Covid strikes back

 Day 4 of another lockdown so what's a poor motor-bicyclist to do?

Just in case...

 ...you need to find a decent pie:

https://advrider.com/f/threads/the-best-pies-in-nz-thread.629455/

In search of a steak and cheese

So Saturday was pretty damn horrible here - cold and blowing a gale - but Sunday simply started off cold and turned into a reasonable day so I did something a bit different...

Yes, I went riding but this time I did something radical - I got the poor old Connie out and surprised the hell out it.  Poor wee thing has not had much action lately but started right up after a long slumber on the battery tender. 

As per normal SOP, the ride started with a visit to the gas station and then I made my way out to Ashhurst and out Pohangina Valley East Road.

The Connie is a slightly different beast to the mighty WR which I last rode up the valley but after fourteen years things soon feel "right" and you're looking for corners.

The ride around the valley was great.  Yes, there was the normal winter valley hazards, wet and slippery roads along with metal, branches and even mud on the roads but that's just there to keep you on your toes.  By the time I got to the turn-off at Apiti I'd passed a group of three slow bikes (one old classic out front and a Harley bringing up the rear) and another bunch of Harleys stopped on the side of the road (no sign of backup vehicle) so there seemed to be plenty of others out enjoying the nice morning.

The trip around the rest of the Manawatu Scenic Route to Mangaweka was more of the same with more slipperyness in the shady spots but it was actually surprisingly clean alongside the crumbly bluffs nearer to Mangaweka.

In Mangaweka it was time for a stop for an early lunch and I lucked out in getting the last Steak and Cheese pie at the Dukes Roadhouse.  And it was superb!

Perfect pastry and real meat and gravy inside

Connie making the cafe look good...

The perfect pie and the perfect sports-tourer - all in one shot!

After my pastry wrapped goodness it was time to find a way out onto the dreaded SH1.  Good of them to provide an escape route for 1400cc Adv bikes.

A wee way up the road I turned left at the speed camera to head back onto some more favourite back roads.

The ride up Mangamako Road was really fun.  The road was much drier by now and didn't have as much metal and rubbish on it as Pohangina Valley East.  It was a great warm-up for the stretch of Rangiwahia road from Pemberton to Kimbolton.  The Connie seemed to really enjoy those delicious corners...

From Kimbolton, the Connie managed to settle herself down for a wee cruise into Feilding for a visit with my folks before returning home to the shed to tell the other bikes all about her adventure.  A thoroughly lovely wee 220kms in preparation for more soon...

Takapari Road

A ways' back (seems like forever already) on our last ride on the big Adv bikes I floated the idea of a little bike ride up Takapari Road.  In a coincidence, when we got back someone had posted pictures of a ride up there showing some reasonably serious 4WD damage to the road - it looked enticing.  So enticing that Colin gave me a call and said that we must go and check it out.  Well, if we must, we must!

Important pre-ride mod installed...

So, last Sunday was the big day and we even managed to convince Darren to ride down from Taihape for the big event.

After fuelling up in town, I led the chaps out to Watershed Road so we could get onto the gravel as soon as possible.  This is very important when riding the WR's with a larger bike tagging along - it means we don't hold up the big bike and the gravel is a great equaliser...

Watershed was a great warm-up for us but riding out onto the seal on Midland Road we did have a bit of excitement when an idiot in his ute backed out of his driveway without looking properly.  I can't believe that his passenger didn't say something as he was looking our way...Not sure if the barrelling he got from Colin and I achieved anything but you never know...

The next bit of gravel was Zigzag Road and since I was last through here some jokers had graded it/put down a bit of gravel so there was surfing to be had as we rode through to Finnis Road and the drop down into Pohangina.

That simply magic bit of gravel on Pohangina Road got us to the turn-off to Totara Reserve and then onto Pohangina Valley East Road where we ate up far too much seal before finally arriving at Takapari Road.

