Hard men

If you've been paying attention, you would have seen this post a wee while ago about Julian completing an epic 3,015km lap of the South Island in a touch under 48 hours.  Well, last week he went out and did it again - more on that shortly...

A couple of days after that wee scoot Chris leapt aboard his trusty Connie and rattled of a quick lap of the North Island.  He managed 3,367km in 46.5 hours - epic!  I'll post a link to his ride report when he gets around to finishing it - no pressure Chris...

So, we have two hard men out cutting some laps around our wee islands.  Why?

Well, as Chris explains it here, he, (with a little help from his friends) have managed to get three new New Zealand based IBA rides (the 3rd being a special award for someone who as completed both of the paddock runs) approved by the IBA, and someone had to prove that they could be done.

And that's why Julian went out and rode another 3,048kms (with about 4hrs to spare) last week as the weather on his previous ride prevented him from actually completing the bottom paddock (he was unable to finish where he started from).  Rules are rules I 'spose and Julian appears to like spending quite a bit of time on his Indian.  That's his Indian pictured below in an IBA line-up (Julian wanted a photo of all the IBA plates) at the NI800/NI1600 last year - he did both rides one after another that weekend...

Stella's R1, Chris's Connie, Luke's ZX-14, Julian's Indian and my old girl 😍

Stella & Chris - both IBA certified riders 💪
(Stella needs a special award for completing hers on the R1)

Hopefully Chris won't kill me, but I suspect that he has put an enormous lot of work in getting these rides approved by the IBA (thanks Chris!) - which now means that any mad sod can give them a whirl and get a flash certificate...

Congrats Chris and Julian - you guys really are crazy but maybe the crazy got you through those epic rides!  See ya soon!