 at BP Heatherbrae not long before @tabledrain stopped to grab a well-earned meat pie. I had not met IBA Tiger or Drain in person before... thankfully I survived! After a quick chat, we bid IBA Tiger goodbye and hit the road. It was a good ride until the stop-and-go traffic once in Sydney. Upon arriving at Ampol Blakehurst, Ox and I gave Drain a hearty "well done mate". Our thoughts were clearly with Bam at this moment.
I had intended to present a collage of Ride Around the Big Paddock photos to Bam upon his return to Sydney. It felt fitting to present something similar to Drain, as a personal BIG thankyou for undertaking this tribute. It's just a framed collage of photos from the Planning A Ride thread, but for me in some small way, I needed to see Bam's big smile with us in the same location from where he started his lap.
It was great to meet @cjmckay for the first time too, who brought his young family to say hello. No doubt we'll be attempting a challenge together in the near future!
After a quick chat, we bid IBA Tiger goodbye and hit the road. It was a good ride until the stop-and-go traffic once in Sydney. Upon arriving at Ampol Blakehurst, Ox and I gave Drain a hearty "well done mate". Our thoughts were clearly with Bam at this moment.I had intended to present a collage of Ride Around the Big Paddock photos to Bam upon his return to Sydney. It felt fitting to present something similar to Drain, as a personal BIG thankyou for undertaking this tribute. It's just a framed collage of photos from the Planning A Ride thread, but for me in some small way, I needed to see Bam's big smile with us in the same location from where he started his lap.
It was great to meet @cjmckay for the first time too, who brought his young family to say hello. No doubt we'll be attempting a challenge together in the near future!
What a great gesture Sam to present Drain with a framed collage of pics.
Wish we could have been there to witness Drain complete Bam's lap.
Hi all, I managed to catch @IBA-Tiger and @OX-34 at BP Heatherbrae not long before @tabledrain stopped to grab a well-earned meat pie. I had not met IBA Tiger or Drain in person before... thankfully I survived! After a quick chat, we bid IBA Tiger goodbye and hit the road. It was a good ride until the stop-and-go traffic once in Sydney. Upon arriving at Ampol Blakehurst, Ox and I gave Drain a hearty "well done mate". Our thoughts were clearly with Bam at this moment.
I had intended to present a collage of Ride Around the Big Paddock photos to Bam upon his return to Sydney. It felt fitting to present something similar to Drain, as a personal BIG thankyou for undertaking this tribute. It's just a framed collage of photos from the Planning A Ride thread, but for me in some small way, I needed to see Bam's big smile with us in the same location from where he started his lap.
It was great to meet @cjmckay for the first time too, who brought his young family to say hello. No doubt we'll be attempting a challenge together in the near future!
EDIT: A couple more photos. thanks CJ
After a quick chat, we bid IBA Tiger goodbye and hit the road. It was a good ride until the stop-and-go traffic once in Sydney. Upon arriving at Ampol Blakehurst, Ox and I gave Drain a hearty "well done mate". Our thoughts were clearly with Bam at this moment.I had intended to present a collage of Ride Around the Big Paddock photos to Bam upon his return to Sydney. It felt fitting to present something similar to Drain, as a personal BIG thankyou for undertaking this tribute. It's just a framed collage of photos from the Planning A Ride thread, but for me in some small way, I needed to see Bam's big smile with us in the same location from where he started his lap.
It was great to meet @cjmckay for the first time too, who brought his young family to say hello. No doubt we'll be attempting a challenge together in the near future!
EDIT: A couple more photos. thanks CJ
Once we knew the worst had happened with Bam, there was no doubt that the lines not completed in his track needed colouring in and so with the blessing of my wife to go ride this to completion, an extremely loose plan was made.
Work intervened for three weeks and when that was over, the bike carried me out the gate and off to finish Bams lap.
Even though there was no real plan, there were a couple of fixed points. 1. Arrive in Sydney sometime in the late afternoon (the actual day wasn’t important) 2. Ride the correct roads for the Lap (which I messed up in one small section).