We scrambled up to the top gate reasonably quickly and along the way picked up a guy on his XT600/660.

The first little section just past the gate is often a little mucky but no problem for any of us but a bit further up the track we ran into (well, not quite) our first 4WD coming the other way just before a slippery looking bit.  We ended up parking out of the way for a few minutes while we waited for four of them to get past us without killing us.  You can see them at about the 25 second mark in Colin's video below:

We got through that sticky bit a lot quicker than the 4WD's but then not a lot further up the track we ran into the big churned up section that we'd heard about on Facebook.  It was fairly soft and the ruts were deep back still not too bad to get through on our bikes.  

Colin picked the snottiest line he could find and got a little stuck for a moment.  I made sure to get photos before helping...

There's video of the boggy section in that first one but here's some just of the boggy stuff with some video from my camera as well as Colin's.

That was pretty much the nastiest bit of the road with the rest being the usual great mix of rocky track, the odd bit of clay and mud and plenty of puddles.  We had a quick stop just short of the hut to check out the view.  It sure was a pretty good day up there!

By this time we'd lost the XT rider (I think the snotty stuff must have put him off) but we did find a KTM pilot enjoying the view.

It's a good day when ya can see those fellas this easy

A couple of motocross bikes came through while we were having our breather too.

From here it was just a quick puddle-dodging few minutes to the hutt for another breather.  BTW, yes those mountain bikers had ridden up from the bottom - stuff that!

The descent was just as much fun and the snotty bit much easier to handle just idling down it.  Colin was getting pretty good with his GoPro eh?

At the bottom of the hill we said goodbye to Darren as he headed home via a trip around the loop and we back tracked towards Ashhurst.  Just up the road a group of sports bikes went past - one waving a wheel at us - and they eventually caught Darren too.  But he then caught one of them back and had to help him get his bike out of the drain...

Rather than ride the seal all the way back to Ashhurst we returned via Pohangina again, which meant taking that neat bit of gravel again.  Colin accidentally had his GoPro in hyperlapse mode (which I've slowed down by about 50%) so we weren't quite travelling this fast:

Soon after, we were in Ashhurst and searching for coffee and a pie.  The first place didn't do coffee so we tried the cafe and it did coffee but there was a 20 minute wait...We had a pie and a cold drink...

Takapari Road had just whet our appetite so after a using motard mode on the WR's to cross the Saddle we climbed up Whariti to check out the view from there.  The ride up was a lot quicker than Takapari with no mud, just good gravel and a bit of a climb.

Successfully summiting the hill we dropped back down it again and then made for our next wee adventure - North Range Road.  This first required a wee sprint up Hall Block Road to another prime photo spot.

While we there a DRZ400 pulled up and it turned out to be Craig who had come on one of the FRDC MC rides and we ended up chasing him all the way across North Range Road.  Colin got his camera going again but once again it was in hyperlapse mode but I managed to get some decent captures off it.

Between the blades...

Somehow that skinny rear tyre is handling all the horsepower being pumped through it...

Eventually the flash big gravel road ran out and we were into the old and famous muddy tracks where dodging or going through the big puddles were your two options.  I don't know how but Colin's camera managed to get something on the lens...

Eventually we came to one heck of a deep looking puddle and I decided that we needed to go around that one as I am not much of a swimmer...Carefully riding along the grass I then came to a channel that someone had dug to release some of the water.  I didn't really want to attempt to cross that either as if I stuffed it up I'd be in the lake.  Here's a wee sequence showing me trying to extricate myself from the situation...

You would think Colin would have cleaned his camera by now...

Someone else found an easier way...

Anyway, we got the two WR's across without going swimming and then were off into some other nice muddy sections and more puddle avoidance.

Out of the mud, we stopped and chatted to Craig for a while before tearing off back to my place to find some coffee.  Had an awesome day out on the magnificent little bikes and looking forward to the next adventure on Mighty Mouse!