It's spring here. That means it's wet. We've had decent rain most days for at least 3 weeks and even some hail just before I wrote this. That means that it's been a bit of a lottery on whether (ha, ha) I manage to get in a decent ride in the weekend without drowning. On Sunday I was riding regardless.
It was the T7's turn even though the Tiger needed a new tyre to be scrubbed in before this weekend (yeah, I'm definitely riding this weekend too). Reason? All that rain maketh the gravel good!
I left home in sunshine and made my way over the track and then onto the usual gravel superhighway to Eketahuna. Yes, the gravel was good but the weather not so much. Along the way I managed to get caught in several reasonable showers and had to put up with a wet and fogging visor (I'd thrown out the old, worn-out Pinlock and not replaced it) which mad some of the gravel a little more interesting.
In Eke, I stopped for fuel and an early lunch before pointing the bike East on the always enjoyable Mangaoranga Road. At the next turn, I went right instead of left and took Mangamahoe Central Road through to the Mauriceville Road. We don't go this way very often, but Mangamahoe was great with the only issue being loose ewes and their lambs all over the road.
Next up was plenty of seal up of over Dreyers Rock Road, one minute in bright sunshine, the next in rain, before cruising South on Route 52 and then on towards Bideford. Northeast of Bideford, I got back onto the gravel of Wairiri Road and got an interesting surprise.
Wairiri dropped me down onto Daggs Road and then back onto 52. From here the stunningly good Bartons line (if you watched the video, you'll know that there's no video of it due to camera issues - dammit) where the gravel was amazing - plenty of grip but it was also very easy to get the tail out and enjoy some rear wheel steering. Magic!
Pori Road was more of the same really. I was surprised how dry and "unslippery" it was. The charge up the hill was spectacular and even though there was cold water in my old Formas, my temperature came up with the workout I got. Who says I don't exercise enough?
The ride home took in a little more gravel around Makairo which also was fun and the T7 took its first pootle over the new road before we got back to sunny Ashhurst. Mint ride of somewhere around 300km in less than 4 hours - including stops which means that the gravel was definitely good!
A message from Glen on Saturday night was hinting at a possible excursion the next day and come Sunday morning there was a follow-up where I confirmed I was keen, and Glen confirmed that it was still only -2 in Taihape. I think that may have been the reason why he took his time and only got to my place just before ten...
The purpose of the ride was for Glen to get to ride the new road and from there we had to get him back to Taihape eventually and me back here. We discussed a few different options while also considering which roads might possibly be icy. Later on, the plan was modified on the fly with no discussion - a Triumph rider just took whatever turn he thought was right and even included some roads he'd thought could be frosty...
Crossing over the new road and dropping into Woodville, the temperature dropped from 8 degrees to 4 and we actually descended into some murky fog. I attempted to flick the camera on to capture the scene as it looked pretty cool (hee hee) looking down onto the fog covered town. Unfortunately, it must have been too cold for the camera - oh well, I had the grips and seat on...
In Dannevirke we turned onto the Weber road for a while before taking a left to head northwards through to Te Uri, Ormondville and eventually Takapau. The roads through here didn't appear to be too frosty but there were definitely some cold damp bits in the shade which caused us to tip-toe through carefully and also other bits with a lot of crap across the road - including mud in one place.
In Takapau we were both nearly taken out by a woman who never looked and then followed right behind Glen until he pulled over and had a chat with her only to discover that we'd been speeding through the town (nope) and were dangerous riders. I'm pretty sure Glen let her know that she was mistaken and should attempt to open her eyes in future.
This diversion for Glen meant that I'd got away from him (in fact, I thought he'd missed a turn), so I stopped at the little rest area just before Waipuk. Here I got a call from Glen and was able to hear a little of the story and let him know where I was waiting.
While waiting, a certain car that had tried to kill us went past and then did a U-turn and drove back towards me (perhaps to apologise to me?), but they thought better of it when they saw Glen arriving...
Reunited, we carried on up through Waipuk before turning in Waipawa for Patangata and a trip up through Elsthorpe to Havelock North. Yet again, this was another fantastic little skid.
In Havelock we joined half the population at one of the pubs for a long wait for a nice lunch before securing some fuel and crossing over to Taradale. In Taradale we took another little sight-seeing trip to check out whether the washed-out bridge in Puketapu had been fixed. It turned out that it had and that everyone was there to check it out as the pub was overflowing and there were people everywhere. No pics/video of the brand-new bridge or the jet boats playing in the river.
More familiar (the happy hunting ground of me and my wee RG250 when living in the Bay), but unridden for some time roads got us to Fernhill and the start of the trip over the Napier-Taihape.
What a great ride! Well, it always is! No frosty bits either.
Just after the above video the road seemed to be a bit "dirty". There was obvious dust and dirt in places and the front end didn't feel quite a planted as earlier in the ride. At the stop at the summit Glen agreed.
Anyway, it didn't matter, and it also didn't matter when we hit wet roads and then some rain near the old suspension bridge. Luckily the rain didn't last too long, and it was sunny again as we pulled into Taihape.
I didn't muck around too long saying cheerio to Glen as the weather was trying to catch up, so I hit SH1 as far as Mangaweka before turning off to take the Manawatu scenic route home.
