Omnicycle circa.1884

Thursday arrived, and finally a reasonable forecast, with the 20-30km/hr Northerly winds left in the “small print”.

Bill made the running embarking Metro at Wattle Glen, followed by “Captain Nick”, BasOMNI, and rampaging Rampo at Diamond Creek. The usual passengers on this train couldn’t believe that 3 more fine OMNICYCLE Blokes could squeeze in at Eltham. Linz tucked his bike away with usual aplomb, leaving Brent and Lou to torment new embarkees at every Station with a well planned obstacle course to get past their bikes……..manly OMNI endeavours.

There was a muffled passenger collective cheer as 7 fine OMNICYCLE Blokes left the train at Jolimont.

By goodness it’s cold was the polite way to describe the weather when we alighted. Never mind, we travelled down the north bank of the Yarra, eventually past the Container Terminal, across the Maribrynong River, and against the collective will of our bikes, turned left instead of the usual right.

“Nick, where the hell are we going?”

“It’s OK boys, I have maps…..sort of”

After some smooth riding, and some unexplained detours, we finally made it to Williamstown, for a well deserved coffee at the Pier. Brent had the inspirational notion that we needed “internal warming” and escaped to the Fish & Chip shop next door sweating over the “warming oil in the cooker” for hot chips, while the rest of us huddled in the relative warmth next door waiting for our coffee. The coffee and chips arrived simultaneously, and both were consumed with elegance………and if you believe that, you need to come on an OmniCycle journey.

Off again following the coast around to Altona, where BasOMNI declared he had a “reasonable” lunch stop in mind. An imposing parade of Omnicycle up and down the main street followed……….could have easily been Hell’s Angels on any other day, and the waters were parted as we returned to Melissa’s for lunch. The staff obviously didn’t see our street tour, and were underwhelming…….but the food was adequate, and reasonably priced……..important attributes for we the mega-rich Omnicycle.

The collective after-lunch decision was to go on, under Captain Nick’s guidance……with his dubious maps. Lou was not happy with the width of the bike track when confronted with “restrictive barriers” on the track so attacked them with suitable Omnicycle vigour……….and unfortunately came off second best, as did other cyclists judging by the heavy scuff marks on the barriers. His never say die attitude to push on was applauded by all.

The bike track around this Altona area stays close to the coast, and an astounding maize of wetlands that would never be seen other than on a bike. It was really interesting to see the opulent side of the once derided Altona. The cycling had been easy with mainly flat tracks, but the final push back to Point Cook Road, and eventually “Aircraft Station” was in to the stiff northerly, and reminded us of our limitations.

A platform change at Southern Cross, and a train change at Jolimont had us heading home after a great ride exploring new cycling tracks. A big thank you to Captain Nick for organising this ride, proving there are few bounds well-organised Omni-cyclists are not capable of taking on.