Pre-HistoryridesFArtOz RatsImmigration

Wet Up Ya Box!

As is becoming oh-too prevalent with the Rats of late, we wafted into the Pad on another school night, ready for commotion. FKA Brett from the god blessed US-of-mutha-farken-Eh was in need of a Rat Name, and seeing as though he didn't have long in our fine town, he needed it NOW. Would we deliver? Too farken right we would!

Rat Time was strickly adhered to with Busta, Shonky, and FKA not even making it to the Pad, but joining us some 2 hours after the advertised start time at our favourite Chinatown haunt for salt and pepper squid and other assorted beer snacks coupled with copious amounts of BYO. They were a hungry mob too, after climbing a bunch of local routes at Booroomba Rocks then gallivanting round some of the best bits of ACT's national parks all day. Time to offer FKA a taste of the urban Capital by night!

Fuelled up with an offering of sweet bread from our cherished restaurant hosts, we made the 100m dash to the bottle shop before closing time to test out FKA's visionary tallbike slab attachment device. Doubters offering occy straps needn't have worried - the slab slid perfectly onto the bottom drop bars of FKA's newly constructed tall, the Kim Chi Rocket, and was held snugly in place by the upper hinged beak-wheel. The lack of spinning beak-wheel on the front tyre indicated, as per the design spec, that we were fully fuelled up for the ride and we sped off towards the lake via the back streets of North 'Bra.

Barely 1km into the ride, FKA fell victim to a trap for young tallbike players: an unexpected crossing of a busy arterial which intersected our otherwise peaceful backstreet route. No sooner was FKA's passage blocked by a stream of automobiles, than he was on his poor arse, which had already copped enough brutality at the hands of some bizarre Aussie gastro bug since his arrival a mere 5 days ago. Welcome to Oz Brett!

The real tragedy of the situation soon became apparent as FKA straightened the slab on the front of his bike. Never mind the grazes (skin grows back), the fall had resulted in a punctured can of golden Aussie lager! Not only was there leaked beer, but the now soggy cardboard case had lost a significant amount of structural integrity, jeopardising the remaining load and throwing doubt and uncertainty on the previously applauded design spec. Only slightly shaken, we rode on. Arriving safely for the safest of safety stops at the Regatta Point deck, after a sprint through the quiet city and innards of the shopping megaplex, we cracked some more frosty beverages. Shonka complained incessantly about not being able to see both bridges from the deck while we played 'guess that national institution' over soggy beers. FKA thought the National Library looked more like an Alien research facility than something that housed Captain Cook's Journal.

The safety stop brought the beak-wheel closer to the front tyre indicating that the tank was half full. But even with a lessened load and a soggy box, it still performed admirably with not a single beer lost in our manic downhill race from Regatta Point to the Nerang Pool bridge even though it coped a further soaking at the hands of the lawn sprinklers.


The Kim Chi Rocket with beak wheel in an emulated Full Of Beer position

By this stage FKA's name was just becoming ridiculously obvious. The pomp and ceremony took place at the northern tip of Aspen Island. FKA Brett, the anticipated father of Rat Patrol Quincy, North Californ-i-a would forevermore be known as Leaky Beaver, aka Soggy Box to his mates. By this stage everyone was half-cut at midnight on a school night. But there was much more to see of our Nation's capital, so we sped on across King's Avenue bridge. Being a trail builder extraordinaire, Leaky thought he'd try his luck on the singletrack shortcut at the end of the bridge to detrimental effect. The act of getting air off a tree root and crashing back to earth saw an eruption of cans from the beak and the second off for our latest victim inductee. We guzzled the punctured cans, picked up the mess, brushed off the dirt and cruised through the National Gallery's sculpture garden.

Limp and Nancy schooled Beaver Boy in a fine game of figure 8 around some fine art in the form of Rodin sculptures, before Shonka showered him in beer to epitomise his namesake even further. With Leaky's Beak now showing empty, we cruised on past the high court, portrait gallery, reconciliation place, and the magnificently lit keyhole of Commonwealth place before heading for home.


Leaky Beaver in transit

Leaky Beaver put on a brave performance and managed to keep his soggy bottom plugged for the entire journey.

In conclusion it should be noted that this was perhaps the final RPOz ride (and a fitting one at that) for Leaky, Cun'stubble Willy Shonka and Busta Wonky for quite some many moons as they embark on a thumb-out tour of our wide brown land. It is also widely anticipated that we will not see them gracing our magnificent backstreets for potentially many years with potential habitats of the Blue Mountains, and Quincy, California being touted as the lucky areas set to receive these wondrous rats. We wish them firm tyres and few mechanicals on their adventures, safe in the knowledge that where ever they put down roots, they will also take up grinders to begin a new chapter somewhere on this rock we all share.

 

Ride fast & take chances you bums! We'll miss you terribly...


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