BRRBT Tuki-tuk Tour

Sunday was the BRR's second Black Top ride and it was my turn to come up with a route that would take us somewhere nice for lunch and more importantly stick to the Back Roads.  This is what I came up with:

The plan was to all meet up in Ashhurst and when I arrived Bryn was already there waiting and then the bikes started arriving...and then more arrived...

All told I think we had 14 bikes but unfortunately only 3 of them were Connies - maybe next time we'll get a few more riders with decent taste...

Our first little leg-stretch was a nice squirt up over the Saddle.  There is quite a bit of work going on to take out some of the nasty bits on the Saddle and as a consequence it's not in the best shape - plenty of bumps and dodgy surfaces to negotiate.  Still good fun though.

After the Saddle we carried on taking the back roads through to Dannevirke before a short stretch of SH2 to Matamau where we turned off to ride through Ormonville to Takapau.

In Takapau we stopped for a bit of a breather and to remove some extra layers as the day was definitely warming up.  We also caused a bit of stir in the bustling metropolis and had the locals come and check us out and see what we were up to.

Not our skidmarks!

This little dude (captured by the GoPro) reckoned my bike was the coolest.
Perhaps he'll be trading up to a Connie in a few years.

From Takapau we continued avoiding the main road by sneaking into Waipuk via a little bit of Porangahau Road.  We then had just a short bit of SH2 to get to the turn-off in Waipawa that would take us into the Tuki-tuki valley.

The plan for the ride was to ride up the eastern side of the river along Kahuranaki Road and then after lunch take Middle Road down the other side.  We had a great little ride up Kahuranaki Road even if we had to avoid the odd bit of gravel and some sections of relatively new seal - at lunch most of the guys all had good things to say about this bit of road.

Soon enough most of us were in Havelock North parking up for lunch.  We were however, missing quite a few of our number even though our corner-man system had been working nicely all morning.  A little concerned we ordered our lunch, consulted cell phones for contact numbers that we didn't have and waited...

Eventually others started rolling up and we got the story.  Wayne had stopped to do corner-man duty and must have had a bit of a wait so he shut down his bike.  But then when Richard (our great TEC) caught him up the KTM didn't want to start again.  Apparently you can't just crash-start this particular beastie so poor old Wayne had to enlist the help of the AA.  While he waited in the hot sun the other guys got to join us for lunch.  Not sure if Wayne ever managed to feed his worms...

The KTM behaving itself

After lunch it was time to fuel the bikes for the return trip.  Here the KTM had to be shut down again and required the use of a Guzzi to restart it.  Jumper leads are a great invention...

With all the bikes up and running it was time to hit Middle Road.  This is a great little ride with curves-a-plenty and we had a nice run South as far as Te Aute Trust Road where we turned off and made for SH2 again.  I hadn't ridden this piece of road for a few years so it was a little unfamiliar - it was a nice ride with plenty of interesting curves and a good surface.

The middle of Middle Road

Oh look, a Connie!

We turned off again at Waipawa and road across to Onga and onto SH50.  It was here that one of us had an unfortunate run-in with the law when a certain white Wee-Strom was picked out of the bunch and handed an invoice for all the fun he'd been having.  Bummer Colin!

The rest of us law abiding citizens were mostly unaware of this as we pootled down SH2 as far as Oringi where we turned off to cut the corner and ride through Jackson and Bluff Road and then back onto SH2 to Pahiatua.

In Pahiatua we parked up and waited for the rest of the pack to arrive and let us in on Colin's interesting news.  Colin himself didn't seem too upset and was able to laugh it off with the rest of us - good man.  After a cold drink for most of us the group started to break up as guys took off in different directions to make their way home.  Bryn, Neil, Russell, a couple of Colins and I formed up a smaller group to tackle the Pahiatua track and had one last little blast over the track and back into Palmy.

And that was that for our second BRRBT - a nice little run on a perfect day!