FRDC MC actually riding...

A little ago I put out a note at work to see if I could drum up some interest from the bike riders at work at getting together for the odd pootle.  I managed to be successful in my drumming and we got pretty good at having coffees and talking about bikes but it took us a wee while to get organised for a ride.

Well, today we fixed that.

A decent bunch of us on a variety of two wheeled machines met up at work to go do coffee...

The route I'd planned was a pretty short little ride across to Feilding via some local back roads.  It was only around 100km but then that is around 4 times the distance if you take the main road...

We set off not long after 9:30 under a really nice sunny (can we call it spring day?) skies and made our way across to Ashhurst.

Then it was out to Valley Road, dodging cyclists who were all over the road, for the run through to Colyton.  I got a little bit excited climbing up the hill and even though there was the odd slippery and slimy bit managed to have a bit of fun with Steve tucked in behind on his nice CBR.

I think Brent may have enjoyed that bit as well...

From there we made our way out to Cheltenham only to miss my intended turn-off to Makino Road.  Nevermind, it gave us a chance to stop for another photo before finding another road to get us back on track to Stanway.

More back roads had us avoiding Halcombe and finally dropping down into Feilding to go in search of caffeine.  A nice little outing for our first ride as a group.  There is even video...

We may need to do this again...

A long time ago...

Or perhaps it was last weekend...I went for a ride, and have only now gotten around to blogging it...

Anyway...

Last Sunday Colin came up on Judas late in the morning and needing a ride.  It wasn't the nicest day but at least it wasn't raining or blowing its guts out so off we went up to Taihape.

The ride up was all on seal - a quick flick over a dampish Vinegar Hill and then straight up SH1 soon had us parked up in front of the Soul Cafe and tucking into something warm.

While there, I messaged Glen who is just up the road and still recovering from a trail bike vs slippery tar incident, and he was working in his shop so we popped down to see him.  Good to see him vertical and working on one of his projects.

We finally got away from there around 2pm and made our way across the Napier-Taihape as far as the turn-off to Mangaohane Road.  My lying temperature gauge had been reading a nice and comfy 8 degrees but somehow it didn't feel like it to me.  Colin confirmed my suspicions, saying that he'd been seeing lower than 3 and had ice warnings and things coming up on the dash.  Instantly I felt colder..

No snow and not quite snowing...

Now we were finally onto the gravel and while there was a little deep stuff as we got going, it soon changed to some pretty fast and fun stuff.  Just a few slippery bits where there was exposed clay.

I wonder who left those marks on the road?

Who dat?

Next up was Pukeokahu Road which was more of the same good gravel but just a little tighter and slower through to Taoroa Junction.

Those signs that Adv bike riders live for

A wee slip must have made this mess

There's that bike again

And that was it for the gravel.  We had about 15km of slippery back roads to get out to SH1 again and then another trip across a much slipperier Vinegar Hill and into Feilding for a cuppa with Dad.  We even found some rain just out of Feilding.

Plenty of room

A fun little ride but fairly chilly - especially the ride home from Feilding at about 5:30ish.  Glad to get the fire on when I got in!

IBA Awesomeness

So, a few days ago the 2019 Iron Butt Rally finished and it's been really neat to watch all the posts on their Facebook page.  There are also daily reports and finishing stats available on the IBA Website here.

And there was also big news this year.  A mad woman (and I mean that with the hugest respect) won the event!  And man did she cover some ground: 12,998 miles in 11 days on her FJR.  Now that is impressive!  A bit much for this little black duck...

Full scorecard http://ibr.wvi.com/ibr/2019/FinalRiderScorecards/.

If you're interested in all this madness then I highly recommend you checkout the IBA website and I'll leave you with this cool link - it's an animation showing the travels of all the competitors.  Very trick!

Quiet weekend

This past weekend I pretty much stayed around home doing chores and wasting time on the internet...

The Tenere sorely needs a run but it also needs a fork seal, this meant I missed out on an Adventure ride with Colin and the TSS crew. 

Sunday was actually a really nice day so I just had to do something.  I'd been given a bit of grief on the Tagorama thread - something about too much time farkling vs riding.  Not sure if this is quite true through but as I already had a picture of the Tenere at the site of the tag I decided that a stand-in was required.

The little bike is a lot of fun around town but I have to say, the knobblies are not that confidence inspiring on the road.  Gravel, mud and sand and they're mint, but not a lot of that sort of riding within the city limits...

But I did get to check out the new short-cut to work for my new tag.

Fabulous ride of almost 20km...so yeah, less than a litre of fuel...