After much (well, some) pestering from Steve at Road to Nowhere, I've climbed into another blog challenge.
Steve's challenge was to post your top ten motorcycling photos of 2024. Here's his effort. But seeing as his bro broke the rules then I might as well too. I may as well use the opportunity to do a bit of a year in review as well. - even if I didn't do quite as much riding (or blogging) last year. Here we go:
January
The Tiger was new and I was smitten (still am) and this was just coming home from Feilding. But I like the photo because of a the light it captured, those clouds in the blues sky, the old truck and of course, Tigger.
February
This time it is more around the event than the quality of the photo. Pictured is a resting Tiger after successfully completing its first TT2000. Less than a month to the next one...can't wait.
March
Time to break the rules. This time there's no bikes, but is just one of a bunch of great pics I got while on the 6 day Maverick Muster in Central Otago. Something completely different but in a place I love and where much fun was had!
April
I really like this one of Chris and Stella coming around Pohangina Valley East road, about half way through a Saddlesore 1000 (Egsanity edition). I ended up joining them for a while.
May
Just some random gravel ride through Manawatu back roads. Digging the clouds and blue sky again, along with those rolling hills.
An unblogged ride with no photos so a video grab from the Desert Road as Colin and I came back from Chris's "big" birthday in Raglan. We were the only ones to brave the ice on our bikes - just sayin...
August
And I can't find any biking ones from August so here's a photo taken by someone else (Raveen) on a wee 4WD excursion I organised for some of the guys from work. That's me and Colin in my ute dropping down Towai Road on our way to Waihi Falls.
September
Back on the T7 and here's another pic I like 'cos of the old building in Apiti.
October
In October four Tigers escaped for a day of delicious tarmac surfing and Harley baiting. I love Fields Track!
November
Two pics again this time as the two wee ones have not featured yet. First the RMX up in the Maungatuks before it had a dip.
And then the mightiest of mouses, out from hibernation and after singing it's head off up the valley.
December
Not bike related (although the yellow bike was in attendance) but a cool pic from the farm of Mount Taranaki.
And there's the winning entry in the blog challenge then...
Away back on the 2nd of January three Tigers went on another wee road ride through to Waipuk, and now I'm even writing about it...
For me the ride started with a wee squirt over the track in a little bit of light drizzle - nothing too bad, just wet enough to cause a bit of caution on the usual greasy spots on the track.
Arriving in Pahiatua, the guys were busy dispatching some coffee, but once I'd filled we were into it with a quiet ride across the Pahiatua-Pongaroa Road. As usual the Makuri Gorge and the climb up over the hill were the highlights - even if there was the odd "mildly-moist" patch. The view from the top perhaps not quite as spectacular as it can be.
I really like the blue one!
Dropping down the hill, we were soon in Pongaroa where we turned onto Route 52 to make for Wimbledon. I may have mentioned in a previous post, but it is nice to see all work that has been done on the road. They've widened it in places and definitely taken out some of the nastier road damage. Still pays to keep on ya toes though.
Yeah, not ideal conditions for any sort of hill climb but I have it on reasonably good authority that you can get air in one spot going up there...
Our next stop was in Waipuk where we had a spot of brunch old chap and then started on the return leg.
Leaving Waipuk, the traffic was pumping so we soon turned off to take more nice back roads through Takapau and Ormondville before popping out at Matamau, just north of Dannevirke.
We then behaved ourselves again until turning off at Oringi to cut the corner through Hopelands and then on to Pahiatua and home.
Yet another nice little ride and nice to kick off the new year with a couple of rides on the trot. If only work and life didn't get in the way all the time 😉
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!
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...
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!
