Let's get this New Year kicked off properly

New Years day was a little bit grey and drizzly and while I was out walking the dog I remembered that I hadn't ridden a bike all year so had to fix that pronto.

With a couple of days rain (some of it pretty decent), I knew that the gravel was going to be good pretty much wherever I went so once I got back home I started getting my act together and wheeled the T7 out of the shed.  But where to go?

Somehow, I'd really got the idea in my head that nothing was going to stop me from having a good ride and that if the dodgy looking weather became even dodgier then I was still going and going to have fun!

In the end I decided that I'd make my way up towards Taihape and then decide where to from there.  But, of course I had to take as much gravel as I could.

The gravel started on Finnis Road and then I was onto Ridge Road to make my way North.  To say that the gravel was good is an understatement.  There was just the odd slippery bit but in general the road was fast and fun - even the more recently spread stuff.

Quite a few low flying clouds

What started off as just a spit here and there slowly turned into some light rain as I got closer to Apiti.  Did I worry?  No way, I was having fun and did I mention that the gravel was awesome?

From Apiti I took the Rangitikei Scenic (sealed) Route through towards Rangiwahia but after climbing out of one of the valleys I noticed the name of a road coming up on my GPS - Conspicuous Road.  I wondered how it got its name - it obvious reasonably conspicuous as I noticed it on the GPS when I wasn't really using the GPS but that couldn't be it.  I needed to find out.

It turns out that it is a dead in road but it was a dead end road with some really nice gravel (conspicuously nice as I could feel how good it was under my tyres) on it and I got to some closed gates (quite conspicuous otherwise I might have run into them)  relatively quickly - not sure if the gates where there to stop me or just stock as the road carried on quite conspicuously for some while by the looks of it.  Not wanting to annoy anyone (my muffler makes me a little conspicuous), I turned around and soon was back on my way towards Rangi.

Rather than take the scenic route all the way to Mangaweka, I turned off onto Karewarewa Road which is a neat alternative that eventually takes you through a tight windy road through native bush before popping out on Kawhatau Valley Road and then onto one of our normal "must avoid SH1" routes to Utiku.  Along the way I found a bridge - and it was still raining.

Trundling along towards Taihape I avoided the wrath of a cop parked on a passing lane to book people for 101 in a passing lane and then pulled into town for some lunch.

After lunch the T7 got some fuel (17.9L had got me 372km) before carrying on North and avoiding the next cop in the next passing lane.  By now it was raining quite heavily and when I turned off SH1 to make my way to Rangiwaea Junction I discovered the most slippery roads in the country - there's no stones in the tar...

Anyway, I'm kinda used to crap roads and my the time I got to Turakina Road the rain had stopped and there was nice grippy gravel to be had.

I always enjoy Turakina Valley Road but man if all the gravel I ride this year is this good then 2025 is going to be a great year.  Yes, there were some slippery bits (especially near some of the slips) but otherwise the gravel was outstanding, allowing plenty of pace and maximum grin factor.

If you watched all that (dunno if I would, but knock ya socks off), then you may have noticed some of the local wildlife.  Yes, there were sheep, pheasants, turkeys, a cow, peacocks and a deer!  What?  You didn't watch it all?  Ok,, well here is the little bambi:

Pretty cool to see and it gives you a wee idea about how busy and out of the way the road is.

Rather than take the seal out to the main road, I turned off Turakina Valley Road and took another favourite (Taurimu Road) through towards Marton.  Got caught in a bit of a traffic jam at one stage too.

From Marton I just had to negotiate my way to the olds place in Feilding but also checked out another short piece of gravel around Halcombe - Makara Road.  Then it was BBQ time.  Great way to start the New Year!

Dealt to

Finally, after 11,500km, the rear tyre on the Tiger was toast.  The original (subject to a do not ride recall that I was unaware of until I got the bike serviced!) has lasted longer than any rear tyre that I've had in a long time.  Maybe it was actually a good tyre (apart from that whole recall thing) or maybe it's the smoothness of the triple?  Anyway, I was pretty happy but I'd already bought an Anakee Road to pair up with the front which I replaced at around 9k.

On with the job.  The first step was to remove the rear wheel and to do this I needed to work out how to do it.  I was looking at the rear end and thinking that I'd have to remove the hugger thingee but after closer examination this looked like a major job with one bolt completely inaccessible (removing the wheel would make it easy).  So it was off to the interweb and the first video I stumbled on was gold.

So, back to the shed I went.  And promptly discovered I needed a new 36mm, 12 point socket...Off to town I went.  I then found out exactly how many tools I needed - a lot!  It might not be the hardest job in the world but you certainly use a few of ya tools just to get a wheel off.

Missing is the hex tool for the RHS of the axle - and the actual tyre changing stuff...

Like I said, it was actually not that hard (although some of the bolts were insanely tight) and everything goes together really well - I quite like the way bracket for the brake caliper locks into that other triangular piece and of course being a shaftee, the wheel will sit there nicely while you line everything up properly before replacing the axle - nice!