It wasn’t my intention to ride the stops that Bam had planned, every rider has different rhythms and requirements and so this ride was going to be ridden to the rhythms I had developed over years while remaining on his route.
Heading west from the Queensland coast across to Camooweal on the edge of the Northern Territory border, arriving in the wee hours of the morning at the end of a 2000km leg and then slept in the driveway of the servo.
07.00 they opened, so filling both tanks and then heading west across to Three Ways and north with the heat and rising humidity becoming the days ride climate, the Tenere pacing along just on the speed limit, my focus turned to staying focussed. The humidity took some dealing with as I could feel some lethargy building and combating this lethargy filled my northern trajectory for the afternoon.
The last 50km into Mataranka was ridden in a heavy storm, the cool snap ended both the lethargic feeling by providing relief from the heaviness in the atmosphere and a change of focus because of the rain.
Mataranka has a spacious motel and caravan complex. Availing myself of a room and after changing into shorts and tee shirt, I enjoyed my first solid food in two days, added with a couple beers and then retired to sleep.
0500 the next morning saw me heading south. Stopping in the gorgeous silence that is our bush, I wandered around the crash site, noting pieces of plastic screen, his visor, some paramedic paraphernalia, tyre tracks, the new scars in the tree he hit. There was a light wind in the trees, a few birds sounding off, the sun starting to show through the trees, all disturbed by a passing car and then silence again and in this silence I donned my helmet and prepared to leave.
“Rest in peace” I said to the bush as the Tenere carried me away and his track not finished, started to build in my track system.
I’d never met Kevin. I googled him out of curiosity. A life long educator, passionate about his craft, someone who took the time to engage with young people on their level, someone who connected with young people in the simplest of ways, someone who was a boss people connected with. A suit and tie type of guy, a bloke who could elocute at the highest levels of language and navigate business in a bureaucratic atmosphere.
And then he got into riding gear and got in the dirt with us in the same way we all go from business as professionals to pleasure as us in our most honest other selves.
The day was beautiful, just magic, and after topping off the tanks in Birdum, the Carpentaria Highway guided me eastwards along it new wide sections, the narrow bumpy bits, through kilometres of dirt sideroads and into Borroloola.
The Tenere slides well-ish, I used pace and the tyres pattern to have some fun and giggled at how Bam would have been basically smashing his way through here on a Harley. Glad it wasn’t me but as we all know, all bikes are dirt bikes, some are simply better at it than others.
As far as the Lap is concerned, Borroloola is a turnaround point and so after fuelling we faced west again, as far as Heartbreak Hotel, turned left and headed south to Barkly Homestead.
The road was filled with a roadtrain doing 80kmh with absolutely no tar left for any other vehicle, so a 4wd and me stumped along behind it until a clear line of sight up the 60 metres side of it showed a long stretch of narrow dirt and that became my overtaking lane.
Clearing this obstacle, the hours then ticked down, cattle standing besides billabongs, wide open, flat, rolling, country interspersed with jagged edged cliff drops, vertical walls, rocky, grassy scenery all went by with the mainly narrow and really bumpy road keeping everything all shook up. I even got my Elvis on it was that rough in places.
After burning down last year, the new Barkly Homestead is oddly out of place in this old landscape. I’ve been going through here since the mid ‘80s, it really felt weird not being in the old building.
A refill of the water jug, a refill of the fuel tanks, a walkaround check and once again, the wheels headed east for the afternoon. Camooweal rolled by, no fuel needed, into Mt Isa, a refuel in town at the Ampol in the dark and with no fuel now needed to Normanton 500 some km away the plan was to ride until I needed to stop.
Cloncurry had originally been slated as the nights stop, the decision to roll straight through made as I left turned and headed north, made right as the intersection to either go into town or north appeared in my lights.
So far the night wildlife had been very subdued, a few small grey kangaroos that sat still but during the day, geez, the daylight bird carnage was excessive. I doubt there’s a piece of the front of my bike, including my helmet, that didn’t have a bird commit suicide on it with one even coming up through the dash/ top triple tree area in multiple pieces.