Still plenty of snow around
Plenty of grit on Ardi's bridge
I ended up home sometime after 4:30 and it was nice that it wasn't freezing as it may have been just a week or two ago. Great to get out on the Tiger after having the bikes parked up for a bit while I killed the man-flu. Looking forward to more longer, warmer pootles!
So, I accidentally bought a quad and that means that I need to put it to use. My first adventure on it was a couple of weeks ago and ended up having its up and downs.
The first scary challenge of the day was getting the bike up on the ute (Colin did that job when we picked it up) without stuffing it up or worse, breaking the back window of the ute. Low-ratio 4WD really makes that easy to just putter up the ramp and tying it down is just a piece of cake with the bars on it.
A little over an hour later, I met up with Colin and Aaron in Waikanae for coffee before carrying on to our kick-off point into the Maungatuks where we were also joined by Geoff. Yes, it was a bit of a chilly start.
The first issue I had (and this was really the beginning of the bigger issue I had later) was getting the bike off the ute. It fired up fine but as soon as I stuck it into reverse it would die. After a few failed attempts, I let the bike run for a bit longer (thinking it was just cold), I got it off and it sat idling nicely with the other quads while everything else was sorted out.
And then we were off with me sticking behind Colin as we clambered up the first hill.
Initially the bike seemed to be going great but after the end of the above video, it started spluttering a bit and eventually slowing right down. Not a good sign. We all had a wee poke around without finding anything too obvious and decided to press on.
The bike would run okish after allowing it to idle for a bit but more and more frequently it would start to slow up after applying any load to it. It was down to 20km/h in places and was getting a bit annoying and also a tad worrisome. Poking out into the sun, we stopped and then started tearing the bike down to try and trace what was obviously a fuelling issue. We were already thinking that the symptoms were pointing to the fact that the bike had been sitting for over a year and that the fuel (even with plenty of fresh stuff on top) had clogged things up.
It took us a while to remove all sorts and bits and pieces until we could get the fuel pump out, but when we did, we discovered that the fuel filter was badly clogged (Aaron couldn't blow through it and I believed so didn't try). With perhaps limited other options to consider in the middle of nowhere, we decided to run the bike without the filter.
And what a difference it made! The bike now had twice the go and as you can see at the start of the next video, handled the nice open stuff easily.
Towards the end of that video you'll notice us getting into some more trickier stuff where this noob was definitely erring on the side of caution and probably also getting plenty of stuff wrong. The extra 4 wheels are quite confusing...Hopefully, in some of the other videos you'll see me gaining in confidence and going from a super-wuss to only mildly hopeless.
And a quick aside: I have ridden the 450 through all of these tracks up until the ones in the last video after our lunch stop. Looking at these videos made me scratch my head a little...
Anyway, so the tracks were definitely getting trickier and it was good to have both Colin in front of me and Aaron and Geoff behind to yell directions and instructions to me.
Here's how my attempt at the deep bog you saw Colin go through in the second video:
I was never getting through there - the bike ended up beached as, with all four wheels just churning in the water.
Next aside: the route I took on the 450 through this? You can see in the video that there is a little wee track on the LHS of the puddle. This is very skinny with a decent drop off on the left so get it right or you either die by falling down the bank or drowning in the puddle. There is also a little tree towards the end (deep end of the puddle) that you kind of have to squeeze around by tipping the bike one way and then the other so that the handlebars can get through - slightly perilous.
More "interesting" terrain followed on our way to the Orange Hut but at least I was able to drive myself out of the next bog.
At the hut, I was definitely ready for a bit of a breather as I possible hadn't breathed very much going through the gnarly stuff...BTW: there was still frost on the ground in places.
In the above picture you'll notice a monstrous Polaris quad and after lunch it joined us for the next excitement.
The next excitement had an enticing name: the Top Bogs. Sound like a piece of cake...
Actually, it wasn't too bad with just a few steep sections giving me the willies. I still aren't that comfortable when the bike is on angle and feeling (at least to me) like it could go over. As with motorcycles, sometimes a bit of momentum helps - until it doesn't.
Here be the top bogs (and at about the 11:30 mark you'll see us break out of the bush for some great views).
Geoff in action
Parked in a big clearing...
Where's the track?
Aaron and Geoff
Out on the main track (thankfully), we stopped for a pause, and I shut the bike down. Once rolling again, the poor old bike got stuck in splutter mode again. This time around it got quite bad (perhaps because we were climbing some steeper hills) and it occasionally didn't even want to idle. Perhaps I should never have shut it down.
With no real option to come up with a decent fix, we had to make the decision to tow the bike out, so Colin's bike was pressed into towing service and I spent the rest of the ride following him a lot closer...I let the bike idle all the way back on the off chance that any obstruction between the tank and the injector might eventually find its way out of the system via the combustion chamber.
Luckily, back at the ute the bike went well enough to drive it up the ramps (loading might have been a tad trickier otherwise) and I was soon on my way home after a reasonably eventful (but fun when the bike was running well) first quad ride.
Back home and the bike didn't really want to back off the ute either with it stalling numerous times before it finally behaved itself enough to get down the ramps and stall again...It wasn't a lot of fun pushing the bike around to give it a quick blast with the hose as the light was failing - yeah, in the light of day it still looks filthy.
The bike is now in even more bits with the tank out for a good clean and I'm waiting on a new pump (just in case) and fuel filter and then hopefully she'll be ready for action. Gonna run some injector cleaner through as well. Finger's crossed...
