Forever farkling

Yes, in my seemingly never ending bid to keep the motorcycle accessory industry afloat the Connie has a new farkle - a set of helmet locks.  Brian has had this farkle on his Connie for a while and after borrowing his spare lock on the TT I decided that it was time I got some too.

The lock kit comes from Projekt D where my GPS mount, screen and hugger have also come from and as usual they were a good crowd to deal with and the locks got here in under two weeks preceded by emailed instructions on how to fit them - nice.

The kit

The kit came with everything needed to install it and no less than four keys for the locks.  I'd look to go into fantastic detail on how to install the locks but I'd have to exaggerate - it couldn't have been easier.  All I had to do was remove my top box rack, slip the lock underneath and add a couple of washers on the front end of the rack (to keep it looking nice and level) and then bolt the plate back on.  Simple!

All done!  Now when's the next trip?

Eeek! (NSFW)

Trobairitz posted up another Blog challenge - posting a webcam piccy of yourself.  Well, I can at least say I tried - look what my cam produced!

Love my Stebel(s)!

Yesterday as I was driving in the car to work a womble in a POS Commodore pulled out of a business's driveway and attempted to steal my particular piece of the road.  I ended up actually having to swerve - something I don't like to do as who knows where you're heading when you do that - if I had simply braked I would still have worn a Commodore.

Fast forward to today and I rode to work on the DL.  Riding down the same road I spotted a small red shopping trolley getting ready to pull out of another business.  After the previous day's adventure I buttoned off and prepared to have to get out of the way.  Sure enough, the driver just kept on coming.  I easily avoided her and was able to give the Stebel a good ole workout!  The driver immediately pulled off to the left and as I rode off I could see her cringing in her seat - I think she thought a Kenworth was about to park on her!  Love my Stebel - hate morons in cars!

TT2000 Salute to riders

Had this linkee sent to me by the TT organisers.  It's a slideshow featuring pictures taken by riders during the ride at the various checkpoints etc.  Our team even make it on there a few times.  Good stuff.

The Spoils

Yep, I rode 2,000km in 48 hours and I got these (and a couple of stickers):

Well worth it I reckon - I had a ball!

New/Old Farkle

Yes, it's a rainy day here so I've got time to muck around on the computer...

Before the TT2000 I finally got around to installing a farkle that had been sitting on the bench for quite a while.  It is a GPS mount from Projekt D that offers a bit more secure mounting than the original RAM setup I had.  I have nothing against RAM mounts - they are very good (especially for cameras) for mounting things in different positions and offer a lot of flexibility.  But if you look at the picture below you can see that there is a single allen bolt holding an expanding rubber inside the steering stem and this does loosen off after time.  The mount is also prone to vibration occasionally.

Original RAM mount

Now, the reason I hadn't installed the mount previously was that I had tried to undo some of the big allen bolts holding the handle bars on but just couldn't budge them.  I decided that it was better to stop and wait until I could get some help or better tools rather than risk rounding off the allen heads.

Anyway, the day before I left for Nelson, Brian suggested giving it another go as he had installed the same mount ok on his bike.  He brought around his impact driver and some decent bits for it and we set to work.  Well, the bolts were still damn tight - much tighter than Brian said his ones were.  We smacked them around a bit with the impact driver and then I put the allen bit in my socket and leant into it hard...and then harder still!  Man they were tight!  But, eventually we cracked one and then the other four.  After that the installation was a doddle...

New bolts and spacers came with the mount

With Garmin holder bolted onto mount

Tada!

Suffice it to say but the new mount is a whole lot more rigid and secure than the old setup and after bending it slightly to get a nice angle (and so the glove box can be opened) the mount is perfect!  On the trip I never noticed any vibration and everything looks like it came from the factory like it...neato!

TT2000 Write-up

I've just finished my complete write-up of the TT.  A bit short and sweet but here it is: 2012 TT2000

Orana Park

Trobairitz asked the other day if I had any pictures of the animals from Orana Park and there are some here but I also got some shaky video from my little digital camera of the Siamang Gibbons and the Meerkats.

The gibbons were fantastic and were really going off when we got there.  They can make a heck of a racket and were really giving it heaps - very hard case!  not long after their little show they'd obviously worn each other out and went and hit the hay - I'm glad we got to see them in action.  The Meerkats were very industrious little chaps and when I saw the guy on the video start digging I had to get that on video too.

Maps

I got an email last night that has confirmed that the three musketeers successfully completed the TT2000 so that badge is on it's way - wahoo!

In the meantime I've been mucking around in GoogleMaps and can now share the route that we took.  The maps are pretty accurate as I used GPS co-ordinates for the checkpoints - the only one that is not accurate is the Rainbow station one as GoogleMaps does not believe you can ride a bike to the checkpoint...Clicking on the little green bikes brings up the photo I took at that checkpoint.

View 2012 TT2000 Trip Day Five in a larger map

View 2012 TT2000 Trip Day Six in a larger map

More to come...

29 of 29

Wow, the last day of the 29 in 29 challenge!  I guess I've been pretty lucky during this challenge as it's been summer (sort of) here and I've had plenty of riding (especially in the last week or so) to blog about whereas a lot of my fellow bloggers have been having to deal with wintry conditions and little riding - bummer.

Anyway, for this last post I've put together another little slideshow from some GoPro pictures I took heading back out from Mount Cook on Day Two of the TT2000.  It's a shame that the camera was not on when we rode in as that would have given even better views of the lake and the mountains but we were on a mission so no stopping to put cameras on - I had to wait until we stopped for a decent reason, like a check point.

The camera was actually left on until the battery ran out so I got a lot of piccys of other places too but unfortunately it had fogged up and the pictures are very average...

Anyway, over the next wee while (or not so wee) I'll try and do a decent write-up of the whole holiday but in the meantime here's the rest of my pics.