Regular Events - TOORADIN FORESHORE
Mornington Peninsula. VIC.
From 10:00 AM every Thursday
Every Thursday morning since 2017, weather and world pandemics permitting, a wide range of motorbike enthusiasts head for Tooradin on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. From a humble beginning where two VJMC members were going for a ride, it now attracts up to 50 riders on a regular basis. VJMC Mornington Peninsula Area Rep Dave Parker explains.
Kev Miller, a paraplegic, and myself were in his shed one cold day talking about the motivation needed to get out to the shed, light the fire, maintain the fire and work on our motorcycle projects, so we decided that we should have one day a week to get out for a coffee and not think about what we “should” be doing. Kevin suggested Tooradin as it wasn’t worth all the work of getting on his trike to go a short distance and Tooradin was a good ride for both of us, Thursday was picked as the day, meeting at the bakery. We put it on the forum to let people know and the first time we met there Trev Whitty came as well, Trev’s wife Lyn who runs the Tooradin newsagent came down and suggested that the Tooradin foreshore would be a better place to meet as it had better parking, a good café and public toilets.
The next week we met at the foreshore and as the word started spreading we started to get a lot more riders, sometimes fifty to sixty or more, so in 2019 we decided to present some trophies for the best bikes at our Christmas BBQ celebration, we also had some things to give away. The day exceeded our expectations with somewhere around 120 bikes entered for the trophies, luckily one of the clubs we associate with, the CRAB’s, had put their hand up to run the BBQ (their profits go to cancer research) so we didn’t have to contend with vote counting plus cooking. Last Christmas we only did a “people’s choice” award due to the Covid uncertainty and attracted more than 60 motorcycles and riders, we intend doing the same this year.
We now have anywhere between 35 to 50 riders every week and from the start we let it be known that the get together was about sharing a common interest rather than year, make or model of motorcycle, so every week we get a very diverse array of machinery from very old and rare to modern bikes. Mike Munday added to the interest in the get together by organising and running a tiddler ride to the foreshore every Thursday which has become very popular and occasionally John Doward runs a ride through Gippsland using the get together as a starting point. Sadly Kevin passed away this year.
If you have a genuine interest in vintage motorbikes, particularly Japanese, and would like to be part of this event, please turn up in the park opposite the Old Jetty Cafe 25 Foreshore Road Tooradin from 10:00 AM any Thursday.
Story by Dave Parker. All photos shown here are from the VJMC Forum on this site.