About 100km up the Normanton road a rest area called and booking into the IBA hotel, I slept the happy sleep of a wanderer on a concrete tabletop.
Daylight. Laying there on my comfortable table the sun nudged me..tap.tap.tap. In 5 minutes I’m rolling and as the sun breached the horizon another day started, the trees broke its rays, the temperature changed, I could feel the heat building on my stich’. I sighed, content, in nirvana, zen, cosmos balance.
Normanton gave me a fuel load, a meat pie and a chocolate milk. A conversation was had with the truckie delivering 20 some thousand litres of diesel and then eastward I continued.
Sun overhead, mild weather, surprisingly cool for the north of Queensland, the National Road 1, the Hwy1, that Kevin had to follow to meet the Lap conditions under my tyres and this is where I got it wrong.
There’s an intersection at Ravenshoe that somehow I got wrong. Instead of riding onwards on National 1 through Mareeba, I got down hwy 25 and it wasn’t until I got to the bottom of the Gillies range that the phone rang and Clint, who has managed or been involved in my biggest rides, told me about my mistake. I took it on the chin and kept going to Cairns.
I’m sure Kevin was laughing at my mistake and so I gave him the mental middle finger in response, worked my way into Cairns, took a pic of the water after the last few days of desert and country and headed south.
Early afternoon, light traffic now that I’d cleared the city and Townsville in my sights.
Tack, a long time LD rider I’ve known for years, arrived at the roadside stop we had agreed on and in short order we arrived in Townsville at his home to a shower, a home cooked feed and a bed for the night.
The following day, Friday, Townsville disappeared in the mirrors and all day I rolled south until 1400km later I was home. And that’s about as memorable as that day was. Except for Giggles, on his bumble bee Tenere on the side of the highway near Bundaberg. We chatted briefly, rode a few kilometres together and then he peeled off and I continued home.
Part of finding out who Kevin was sent me down the IBA ride register. Kevin has a Saddlesore that scraped in at 1003 miles, I have my first one at 1612km, it appears we both like cutting it fine. I dunno about him, but mine was deliberate.
And then it was Saturday.
Saturday was the finale, the wrap up, the close, the end. The last 900km of a 9800km, 6 day total loop. Leaving home, Crappy met me at the Byron Bay on ramp, he also on a bumble bee Tenere. My dirty white one and his yellow one rolled down the road until he peeled off and once again I was just riding, riding, riding.
The end of the southbound M1 rumbles across strips that shake things up, you negotiate a roundabout and immediately on your left is the Heatherbrae servo. This is where I met up with OX, Tiger Bill and Sam and after a few minutes initial catchup, three of us headed south into the traffic.
I dislike riding in the confines of cities but today it wasn’t about any of the three of us, so with the HWY 1 requirements meaning we couldn’t use the motorways and with OX leading me and then Sam, we battled our way through traffic stops, turns, suburbs and finally we rolled into the Blakehurst servo where Kevin had started weeks earlier.
Cameron arrived and in that innocuous place, in the late afternoon sun, we four remembered a guy who dreamed big and lived large.
Sam had been at the beginning with Bam, he recounted the joy that a brown bear sized guy hugged him with prior to leading Bam out to the road to the ‘gong.
To his family, friends and various motorcycle and social families, Kevin ‘Bam’ Baker touched us too. His larger-than-life persona that only a few of us Aussies ever got to experience firsthand will be remembered, his final place in the NT will always be there and as we ride past in years to come a silent nod will be given.
Salute.
Goodbye.
R.I.P.
Work intervened for three weeks and when that was over, the bike carried me out the gate and off to finish Bams lap.
Even though there was no real plan, there were a couple of fixed points. 1. Arrive in Sydney sometime in the late afternoon (the actual day wasn’t important) 2. Ride the correct roads for the Lap (which I messed up in one small section).
