Sunday Pootle

We've been having an absolutely fantastic long weekend weather wise and so it would be unforgivable not to get out for a ride at some stage. Yesterday I had to go into work and I had planned to take the VTR but she let me down. It now appears that the battery must be toast as it's not holding a charge at all. Never mind, luckily there's another bike in the shed.

After a bit of head scratching Brian and I decided to head down to Masterton and take in some of the great back road routes both there and back. First things first we headed over the track and through to Mangamire. Half way to Mangamire Brian pulled over and let me take his VTR for a wee ride to get my V-twin fix. Very cool! (Note to self: get some pipes for the VTR).

After a brief trip down the main highway we were soon back onto some great back roads through to Alfedton and finally a short stretch of Route 52. This little bit from Alfredton to Masterton is probably the best bit of the entire route with the road generally being in a lot better condition through here than on the Northern section. It was fantastic and the scenery not too shabby either with a lot of the leaves on trees changing colour with the autumn. I think that this is probably my favourite time of the year for riding - nice still conditions and not too hot.

Eventually we ran out of Route 52 and hit Masterton where Brian filled up and I rang my folks who I knew were somewhere in the area. It turned out that they were actually in Masterton baby-sitting my nieces so we went and had some lunch with them before turning Northwards again.

On the way home we took another back road through to Mauriceville before popping back out near Eketahuna. From there it was another nice cruise through Mangamire and back home over the track. A fantastic way to clock up another couple of hundred k's on the Connie.