Four Points

...and finally the write-up: https://banditrider.weebly.com/2018-four-points.html

And I think that can be the last post of the year...Happy New Year everyone!

Chasing Bunnies

Yesterday, instead of watching bikes racing, I decided to ride one instead.  I also decided to give the new GPS a tryout by loading up a route and following the purple line...

After fueling up in town I made my way to a new mural in Palmy that I thought Dave might like.

That's Sir Ed in the middle and there's more info on the mural and the portraits here: https://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/109123119/street-artist-mr-g-painting-kiwi-legends-in-palmerston-north

So that was waypoint #1 done and the next few took me out to Ashhurst, onto my first little bit of gravel on Pohangina Valley East Road.  Waypoints 3 & 4 got me back on the other side of the river on Pohangina Valley East Road.

The next two waypoints were on the gravel again as I took Makoura Road over to Apiti and then 7 & 8 got me to Rangiwahia where I made another quick stop.  There's a "Your bike at a Fire Station" thread on Adv Rider as well as a "Mural on your travels" one.

In Rangi, I had a play with a few gizmos and set the GPS up so it could act as a remote for the Virb.  It even worked...

Another of the aims of the ride was to ride Peep O'Day Road again and to take some video of it.  But not actually haven read a manual or anything, the camera stayed in photo mode for the first section of Peep O'Day.

Not sure whether the camera was going or not I looked for a nice spot to pull over and check it out.  It turned out to be a pretty good spot to stop too...

Having worked the camera out, I carried on for a bit until I found yet another nice spot for a few pics.

Anyway, enough of this stopping to smell the roses.  Here's some of the action.

Did you see the bunnies?  (They were at 1:20 and 2:08).

Peep O'Day Road eventually petered out and I hung a left onto Waituna Tapuae Road to take me through to Beaconsfield.  This is another tight little one...

Did you see the bunnies?  If so, let me know where they were...

Back on the tar again I worked out how to take pictures again...

And then quickly stopped in to check something out at the old's place in Fielding before heading back home to Palmy.  And yeah, the camera was still going...

And that was about it - just a short little 180km pootle in fairly warm conditions - I needed a cold drink!

Suzuki Series Round 3

Oh yes, the Cemetery Circuit!

It's been a few years since I last went across to Whanganui but this year I was dead keen.  Christmas Day had absolutely atrocious weather so it was quite a relief to hear that things had cleared up for the racing.

No major stories to tell, but it was a very enjoyable day wandering around and taking a bazillion photos...

One of the first pics of the day and not a bad one eh?

Not sure why they bother with that extra wheel if they're not going to use it...

Kieren from work (VFR400 in Pre 89)

'tards...

Kieren again on his GSX-450 (F3 bike)

Rich guy spending lots of money on NZ Motorcycle racing - must be a decent bloke!

150 gixxers at it again!

Ahem

Drool...

Not often you see one of these used in anger...

Kieren's pits

Lookin good Kieren!

So, another cracker day watching the bikes...and how about a tiny bit of video?

And there's a heap more pics here.

Zumo install #2

Thanks to E-Bay (cheaper), a second cradle for the Zumo turned up just before Xmas.  So Xmas Eve seemed like the right day to install it on the Connie...

The job turned out a bit easier than on the Tenere but I did have to do some improvising...

After removing the old cradle off the Connie's Projekt D mount I noticed a wee problem.

Crap design!  (Tenere's mount pictured)

The mount is perfectly flat but as you can see the Zumo cradle has a "bulge" at the bottom where the harness is wired in.  Enter Mr Heath Robinson...

To get things to fit up nicely I had to make some spacers.  Rummaging in the shed I stumbled across the old handle-bar weights off the V-Strom.  These had a nice little bit of rubber (with some tube running through the centre) fitted to them.  I ended up chopping the two rubbers (and tube)  up to make the four spacers I needed.  I was then able to reuse the longer bolts out of the old Zumo's mount and Bob's your uncle!

Well, it's on...

It's not that pretty (and the bolts are too long) but it'll work until I think of something else.  One added bonus is that there's even more rubber-mounting - vibes shouldn't worry the GPS much...

Annoyingly, I'll need to order another weather cover...

Next up was the wiring job and on the Connie I have it wired to the battery so had to add a couple of terminals to the harness and then find a place for everything.

In progress, harness went in just where that other bunch of cables are.

And I even ran the USB cable up into the Glove-box.  Could be handy there.

Time for a test.

Snug fit!

And this is pretty close to what I see when pedalling.

Sorted!