What to do when it's raining

Yeah, the weather is finally changing here, and we've had a chilly couple of days.  This morning, I got up with a wee list of things I wanted to do but when I went outside with the first load of washing, I was stumped by some wet stuff falling from the sky.  Oh well, the dryer got some action, and I went back inside for another coffee.

It didn't take too long for me to get a bit bored with sitting on my butt, but the weather was still not completely playing ball.  And then I remembered - rain is great for settling down the gravel - leet's go riding!

I geared up and left in some very light drizzle which soon vanished as I headed up the valley.  I took the same route through Pohangina as I had on Sunday, but I must say, the T7 handles better than a WR with a blown fork seal.

Cruising on a seal section, I came across a crapload (and this is the correct term) of cattle all over the road.  There was no farmer or dog in charge so I'm pretty sure they must have opened the gate and escaped all by themselves.  They took a bit of passing too, with mums and the calves all worried by the red and white noisy thing.

Eventually I made Apiti and then carried on around the Manawatu Scenic route, following the same path we'd taken last Saturday (yep, still that unmarked new seal present) but dropping down to the first one lane bridge, I decided to investigate the access road down into the river.

Next up after my little offroad excursion was a stop to finally checkout the Ruahine Dress Circle Reserve - this time up close in personal.

While I was there it started to spit a little and I even got caught in a short light shower as I carried on towards Mangaweka.

In Mangaweka there was an important stop to make.

And then there was time for some sight-seeing to get more photos for various AdvRider threads.

A short bit of SH1 got me to the turn-off just North of Ohingaiti as I turned back towards the hills.  On Mangamako Road I ran into my second herd of cattle on the road again.  At least this time they were accompanied by a farmer in his ute and there wasn't so many.

The next wildlife encounter was with the most beautiful fawn - it was a gorgeous brown with more rusty/golden colouring showing through the brown in places.  This time it kept to its paddock but ran along the length of the fence trying to escape from weird looking noisy thing.

My next stop was at the top of the hill on Waipuru Road where the logging is well and truly finished and the new pines look like they're doing ok.

Carrying on, my pace was fairly sedate, and I was enjoying just puttering along and enjoying the scenery.  The next turn took my up Upper Pakihikura Road and might have increase my puttering speed on one bit of the hill climb.

By the time I crossed over to Kiwitea, the fuel gauge had been sitting on one bar for a while and a sensible person may have kissed the gravel goodbye and slabbed it back into Feilding for some juice, but I was having fun...

On Coulter Line, I decided to head offroad again to check out what was an "interesting" track down into the river.  It was only once I got home that I discovered that I'd visited the same waterway twice in the ride.

Yeah, that looks like a place where you could ford the river if you were brave...

Just around that corner are some decent ruts, mud and puddles...

And, of course, after taking that last photo, the fuel gauge started flashing at me.  I did some rough calculations based on where I thought I was and my knowledge of how far I can go with the alarm up and decided to carry on the way I was going rather than double back to Feilding.

I was soon up on Ridge Road and a little unsure of exactly how far I was from home but eventually I spied Finnis Road and ducked down it to skedaddle home.  Unusually, I had to dodge a quad and a light truck as well as pass two cars on Finnis Road where there definitely is no passing lanes...

In the end the T7 didn't let me down and I only ended up doing less than 30km with the gauge yelling at me (I think it will probably do at least 70 but I'm not sure if that applies to the Acerbis tank) but did encounter more light rain on the last few km to home.

Nice to get a wee gravel ride in.  It looks like I did around 200km in about four hours.

Teaser

Well, not really, but it is a little story from the TT...

On the Thursday night before the TT, Glen and I wandered into town to meet up with some of the other TT riders at a local pub for drinks and dinner.

On our way we bumped into Chris and Julian parked up at a different pub so stopped to say hello to them.  While listening to some of their mad IBA stories and plans I hear a delightful sound approaching us.

I thought, "that sounds nice", and turned to see what was coming up the street.  Ah, I nice red VTR, just like my old one...

As it went past, I noticed tinted front screen and the Two Bros mufflers (they can set off car alarms not you know), which definitely started ringing some bells.  Could it be?

