Mousescapades

 The plan for Sunday had been to take two WR's up to National Park and try and hook up with a bunch of other ADVRiders but Chevvy's bike appears to have caught Covid (the only logical explanation as WR's are supposed to be bulletproof) so that plan was toast - there was a chance we wouldn't hook up with the other guys and I didn't want to tackle those routes solo.

So, I had to come up with another plan.  The mouse was fueled up and ready to rock so I decided that a gentle local meander was the order of the day.  I also new where the current tag was and it was easy to figure out a route to it that involved some gravel.  And that was the extent of my planning - what came after the tag was left until I actually found the tag...

My first bit of gravel was on Watershed Road and it had me thinking I'd forgotten how to ride on the stuff.  There was a reasonable amount of gravel on the road and it was hard underneath which made me think the front end was wandering all over the place - perhaps because it was...

Anyway, I managed to rein the little bike in a bit and we wobbled our way through to the seal of Valley Road before I continued chasing the bunnies off Zig Zag Road (ended up chasing the bunnies all day - me thinks they've been breeding like rabbits).

Finnis Road dropped me down into Pohangina and following a little bit of seal got me to the tag.

No bees were harmed in the writing of this blog

Carrying on along Pohangina Road I hit the gravel section that almost always is in magnificent condition for some enjoyable riding.  Today was no exception and I really wanted to wave my magic wand and swap to the Tenere for this bit - too bad, I couldn't but the WR gave her all...

At Utuwai I hung a left and carried on into Apiti for the below picture which ended up not being required...yes, I got beaten the tag (Owl must have just gone for a short ride as he bet me home by an hour).

Getting back on my trusty steed, I glanced at it's high-tech multi-function display and "lunchtime" was flashing on the screen.  Or perhaps the clock was saying 12ish...

Looking over at the pub I noticed a disappointment (pretty sure that's the collective noun for a bunch of hogs) of Harleys were stopped waiting for their support crew, so I decided that rather than generating a high level of Yamaha envy, I would embarrass them with a display of pure horsepower the likes of which they could only dream and skedaddled for Kimbolton...

In what seemed like mere minutes the Mouse clambered it's way up the hill to Kimbolton where I parked up next to a Ducati and a couple of 790's.

At least one quality machine in this photo

And on the other side of the road there was a line-up of some nice old cars along with a new old one.

Austin Powers in the house?

During lunch I was approached by the owners of the his and hers KTM's and we had a good chat about the riding available in the area.  They are pretty keen to get in some good training before they take on the Dusty Butt next year.  As you can imagine, we didn't have a lot to talk about...But, hopefully they'll join Colin and I on the odd ride in future.

After lunch I retraced my steps a little bit, heading North out of Kimbolton in search of more gravel.  I had Peep-O-day Road in the back of my mind and just had to find the right roads to take in order to find it.

In the end I tackled the gravel of McBeth Road, Levett Line, Beaconsfield Valley and Waituna Tapuae Roads before finally hitting the Peep-O-day Road turn-off and ignoring it to take Upper Pakihikura Road.  The riding was great and there were plenty of places for some good photo ops.  Peep-O-Day will still be there next time.

Interestingly, Upper Pakihikura Road came to an end at Lower Pakihikura Road and this pretty soon turned to a seal race track that got me out onto Vinegar Hill.

And boy, Vinegar Hill was an experience on the 250...But, nobody passed me 😉

A quick stop in Fielding to report into Dad and then some more high speed cruising had me home in time for afternoon smoko and the disappointment of missing out on the tag...At least one little WR got a beating little bit of exercise.

Hall hunting?

 I needed a ride today and had already decided that I wanted to take the Mouse out for a wee play on the gravel but I didn't really have any particular idea of where I wanted to go.  Best check out the Tagorama page then...

Phil had been up in our neck of the woods and dumped the tag over on some back roads between Woodville and Dannevirke.  Oh well, bound to be able to find some gravel over that way...

Now, because I did manage to nab the tag, I can't go into too much detail on my we route (Al might be watching), but suffice to say, some gravel was found both before and after the retrieval of Phil's tag.

I took the shortcut through the ditch, that's why I'm facing a different direction to Phil 😜

And of course, I got to post up the new tag:

So after finding Papatawa Hall, I got lost on the way to Toad Hall...

Its been a while...

Maybe not since I've been for a ride but definitely its been a while since the poor old Connie got out for a pootle.  What with our Covid lockdown and then a long wait for a new battery (thanks lockdown), I hadn't put fuel in the bike since January!  That's just plain inexcusable and now that I've looked that up I will have to go out and apologise to the poor wee girl.

Anyway, that battery was picked up on Friday and went in on Saturday, as did a new headlight bulb and some air.  She fired up straight away with her normal cam chain rattle but pretty quickly settled down to her normal purr...ahhhhhh.

The weather for the weekend was supposed to be pretty average with a lot of rain expected.  Here it didn't end up too bad, I got the lawns mowed on Saturday and after a lot of overnight rain, Sunday turned out quite sunny - so a ride was required!

Funnily enough, Colin was keen for a ride too and after a cuppa at my place we took off out to Kimbolton to pick up the tag dropped there by Phil.

Tag!

Back on the road we pointed the bikes towards Rangiwahia and after getting blown around a bit up on the tops soon were into more of the tighter, wetter, slipperier stuff.

Getting nearer to Mangaweka I decided to flick on the camera as I thought the road might get interesting.  On one side of the river the road is often "green" in winter and can be a bit dicey, on the other side there can be slips with mud and rocks across the road.  Yesterday, it wasn't too bad.

A quick stop just before Mangaweka got a new tag sorted (and it's since been reclaimed by Phil again).  I may have taken a picture or two here before...

From Mangaweka we rode carefully up SH1 to Taihape where we grabbed a late lunch and caught up with the local Tenere rider (Glen) as we hadn't seen him for a week...

We ended up hanging around in Taihape for a while so, after a quick top up, we just turned for home again rather than going further afield.

But, I was having trouble with SH1 again and didn't want to get in any more trouble so we turned off onto Toe toe road to take some more favourite back roads back onto Ruahine Road.

Having re-ridden that small section of Ruahine Road I was keen to take in the ride around Pohangina Valley for a bit more variety.  We even stopped at Eddie's bridge.

No ice on Eddie's bridge but plenty of ice grit...

The rest of the trip around the loop was pretty uneventful - except for a slide on some metal/crap and chasing a cow up the road and soon we were in Ashhurst where Colin went one way and me another.  So, just a short ride of around 250km but it was nice to get the old girl out - looking forward to a special ride on her soon...

Shake down tag

So after all the farkles were fitted, on Sunday I had to take the little WR for a short ride to test them out.

I didn't bother strapping the bags on but I did put an incredible 10L of fuel in the new tank before scooting off to nab the latest tag.

Well, that didn't take long...best have a little explore...

I decided that I at least needed a little taste of gravel so I went for a wander up Kahuterara Road to find the gravel of Greens Road.

Last time through here I was on the V-Strom and I was very naughty, sneaking only the walking/biking track back through to Turitea but this time around I behaved myself and turned around to retrace my steps and grab some photos.

There's some pretty nice views up there and it's less than 10 minutes from town.

After this short gravel diversion I ended up just heading home, trying to keep ahead of cars in the 100km/h zone - no  problem for the little blue powerhouse!

Oh, and at some stage I may have even chosen the new tag:

Quiet weekend

This past weekend I pretty much stayed around home doing chores and wasting time on the internet...

The Tenere sorely needs a run but it also needs a fork seal, this meant I missed out on an Adventure ride with Colin and the TSS crew. 

Sunday was actually a really nice day so I just had to do something.  I'd been given a bit of grief on the Tagorama thread - something about too much time farkling vs riding.  Not sure if this is quite true through but as I already had a picture of the Tenere at the site of the tag I decided that a stand-in was required.

The little bike is a lot of fun around town but I have to say, the knobblies are not that confidence inspiring on the road.  Gravel, mud and sand and they're mint, but not a lot of that sort of riding within the city limits...

But I did get to check out the new short-cut to work for my new tag.

Fabulous ride of almost 20km...so yeah, less than a litre of fuel...

Tag

Yep, yesterday Phil moved the tag and Owl announced that he was going to go get it today.  Well, we couldn't have that could we?

Gotcha!

KTM's are too slow to get up in the morning...

It was actually a really nice day for a wee pootle but in the end I didn't go that far at all to pick the new tag.

It's pretty tricky spot to find and if Owl doesn't get it this afternoon then it's bound to stay ungot for positively ages......

Yeah right...

Tagorama

Quick tag

And not much of a pootle so just a quick post...

Very warm out there and the wind sucked!

Old tag on Old West Road

New tag somewhere else...