Spoiling the little one

 This post completed without AI...

Somehow there are two WR's living in my shed and every now and again I visit them to fire them up for a while as they haven't been getting in too many outings these days.  Last time I went out to do this a tragedy occurred - more poor wee bike wouldn't start and all things pointed to a very old and much abused (no tender and nowhere near enough riding) battery.

But, the battery had lasted well.  It's definitely been in the bike since I've had it and I have a sneaking suspicion that may have been the original - so potentially in the bike since 2011!

Deciding on a replacement was pretty easy.  The Poweroad Li-ion one in Colin's bike always fires his one up (after being ignored for months) and I also have one in the RMX which so far seems to be just as reliable.  And look at the size difference!  It weighs probably less than a quarter of the other one too!

Fitting the battery, I had to pack it out with the stick on foam rubber that comes with the battery so it would fit more snuggly in the battery box and not rattle itself to death when being a passenger on our usual death-defying WR rides...

And then it was time to see if the new battery would breath life into the mighty beast.  Damn straight!  And then Colin's one needed to be checked as well.

After fitting the battery, I then got very extravagant and dropped the oil out of the WR and gave it some fresh stuff along with a new filter.  Heck, I even pumped up the tyres to make pushing it around the shed easier...

And added an appropriate mascot...

Tough!

 Some insane CB action:

Kinda reminded me of this gnarly (for me) ride: https://banditrider.blogspot.com/2022/05/working-out.html

Riding the Badlands: A Gravelly Good Time in Whanganui

Ok, so I seem to continue to be very slack in keeping up with my blogs. Yes, we've been riding and playing in Colin's buggies, so getting in plenty of fun. So, to rectify the issue, I've enlisted the help of a friend...

The below blog was completely created by an AI (it even inserted the links - but could not pull photos from the Google Album). I simply provided the prompt and this was the AI's first iteration. If anyone is interested I can post my prompt...

Oh, and it also came up with the title.

A quick loop

Yeah, I suppose I should catch up on some of the action...

A couple of weekends ago, Colin and I decided that the big girls needed a bit of action.  Colin's GSA hadn't been anywhere since the TT and the Tiger had only had that little ride with my favourite nutters so the timing was right.

I was just getting brekkie together when Colin texted to say he was mobile.  This gave me around an hour to sort my stuff out before flicking the jug on in anticipation of a cofee-seeking Beemer punter.

Coffee done and geared up, we hit the Saddle and I honestly tried to behave until "Black Dog" came on through the speakers and that's all I'll say about that...Crossing the Saddle, we slowly (honestly) descended into foggy Woodville.

We actually (or should that be predictably?) bypassed Woodville, instead taking back roads through to Dannevirke where our tanks were topped off before we headed for the Coast.

The Weber road is pretty good as far as Weber and then you start getting into the interesting bits of Route 52.  Colin and I both actually enjoy the ride and big Adv bikes are definitely the tool for this road even though it is sealed (well, mostly).  I flicked the camera on to capture the current state of the road but was surprised with the amount of work being done on the road.

I've been riding this road for over twenty years and it's always been subject to a lot of weather (and logging truck) related damage.  Perhaps Cyclone Gabrielle and the massive amount of damage it did to a lot of East Coast roads finally got some funds sorted for some long awaited repairs.  Check it out:

Dodging any wombles around Wimbledon, we carried on up 52, bypassed Porangahau before picking up SH2 as far as Waipawa where we cruised into Patangata and a sweet (Sports mode selected) run up Middle Road.

Arriving in Havelock North at bang on lunchtime we decided that we shouldn't miss the opportunity and pulled into the café where we'd stopped previously.  And this was probably for the last time, the service was incredibly slow and for a while we thought we weren't ever going to see our coffees.  Oh well, there's another one just up the road...

Next up was a putter over to Fernhill before tackling the Napier-Taihape Road which was it's normal fun self.  There'd be video of it if the GoPro had decided to record video as well as sound...

A break in Taihape followed by a play on Vinegar Hill topped of a pretty nice little pootle on a great winter's day.  Oh, and big tanks rock until you need to fill them...