It wasn’t my intention to ride the stops that Bam had planned, every rider has different rhythms and requirements and so this ride was going to be ridden to the rhythms I had developed over years while remaining on his route.
Heading west from the Queensland coast across to Camooweal on the edge of the Northern Territory border, arriving in the wee hours of the morning at the end of a 2000km leg and then slept in the driveway of the servo.
07.00 they opened, so filling both tanks and then heading west across to Three Ways and north with the heat and rising humidity becoming the days ride climate, the Tenere pacing along just on the speed limit, my focus turned to staying focussed. The humidity took some dealing with as I could feel some lethargy building and combating this lethargy filled my northern trajectory for the afternoon.
The last 50km into Mataranka was ridden in a heavy storm, the cool snap ended both the lethargic feeling by providing relief from the heaviness in the atmosphere and a change of focus because of the rain.
Mataranka has a spacious motel and caravan complex. Availing myself of a room and after changing into shorts and tee shirt, I enjoyed my first solid food in two days, added with a couple beers and then retired to sleep.
0500 the next morning saw me heading south. Stopping in the gorgeous silence that is our bush, I wandered around the crash site, noting pieces of plastic screen, his visor, some paramedic paraphernalia, tyre tracks, the new scars in the tree he hit. There was a light wind in the trees, a few birds sounding off, the sun starting to show through the trees, all disturbed by a passing car and then silence again and in this silence I donned my helmet and prepared to leave.
“Rest in peace” I said to the bush as the Tenere carried me away and his track not finished, started to build in my track system.
I’d never met Kevin. I googled him out of curiosity. A life long educator, passionate about his craft, someone who took the time to engage with young people on their level, someone who connected with young people in the simplest of ways, someone who was a boss people connected with. A suit and tie type of guy, a bloke who could elocute at the highest levels of language and navigate business in a bureaucratic atmosphere.
And then he got into riding gear and got in the dirt with us in the same way we all go from business as professionals to pleasure as us in our most honest other selves.
The day was beautiful, just magic, and after topping off the tanks in Birdum, the Carpentaria Highway guided me eastwards along it new wide sections, the narrow bumpy bits, through kilometres of dirt sideroads and into Borroloola.
The Tenere slides well-ish, I used pace and the tyres pattern to have some fun and giggled at how Bam would have been basically smashing his way through here on a Harley. Glad it wasn’t me but as we all know, all bikes are dirt bikes, some are simply better at it than others.
As far as the Lap is concerned, Borroloola is a turnaround point and so after fuelling we faced west again, as far as Heartbreak Hotel, turned left and headed south to Barkly Homestead.
The road was filled with a roadtrain doing 80kmh with absolutely no tar left for any other vehicle, so a 4wd and me stumped along behind it until a clear line of sight up the 60 metres side of it showed a long stretch of narrow dirt and that became my overtaking lane.
Clearing this obstacle, the hours then ticked down, cattle standing besides billabongs, wide open, flat, rolling, country interspersed with jagged edged cliff drops, vertical walls, rocky, grassy scenery all went by with the mainly narrow and really bumpy road keeping everything all shook up. I even got my Elvis on it was that rough in places.
After burning down last year, the new Barkly Homestead is oddly out of place in this old landscape. I’ve been going through here since the mid ‘80s, it really felt weird not being in the old building.
A refill of the water jug, a refill of the fuel tanks, a walkaround check and once again, the wheels headed east for the afternoon. Camooweal rolled by, no fuel needed, into Mt Isa, a refuel in town at the Ampol in the dark and with no fuel now needed to Normanton 500 some km away the plan was to ride until I needed to stop.
Cloncurry had originally been slated as the nights stop, the decision to roll straight through made as I left turned and headed north, made right as the intersection to either go into town or north appeared in my lights.
So far the night wildlife had been very subdued, a few small grey kangaroos that sat still but during the day, geez, the daylight bird carnage was excessive. I doubt there’s a piece of the front of my bike, including my helmet, that didn’t have a bird commit suicide on it with one even coming up through the dash/ top triple tree area in multiple pieces.