Swapping the tyres was pretty easy too.  One benefit of "road bike" tyres are that they don't have that massively stiff sidewall that the adventure tyres have and are a lot easier to both remove and fit.

The job probably took this amateur just under an hour (not counting my trip into town) and pretty painless.  No to scrub that sucker in and see how long it takes to wear out...

Xmas 2024

This year Christmas was in the 'naki at my sisters.  I drove up on Christmas Eve morning with the 450 in the back of the ute and stumbled straight into some major engineering works.

My nephew Alex is starting to outgrow his little CRF125 (which spends some of its time with the wheels on the ground), so Dad was working on one of the farm bikes to give him something with a bit more poke.  A bit of weight has been taken off the bike and you can probably see the nifty little muffler Dad made up for it - it actually sounds ok,  The seat may need a cover at some stage...

Then of course it needed a road test...

And then that afternoon (and on boxing day), I spent a bit of time chasing Alex around the farm.  It was great at wearing me out as I was already a bit sore from the ride up in the Maungatuks and it was pretty darn warm.  Some neat hills to blast around on though and I also got to see my niece have her very first go on the 125 - go Rosie!

The rest of the time was pretty much spent eating, roaming around the farm, eating, watching movies, eating, a bit more roaming, eating, a game of cricket and some more eating.  It is a great spot though!

Hydrocarbons coming out of the ground - I love hydrocarbons!

See that dangling thing under the cows schnoz?  It ain't no bell, these girls are connected!  These magical devices can be used to move the cows around the farm (yes, I'm serious), keep them out of paddocks they shouldn't be in and obviously let Stu know where they are along with some info on the cows health.  This means Stu's dog is now a pet...He's got this and some other pretty amazing tech that helps look after the cows and the farm - it's very cool.

Here's some of the girls busy making milk (and petrol for my bike) and in the second half of the video you can see the light show that Stu can dial up at night if he wants - or for Xmas...

And that is just about it of 2024 except to say that the bike needed plenty of waterblasting after its "work" on the farm!

No swimming

With two weeks off over the Christmas break there was going to be some riding to be had.  On the 23rd of December I ticked off the first one with a quick quad ride with Colin, Graeme, Geoff, Liam and a few others...

My memory for names is shocking but here's a nice blurry photo of someone on a massive 1,000cc quad

Driving down to Param I was a little worried when I hit some rain.  Rain and Maungatuks means mega slipperiness on the clay and this can also mean faceplant!

In the end we even got a reasonable about of drizzly rain throughout the day but I managed to stay on and even cross a certain stream without incident - bonus!

Here's the first little uphill section where you'll notice some of the quad riding maniacs disappearing up a slippery, snotty little climb that would have killed me.

I stuck with the more sensible riders (Geoff and Liam mostly) but still managed to find some slippery stuff on one descent which made be lower the bike gently onto it's side when I ran out of room.

Geoff

Liam

We figured we'd be ahead of the other chaps as they were taking a more adventurous route but once we arrived at the orange hutt we decided to head along the track that the others would be coming along and instantly ran into them.  Time for a breather at the hut then.

While we were there, some other guys (bikes on the right in above pic) arrived having entered the area from the Hutt side and they had some nice scary tales to tell us about one track they'd taken.  This of course peaked certain people's interest and after our break we headed up the below track (nice and rough in a few places) before Geoff, Liam and I turned back down to let the others go play in the mud.

Trundling down the hill again, we rode off to explore a few other trails.

Heading back towards the cars, I got away from the other two (they even explored some other stuff I missed), I was first to hit "that crossing".  This time around a got through pretty painlessly, parked up and sat under a tree out of the rain to await the other guys.

After a while they turned up and also had no trouble crossing the creek.

We then spent a bit of time waiting and listening for the sounds of the other guys coming.  They ended up taking a while and came with stories of getting stuck trying to get under fallen trees and a certain green quad throwing its rider off a couple of times - he should know better!

After our second stop at the orange hut it was time to head out and I even managed to stay on coming off the clay again.  Great little ride out just before heading away for Christmas!

Playing with AI

Recently I've been fiddling with different (free) AI products - you will have noticed the different branding I've stuck on my pictures and videos.  

Initial AI-generated image

Editing to give me no background so it looks nice overplayed on other images/videos

All the products have their differences but the key is always in giving the right prompt which can be tricky.  As you can see from above, Tigger is not quite like the real Tigger (perhaps there's some copyright stuff built into the AI I used) and likewise the bike doesn't really resemble my Tiger.  But, I like it!

Anyway, after watching a tutorial on LinkedIn the other day, I got introduced to some other AI products (mostly free trial or limited number of jobs you can run) and decided to try a couple of AI's that can produce music - after all, I wasn't that happy with the Youtube stuff the other day.

So here we go.  Some snips of the same video but with new audio:

And of course, they can create lyrics and a vocal track...

And, you can do video...

And the coolest one I think: