I went for a ride yesterday, so I thought I should blog the one from a couple of weeks ago...
I was due to pop into the olds for Sunday dinner and with it being a decent sort of the day, I figured that there were some stones that needed flipping and a T7 in need of a little run.
I decided to make my way out Pohangina Road and through to Apiti before turning back onto Ridge Road for a bit until I found a likely looking road across toward Feilding.
Pohangina Road was its normal magic self with just a bit of more freshly spread gravel towards the Northern end. Ridge Road was more of the same, except there was the odd spit and with plenty of time on my hands, the opportunity for some pics.
Turning off onto Londons Ford Road (a little early), I was disappointed to be back on seal so soon and once I got home, disappointed to see that I rode right past Londons Ford and the reserve there. When I saw a sign pointing towards Bartletts Ford I didn't make the same mistake and turned off to go sight-seeing somewhere I'd never been before.
There was quite a nice little reserve at Bartletts Ford and there were some guys packing up their fishing gear and another carload of campers just leaving when I got there. They hadn't even met me yet...
Londons Ford Road spat me back out onto the Apiti Loop and after charging up the hill towards Kimbolton, I turned right instead of left to pick up some more gravel on Junction Road. I even stopped to turn on the camera to capture me wobbling along on some pretty fresh gravel...
Junction Road led to McBeth Road and at the end of that I made a blue and went left instead of right. Right would have got me onto some more gravel and allowed me to cross over to Beaconsfield before cruising into Feilding whereas my left turn got me back into Kimbolton and a sealed route to Cheltenham where it was past time for a cold coke and a piccy of the Fire Station for Advrider.
From Cheltenham, I avoided the long straight of Feilding by taking a roundabout route to the folks place. I may have missed the odd turn, but it was still a nice way to get to Feilding...
Seeing that it is December, it's probably past time to write-up the last ride of November...
Way back last month I loaded the RMX onto the ute and joined Colin, Graeme, Geoff and Geoff's son Liam on a quad ride in the Maungatuks. And it went fairly well with just a few little hiccups.
Number one hiccup was the battery on the RMX. It's a wee lithium jobbie which lately hasn't been living up to their normally good reputation for holding a charge. Last time I rode it the bike needed to be kick started for the first start of the day but then quickly came back to life for the subsequent starts.
Loading the bike up (I idle it up my ramps, walking beside it to load) definitely required a kick and then so did the initial start in the carpark which wasn't unexpected. Unfortunately, I also need to kick it all day which did present some issues later in the ride...
Leaving the carpark we started our way up the hill and it was a little exciting in places as they'd had some recent rain, and the clay down there is of the slippery when wet variety. This is where the application of torque must be undertaken a wee bit carefully.
At our first stop the gang split into two with Colin and Graeme wanting to do some more tricky stuff (stuff I've done before on the 450 but didn't really want to given that recent rain) while I joined Geoff and Liam on a more "scenic" route. Along the way we stopped so that Liam could have a bit of a blast around and we could check out the views.
Once Geoff managed to get the quad back we carried on dropping down the hill before entering the pine forest to splash our way closer to the Orange Hut. I led but actually took it pretty quietly as there were a few slippery bits on the decent. I even managed a styley stall just before a large puddle along the way...
I also took the opportunity for a quick cool off...
We ended up beating the other two to the hut, there were some excuses like "big puddle", "winching" and "upside down" but we still haven't seen any pictures...
After a munch and a bit of rest we carried on up the road with a 450 breathing down Colins neck and the odd bit of excitement along the way.
Next up came this bit:
Yeah, come to think about it again, I hate this bit!
Yeah, I hate it.
This crossing is reasonably long and happens to contain some reasonably large, slippery rocks. I often take a couple of bites at it but this time I started off reasonably confident - and then I stalled the bike. And had to kick it over in the river.
I then ended up a bit too far left in some deeper water and the front hit a decent rock. Normally I'd just put my foot on the bottom and hold the bike up but you can't do this when your foot goes out from under you on a slippery rock. What happens next sucks!
Pushing the bike out of the river sucks too! My boots were full of water and the bike weighs about five tonnes when being pushed over slippery rocks. Basically, it sucked.
Graeme not getting wet feet supervising...
Geoff not getting wet feet either...
Yeah, thanks Geoff...
Next up was seeing how much trouble I was in. We started with removing the air filter and mopping out the airbox (it can hold at least a cupful of water) and then we tipped her to see if any water had got up the exhaust. We then quietly operated the kick starter to turn the motor over. Luckily, it turned over (slowly does it) nicely with no evidence of hydrolock. But would she go?
After kicking it over too many times, I discovered that kicking didn't work. In another piece of luck, Graeme had some jumper leads (I like Graeme) so after removing the seat, we hooked these up and the bike fired up pretty quickly and sounded ok - phew!
With that excitement behind me (and only a dead battery to deal with occasionally), it was back into some great riding on the awesome trails (see super-long video at the end) and no more over-excitement.
So, perhaps a bit more eventful than I'd planned but everyone got home safe with smiles on their faces, and there's a new battery waiting to go in the yellow bike...
And now for that video, but first some comments on the DJI Osmo Action 5 after its first decent day out:
It went every time I pushed the go buttons and stopped every time I tried to stop it - unlike my GoPro
I could even hear it starting/stopping with helmet on and RMX making a ruckus
I only recorded at 1080p but got at least 1 hour, 20 minutes of video with 58% battery life remaining
The sound recording is pretty good - I am going to play with the noise suppression setting when I try it out on one of the "quicker" bikes. Will be great if it can catch bike noise without all the wind noise.
So, yesterday there was what looked like a pretty good trail ride pretty close to home in Colyton. I was gonna go and even had the yellow bike ready to go but come Sunday morning just wasn't feeling it so for a while pretended that it wasn't a nice sunny day and did other exciting stuff like laundry, dog walking and mowing the lawns - perhaps I'll post that excitement later...
But, by lunchtime I'd decided that something even more exciting needed to happen. And it needed to involve the poorly neglected WR. Naturally, after such an extended period of neglect, the bike needed some extensive maintenance - air in the tyres and 6L of super. Then I just needed some sort of ride plan...
(Hopefully I've dithered around enough to continue to keep some AdvRiders in suspense and caused at least some sort of semi-permanent psychiatric damage? You guys know who I'm talking about 😝)
So, on with the ride.
After the expensive fill-up in Ashhurst I turned back into the village and then thundered off out the valley, relearning the intricacies of the mightiest of mouses. At an indicated 110km/h (GPS about 95), the little bike fair powered its way around Pohangina Valley East with the not so road-friendly rubber providing a little excitement when perhaps a little too much was expected of it. The rider also had to relearn how to tame the beast and to remember that if you throttle off for a corner then you need to down change as well...
(Some more most excellent dithering in that last paragraph eh?)
Now I really need to fess up on the destination I 'spose...
On the aforementioned AdvRider there has been some enquiry about the current state of Takapari Road and certain people were suggesting that I needed to be the guinea pig. Well, with a WR and its superior capabilities, this kinda made sense.
The reason why everyone was keen to know about the road was that it has been gated off by the council due to severe damage by 4WD's and the council not being prepared to pay to fix the road. (Apparently the 4WD club are going to look at repairing the road themselves - I hope they do). But, apparently it is possible to get a bike around the gate...
The road up to the old top gate was actually in really good condition (no 4WD's tearing it up in winter is my guess) and it didn't take me long to get up there and then onto the investigating. Yes, a bike can get around the gate.
I can probably leave the next bit to the video but remember to factor in that the video makes the road look less steep and even a little less gnarly. Also remember that the rider was still getting to grips with the mighty beast and made plenty of wee stuff ups...
Yeah, maybe it doesn't look that bad in the video and pics but it's fairly impassable. In front of the step, all the water coming off the hill is creating a bog which would quickly suck a bike in - I avoided the worst of it as best I could but still sunk in halfway up my boots.
The step itself is steeper than it looks and probably pretty close to 2 metres high. That's pretty slippery looking clay too. Maybe without the bog I'd give it a crack on the 450. But maybe I'd fall off too...
Looks pretty greasy to this kid
Look at that weapon!
Mouse for scale
Just to the right (in the above pic) of the main track someone has been hacking at the bush. I'm not sure if it was so vehicles could turn around or if this is someone attempting a diversion. I didn't explore it as it looked a bit soft in there too and I didn't want to get my boots dirty...
So, after an almost 3-minute ride from the gate it was all over and I had turn around and bimble my way back down the hill.
And bimble I did too, 'cos damn there's some great views across the valley as you drop down the hill.
Reaching the bottom of the hill, I still hadn't had my fill of the awesomeness that is the WR so turned right and made my way over to Makoura Road to take in some most excellent gravel before the next turn onto Pohangina Road.
Halfway back (or maybe halfway through video #3 below), I stopped to check out the washed out bridge that used to cross over to Pohangina East. Yeah, it's still not there and it actually looks like they've demolished it. They seem to have moved a bit of stuff but I'm not sure whether the bridge will get replaced or not - possibly a low priority considering even worse damage up in the Bay.
Not even a WR could cross that
A fair bit of hill fell in the river
A log enjoying supporting quality machinery
Yep, definitely no bridge
Rest over, it was time to fang that favourite bit of Pohangina Road and get back so the WR could let the other bikes know what they'd missed out on.
Thoroughly enjoyable ride on the little bike. Someone slap me if I ever talk about parting ways with it...
.jpg)
