Thursday, March 28, 2019

'leccy cool

So this was parked at work today:


Very practical little bike for farmers and around town.  And built here in NZ!

http://www.ubcobikes.com/

It's not wrong to like them...

Monday, March 18, 2019

A small celebration

Today, our local Spitfire (yes, we have one!) celebrated ten years of flying since her restoration and luckily I spotted the post on Facebook.  As you can see from the below, there were questions on whether this celebration should go ahead but I like that second paragraph:


So, I raced home after work and grabbed my camera and tore out to Ohakea on the Tenere (glad I had chosen her today instead of Mighty Mouse).  I got there in plenty of time so got some practice in with a Hercules tooling around and some choppers doing choppery things.









Eventually, the side show ended and we heard a lovely noise...It's a real shame that it was such a sunny day - it made very amateur photography pretty tricky.  But I did enjoy the short airshow - in particular one really nice low pass - magic!



That silhouette...









That low pass!



All over...
Some awful video...

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Saturday

Went for a ride today.  No photos, no video, no blog.

A lot on our minds here today.


Thursday, March 14, 2019

Coming Home - Thursday

Thursday was the day that had seemed so far away a week ago and the day that we dreaded.  Yep, it was the day we had to say goodbye to the South island and head home to mentally prepare for the return to work.


I met Colin in Richmond and after a nice ride over the Whangamoa and Rai Saddles we had a quick stop in Havelock.

Preparing for work...
Next up was a trip through Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton, always a nice ride filled with plenty of corners and some really nice views of the Sounds.

We were well early for the ferry so after checking in and having an interesting chat with an government official we went for coffee before joining the queue for the ferry.



While we were waiting and chatting to some other bike riders an interesting bike turned up.


Nope, he wasn't after us - just delivering a bike from Christchurch to Auckland...And once he'd warmed up (no, it wasn't cold), we had quite a yak about bikes.  He didn't have much nice to say about the cop ST's but Geoff will be pleased to hear, he did like his Striple.

Our crossing was a bit lumpier heading North.  I even had to go out for some fresh air for a while and as we'd left late, we arrived late into Wellington too.  This was probably not a bad thing as it meant that the rush hour traffic had died off a bit and the traffic was flowing nicely.

In Waikanae, I waved Colin off and carried on North.  It was actually a really nice evening for a ride - - very calm and cool.  I probably could have ridden all night...

But after 4,240km of fun it was all over and nice to be home to my own bed.  I'm sure the Ten had a bit to talk to the other horses about too...







5,000kms, hmmmm....



Can't wait to begin planning again...



Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Coming Home - Wednesday

On Wednesday we stayed based in the Nelson/Tasman area with plans to do some exploring over the hill in Golden Bay.

Around nineish I road across to Motueka to meet up with Colin and another mate of his, Mitch.  Mitch is (actually was now) a DR (Wee-strom now) rider who has been around a few more summers than both Colin and I and knows how to punt a knobbly shod DR...

Our first little squirt was up over the Takaka Hill.  Last year a big slip closed the road and they are still repairing it so there are traffic lights on a 12 minute cycle controlling the traffic.  Naturally we hit the lights at exactly the right time, just as they were changing to green.  We then just had to get clear of a few vehicles to have the hill to ourselves.  Great fun was had by all...


In Takaka we made a quick stop to top off tanks before carrying on North to Collingwood and Pakawau.  It was an awesome day - here's 24 seconds of it...


Having gone as far North from Westport as we could, I'd suggested that we then try and get as far South as possible from the "other side of the hill" by riding down to Anatori.  I'd ridden the Vee down there previously and was pretty keen to give it another go.

When we hit the first bit of gravel things slowed up a bit as it was a little nasty - deep and reasonably recently graded.  It made for the odd spooky moment and I had one particular butt-clencher on one of the causeway's - not fun as there was salt water either side of the road...

Pretty much as soon as we got out of the windy stuff, the road improved and the pace could come back up.  And then the BMW rider spotted a cafe...


Actually, it was pretty close to lunchtime and we were heading further and further away from civilisation and coffee so it was a good call.  The cafe turned out to pretty good too.  We were the only ones there, the coffee was cheap and food good.




I even got to exercise my voting rights...


After lunch we carried on South but took one wee suggested diversion to go check out the beach.

Not that keen to follow the DR...


Beach brapping



Reassured that the Tasman Sea was still separating us from Oz we returned to the main road and carried on down to Anatori.


The road was a lot quicker for this last section but just as it had last time I was there, it crashed into the river.  And just like last time, probably a real mission on big bikes to cross and no, we did not want to drown a Tenere or GSA.



DR rider in his element





Maybe?


Nope.
Feet staying dry, we did an about face and returned back the way we came - this time avoiding the cafe...

At the end of the gravel I left the others to it and headed back to Richmond as I wanted to spend a bit more time with my nieces. The rest of the team went and investigated another gnarly gravel road.  When Colin told me it was more gnarly than Takapari Road I was glad I hadn't joined them  - I'd done gone and forgot to pack Mighty Mouse...



My trip back across the hill was just as much fun and I even got to wave to two Tenere's (mine was dirtier) going the other way before getting stuck at the lights for just a few minutes.  Then it was a quiet pootle in reasonably busy traffic into Richmond.  Holidaying is hard work...