Ashhurst to Akitio

After a pretty forgettable Coast to Coast (shocking weather, a certain bike falling over), Cowboyz suggested that a ride out to Akitio in better conditions was in order.

Well, today was the day and the weather gods decided to play ball and came up with a pretty stunning day so there was really no excuse not to get on the bike and head off to meet the rest of the guys & gals at Ashhurst.

After gassing up the bikes at Ashhurst it was a pretty decent sized group that headed off into the gorge - including 4 L-platers all keen as mustard to be out on there bikes.

The ride took us through the gorge, then Balance and over into Pahiatua where we stopped to regroup and give some of the L-platers a bit of a head start on the road to Pongaroa. I had a really great ride through to Pongaroa, sitting in behind Cowboyz and enjoying the great roads - nice to do them in the dry for a change.

Arriving in Pongaroa we parked up and I went to grab a cool drink. When I got back to my bike we got some bad news - there'd been an off just out of Pongaroa. Most of us quickly headed back out of town to check it out.

About 200m out of town Hornet250Boy had left the road, locked it up in the grass before finally parting company with his bike. The bike went through a fence, smashed a concrete post support, crossed a bit of a ditch, bounced into the air before clipping a cabbage tree and crashing to the ground. Hornet250Boy was a bit more lucky - he missed the fence and skidded about 14 metres down the grass verge.

Luckily, Hornet250Boy was not hurt very badly - a few cuts and scrapes as well as a bit of shock etc and the girls soon had him patched up and recuperating on the side of the road. His poor little GSX was not so lucky - it had ricocheted off all sorts of obstacles and had done a great job of tearing itself to pieces. With plenty of us at hand we soon had it up the bank and back over the fence where we could have a decent look at it and try and work out what we were going to do with it and it's banged up rider.

As a result of an unfortunate off on his new bike NZSarge hadn't been able to make the ride but had offered any assistance to us if need be on the day. Obviously we hadn't planned on needing him but never the less he was phoned and offered to drive all the way out to pick up the bike - really awesome of him.

While we waited for the trailer we parked back up at the Pongaroa store where cold drinks & icecreams were the order of the day.

Once Sarge arrived we quickly loaded the GSX remains onto the trailer and were soon off on the road again to Akitio. Had a pretty quiet but enjoyable ride out to the coast before parking up and taking a breather at the beach.

After a bit of R & R we finally mounted our bikes and headed back towards civilisation. The only bit of excitement was Gary loosing his cell phone. A number of us had seen something on the road and wondered what it was. Luckily for him, when he finally found it it was still all ok.

The road from Weber to Danniverke is a real cracker and I had a real blast on it and got away a bit from the rest of the mob. But when I pulled into the garage at Danniverke they weren't far behind me and some of the bikes gassed up, and coffees were had before the final leg home.

I took it pretty quietly on the way home following one of the L-platers on his Hyosung, the only downer being stuck behind a very slow car in the gorge.

All in all a pretty good day out except for the one mishap which thankfully did not result in any serious injuries - a good reminder to take it easy on those back roads...

More pics here.