And then, of course there was the number plate - that clinched it.  My old girl was in Greymouth.  But why?

A bit later, Glen and I wandered off to find the pub where were all meeting and stumbled across the VTR parked outside another pub (there appears to be a lot of pubs in Greymouth).  The fact that it was outside the "wrong" pub made me wonder if the bike was not here for the TT or had found its way into the hands of a Coaster.

I had to grab a few pics.

Fast forward to Friday and after registering at the TT HQ, Glen and I had plenty of time to wander around looking at bikes and chatting to others.  Then I heard that sound again...the old girl was off on a wee 2,000km ride then.

This time I was able to catch up with the rider who had bought the bike in the 'naki where I had sold it to, and it had somewhere in the mid 50kms on it - I sold it in 2011 with around 32k on it.  It looks like the current owner might be planning to put a few more kms on it than it's done in the last 14 years..

Glen and I finished the TT pretty early in the morning (9am) and only hung around for about an hour and I didn't get to hear the old girl again, but I hope she got the job done and the owner had a good ride visiting a lot of gas stations...

Fond memories...

Sunday's seal saga

On Sunday I had a hankering for a ride - after all, it had been nearly 24 hours since the last one...

And I needed a taste of gravel.  Initially, I had visions of spraying gravel around on the T7 but I changed my mind on entering the shed and see a poor wee WR gathering dust.

The bike hadn't been fired up in a few months but as usual, you wouldn't have guessed that as it fired up when my finger got in the vicinity of the go button.  Putting some air in the tyres and 15 bucks of super was all the bike needed to be ready for adventure.

The spanner in my ointment (I'm sure that's the correct metaphor) didn't rear its ugly head until I hauled on the anchors riding into a fairly corrugated corner on Pohangina Road and had the front end compress 3 or 4 times more than usual and the bike shorten up and want to head straight ahead instead of slowing gracefully before attacking the corner as usual.  Hmmmm...I was starting to think that there was something slightly amiss.

Slowing up from the normal triple (at least) digit speeds, I trundled on until I came off the gravel just before the Coal Creek bridge.

Behold, that mightiest of mouses!

Having had a tiny inkling of the potential problem, it didn't take me long to find my proof.

Bummer, and I was really enjoying the ride too!

I decided to carry on a bit further but shelved plans on an exploration of a road I'd noticed on Saturday.  

The leaky fork seal definitely affected the handling on descents or anywhere where some brakes were required, and I started to get an idea of what riding a harley must feel like, although I'm sure it wasn't that bad, and the engine performance was still adequate...

In the end, I turned around once I hit seal again at the little one lane bridge on Makoura Road and made my way back home the same way (maximum gravel).

A great ride on the little bike and now I've got to revisit changing a fork seal.  I must have done an ok job last time as it's the other one that's gone this time.  We'll see how this one goes...

Saturday's Saunter

As we hadn't been riding in an age, we brought forward or normal Sunday ride to Saturday.  Once again it was Colin and Dayal who rolled up here for a quick coffee and the usual detailed ride planning we always do...

From Ashhurst we followed the Manawatu Scenic route through to Apiti, dodging plenty of new seal - some sign-posted and some not.  Shortly the signs will be removed, and we'll have years of slithering around on the unswept metal - ask me how I know...

Taking a break from slithering around (give me a gravel road any day), we stopped at the viewing deck above the Ruahine Dress Circle Reserve for a few pics.

From here we carried on to Taihape via our usual back roads and stopped in for a sausage roll and to continue that in-depth ride planning session.

The results of the planning session eventually had us deciding on a trip down the Whanganui River Road.  This meant a short stretch up SH1 and across to Ohakune where a certain tiger gulped down $81 of fuel and I believe another sausage roll was inhaled by someone.

Next up was Raetihi and then we were finally onto the River Road which Dayal had not ridden before.  We soon had him working both sides of his tyres as we tackled twisty after twisty.

By Matahiwi it was time for a cold drink.

More curvy, winding roads got us to our final photo op at the last lookout before you drop back down to SH4.

The usual Okoia-Fordell short-cut avoided Whanganui and after a fuel stop for another Tiger in Turakina, it was time to say cheerio to the other two as they took off South and I made for home.