So, I had a late night on Friday night as I kept an eye on Chris, Stella and Bill finished off an epic eleven days of riding with Chris and Stella successfully finishing their second IBR.
(These pics of the ride finish are stolen from an album provided by a nice bloke who shared them with the world - cheers!)
And not only did they complete the ride, but they achieved a Gold Medal finish by riding 11,437 miles and not missing any of their bonuses. This included visiting 42 State capitals (compulsory with the ride option they chose) which they had to somehow work into their route....
Today, I along with a few others got to chat with team FA-FO and hear a little about the ride and it was good to see and hear from them after they'd caught up on a wee bit of sleep as they make their way back Bills place to park up the Connie.
Oh, and here's an interesting looking tyre with 13,500 miles on it...
Anyway, another great achievement for the guys and I'm looking forward to catching up with them when they land back in NZ.
I'm not quite sure how it happened but I'm pretty sure a bad influence (perhaps more than one) who may or may not be in the picture above could have been involved. So now I have something more dangerous in my shed than the RMX - which now has to go, so let me know if you want a fantastic little 450...
You probably have seen the odd blog where I've chased quads around on the 450 and I guess the idea now is to have a similar tool. The RMX is outstanding fun but a struggle in the really slow and snotty bits. It's hard to ride slow enough when following quads in the tight stuff (it needs more pace to momentum and also can get a bit hot under the collar) and on really slippery clay (amongst the pines for instance), it is hard to stay on/pick up/get rolling again for an old fart. Open stuff is more it's forte and it can generally smoke any quad in the right conditions.
Anyway, a 2015 Suzuki Kingquad 500 AXI and currently in bits in the shed (that's for another blog). It comes with 4WD Hi/low with front dif lock and a brilliant CVT trans. She's in pretty good nick and once I sort out the current issue, she'll be great.
And of course, it's needed some farkles:
Good for at least an extra 10 km/h
I picked up the bars (2nd hand from a wrecker) as the plastics are actually in pretty good condition and I want to try and keep them in reasonable shape. Following certain others, I've noticed trees and banks reaching out and rubbing on things.
So, I just need to sort my wee issue out, fit the mascot (yep, found something suitable on Temu), add a few stickers (damn you Temu) and come up with a name for it...
Friday was a public holiday here and to properly celebrate things like days off we are duty bound to hit the road for a wee pootle.
The day started off a wee bit cool and Colin and Dayal even got a splash of rain on their way up to my place while I stayed pretty dry on the couch twiddling my thumbs...
Coffees dealt to, it was time to get the wheels rolling and to try out our new road crossing the hill to the Hawkes Bay.
Actually, the road is really for cars, trucks, motorhomes and anyone else who holds us up on the road. It's a nice road but now us riders can reclaim the Saddle and the Track 😜
After the excitement of a new motorway (at least there are some nice views) we cruised on up the main drag and then SH50 to Taradale with the weather getting better the further North we went. It was nice to enjoy some of the nice bits of 50 in the dry.
In Taradale, we were disappointed with both the bakery we stopped at last time (and liked) and the roast shop being shut so had to try out a new cafe. We won't need to try the cafe again...
Leaving Taradale, I took a wrong turn which got us further into Napier instead of on the main road to Clive at Awatoto as I'd planned in my head and we got stuck in some pathetically slow (60-70km/h) in the 100km/h road to Clive. The ute holding us up didn't even want to pull over in the slow vehicle lane when we got to it - he got a dose of my air-horn and spots...
In Clive, we turned towards Haumoana and my memory proved slightly better with me finding Tuki Tuki Road about thirty years since I'd last ridden it. It's a mint wee road with some nice corners on it and eventually got us onto the truly magnificent Kahuranaki Road which was definitely truly magnificent!
In Waipawa we turned onto SH2 through to Waipuk before taking our usual back roads to Dannevirke where we stopped for fuel (I'd last filled up in Waipuk on our previous ride - I love big tanks).
To finish the ride, we had planned on back roads through towards Woodville and then to reclaim the Saddle but, leaving Dannevirke we rode into some rain so I flagged the backroads. Riding out of Woodville it looked fairly damp over the Saddle so I decided to gap it over the new road again. Apparently, my decision went down ok with the lads.
At the flash new roundabout, the others went left while I went straight through and was home in a couple of minutes. Not a bad little ride that ended better for us than the guy at about 2:45 in the video...
The 2025 Iron Butt Rally started just over 12 hours ago and once again Chris and Stella are over there giving it another nudge.
This year they have entered with one of their mates from the states (how poetic) as Team FAFO. I'm not sure what the difference is if entering as a team - probably all need to finish to get finishers status. Maybe I should read the rules.
Anyone, here's a video of the ride start. See if you can find the mighty Connie:
Spot them? Oh well, here they are - at about the 1:34 mark. Yes, I stole a screen grab.
The ride started in Iowa and you can see how much everyone has spread out in just 12 hours on this Spotwalla page. They really do cover the ground I'd say every state except Hawaii will get a visit by someone. Canda probably isn't off limits either.
If you're interested there is plenty of stuff on the net and daily write-ups are available on the IBA website.
