OLD SALOPIANS
The Future of Cycling .... The Mike Poole Way!
Van Diemens Land, is where you went
If you'd been bad, long time ago
Out of sight and out of mind
'twas England's own Guantanamo
And as they lay there on the rack
The cat of nine tails on their back
Did they think, " once we're a nation,
We should come back here, on vacation"
Two hundred years have come and gone
And we've been very bad as well
We sit at work, we eat too much
And wonder why our waistlines swell
We've aching shoulders, shagger's back
We take Voltaren for our knees,
We need wise counsel to advise
"Babu - can you help us please?"
And Babu spake, you need some pain
We'll ride due South, then back again
We'll go where bikies love to party
And blokes dunk blowflies, in their latte
Get on the boat, leave all to me,
The details I'll reveal at sea
And so we thought, let's take a chance
Don't be concerned, he's not brought pants
The weather gods, smiled down on us,
We put aside our doubts and fears,
But bitumen's a thing unknown,
When you take on the Western Tiers
A road bike on a hot mix road,
Is perfect - well built for the task
But 50k of gravel tests,
Your frame, your tyres - and your arse
But gravel ended, mountains loomed,
And then at last, came Tarralea,
We wallowed in, art deco bliss
And basked in the tranquility
Then on we went, to Hobart Town,
We stopped by Mona, on the way,
Ben and Babu scaled the heights
But wiser heads called it a day.
Next 'morn, the weather closed right in
We battled north 'neath darkening skies,
We'd come prepared for Tassie spring
A blizzard was - well- a surprise
The wind blew hard, the sky grew black,
The Garmin showed us, two below,
We headed up and on and up
First rain, then sleet, then driving snow
Gelberini vanished, out of sight,
We couldn't catch him - what a man,
Was it EPO, or nandrolone,
Or just that he'd jumped in the van
Woods and Munday, called it quits,
But Neil and Ben, were undeterred
Shagger showed his best work's done
With head down, bum up - not a word
Miena beckoned, warm and dry,
The landscape vanished, 'neath the snow
We dined on seafood, steak and chips
And warmed our cockles with Pinot
Next morning dawned, Babu pronounced
"it's freezing boys, get in, we'll drive"
But like Shackleton and Mawson
Two blokes set out, 'cross the ice
And with snow up to their clusters,
They attacked the frozen climb
Nick Oates said, "I'll just step inside"
" I may be there some time"
The sun came out, the road turned down,
We swept down descents, long and fast
Deloraine showed, how life turns out
Spent on the dole and on the grass
Our ship came in, we sailed away
Our livers soused, our muscles sore,
And made plans over more red wine,
That next year we'd "mount up" once more
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