About 100km up the Normanton road a rest area called and booking into the IBA hotel, I slept the happy sleep of a wanderer on a concrete tabletop.
Daylight. Laying there on my comfortable table the sun nudged me..tap.tap.tap. In 5 minutes I’m rolling and as the sun breached the horizon another day started, the trees broke its rays, the temperature changed, I could feel the heat building on my stich’. I sighed, content, in nirvana, zen, cosmos balance.
Normanton gave me a fuel load, a meat pie and a chocolate milk. A conversation was had with the truckie delivering 20 some thousand litres of diesel and then eastward I continued.
Sun overhead, mild weather, surprisingly cool for the north of Queensland, the National Road 1, the Hwy1, that Kevin had to follow to meet the Lap conditions under my tyres and this is where I got it wrong.
There’s an intersection at Ravenshoe that somehow I got wrong. Instead of riding onwards on National 1 through Mareeba, I got down hwy 25 and it wasn’t until I got to the bottom of the Gillies range that the phone rang and Clint, who has managed or been involved in my biggest rides, told me about my mistake. I took it on the chin and kept going to Cairns.
I’m sure Kevin was laughing at my mistake and so I gave him the mental middle finger in response, worked my way into Cairns, took a pic of the water after the last few days of desert and country and headed south.
Early afternoon, light traffic now that I’d cleared the city and Townsville in my sights.
Tack, a long time LD rider I’ve known for years, arrived at the roadside stop we had agreed on and in short order we arrived in Townsville at his home to a shower, a home cooked feed and a bed for the night.
The following day, Friday, Townsville disappeared in the mirrors and all day I rolled south until 1400km later I was home. And that’s about as memorable as that day was. Except for Giggles, on his bumble bee Tenere on the side of the highway near Bundaberg. We chatted briefly, rode a few kilometres together and then he peeled off and I continued home.
Part of finding out who Kevin was sent me down the IBA ride register. Kevin has a Saddlesore that scraped in at 1003 miles, I have my first one at 1612km, it appears we both like cutting it fine. I dunno about him, but mine was deliberate.
And then it was Saturday.
Saturday was the finale, the wrap up, the close, the end. The last 900km of a 9800km, 6 day total loop. Leaving home, Crappy met me at the Byron Bay on ramp, he also on a bumble bee Tenere. My dirty white one and his yellow one rolled down the road until he peeled off and once again I was just riding, riding, riding.
The end of the southbound M1 rumbles across strips that shake things up, you negotiate a roundabout and immediately on your left is the Heatherbrae servo. This is where I met up with OX, Tiger Bill and Sam and after a few minutes initial catchup, three of us headed south into the traffic.
I dislike riding in the confines of cities but today it wasn’t about any of the three of us, so with the HWY 1 requirements meaning we couldn’t use the motorways and with OX leading me and then Sam, we battled our way through traffic stops, turns, suburbs and finally we rolled into the Blakehurst servo where Kevin had started weeks earlier.
Cameron arrived and in that innocuous place, in the late afternoon sun, we four remembered a guy who dreamed big and lived large.
Sam had been at the beginning with Bam, he recounted the joy that a brown bear sized guy hugged him with prior to leading Bam out to the road to the ‘gong.
To his family, friends and various motorcycle and social families, Kevin ‘Bam’ Baker touched us too. His larger-than-life persona that only a few of us Aussies ever got to experience firsthand will be remembered, his final place in the NT will always be there and as we ride past in years to come a silent nod will be given.
Salute.
Goodbye.
R.I.P.
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The LD community is more than just mateship and camaraderie, honour and respect isn't it?
@tabledrain has demonstrated this not only with his "BAM" ride tribute, but also with his eloquent, well written ride report.
Thank you mate for being the shining LD beacon you are. Your supporters are many!
@tabledrain has demonstrated this not only with his "BAM" ride tribute, but also with his eloquent, well written ride report.
Thank you mate for being the shining LD beacon you are. Your supporters are many!