2024 NI800

Went for a nice wee ride in the weekend.  Read all about it here: https://banditrider.weebly.com/2024-ni800.html

2023 NI800 Part 2

Ok, it's been a while since the first NI800 Post and there's a reason for this.

Following our burgers we climbed back into our wet gear and headed back out into the night.to carry on South.  Glen got away on us as apparently his fire needed some company so Colin, Brett and I let him clear the path for us 🚓.

As we pottered through Taihape, I noticed that Glen had only just beaten us as I spotted him getting off his Tenere to open up his garage.  We pulled into the BP for some gas and to say see ya to Brett as he was heading all the way down SH1 while Colin and I made a beeline for my place so I could swap bikes and grab some more gear before carrying onto Colin's place - early ferry in the morning.

Here's where things go a bit wonky...

Colin and I had a good trip down but when we got to the SH1 turn-off South of Levin we were confronted with lots of flashing lights and a cop stopping us to warn of a bike accident and to take it easy.  As we turned the corner I even spotted a bike parked off the side of the road.

Fast forward to the next day and Colin had learned some bad news.  Yes, the rider was Brett.

He had been cruising quietly home at the 80km/h speed limit when a car turned in front of him.  His only memory is something green and then waking up in the ambulance so whether he even saw the car is unknown.

What is known is that the driver was tired (it was probably around 10:30pm) and she was driving to Hawkes Bay.  And of course, she didn't see Brett...

She is now facing a dangerous driving causing serious injury charge but she's lucky.

Thankfully, Brett had some luck on his side and is still with us (and is acting pretty positive giving his circumstances) but he is now facing month's of rehabilitation due to some fairly serious injuries.  But still, it sucks to be him and he shouldn't be where he is right now - a moment's lack of concentration from the driver is all it took.

Obviously this was not the way we wanted the 800 to finish for us and while Brett was in hospital we were heading South again for more fun on two wheels.  ☹️

10/12/2023

I started the above post a few weeks back but have been hesitant to post it as it isn't nice subject matter and I might still have been fuming over the drivers actions.

I'm still fuming over the drivers actions but have had some messages and a chat with Brett.  He is still in very good spirits considering and went home about a week ago.  But, he's still got months of healing and rehab to go.  At least he's looking at bikes on Trademe...

Look for bikes!

2023 NI800

The weekend before last, Colin and I kicked off a decent bit of motorcycle therapy by taking on the New Zealand Distance Riders North Island 800 (800km in 12hrs).  We even managed to convince Brett, Glen and John to join us.  Unfortunately John had to pull after catching some dodgy Ozzie virus...

For us, our adventure started with getting up to the ride start in Ohakune.  After a morning of getting things sorted at home and loading up both the Connie and the Super Ten, I pottered over to Sanson to meet up with Colin and Brett.

Now we just had to decide how to get to Ohakune.  It turned out that a trip up the Parapara's was just the ticket and we had a great ride up before making our way to ride HQ and bike scrutineering.  Naturally the Connie whistled through, after all, she is barely run in.

Important start km photo

Then we finally had the chance to have a quick catch up with Chris and Stella but unfortunately didn't have enough time to have a really good chat about their Iron Butt Rally trip - oh well, we should see them again in February at the TT...

After finding our digs and dumping some gear, we popped out for dinner before heading back to ride HQ for the route unveiling.  The Paras ended up being on the menu...

Back at our motel, the route was sorted and loaded onto GPS's and then it was time for some shut-eye.

Next morning saw us hunting down a decent brekkie in town (with about 100 other riders) before lining up to start.

Our team, Brett hiding behind Glen

Chris and Luke

Stella giving us a wave

The Goldwing boys

Colin, me and some nutters!

One of Chris's Connies 😜

Long distance farkles galore

Super Twisty 1600 start

This year, along with the NI800, there were 2 NI1600's being run - a "standard" 1600km in 24hrs and a "Super Twisty 1600" which was designed to offer a little bit more of a challenge...Naturally, Luke, Chris and Stella were starters for this...They got away about 30 minutes before us.

After watching five other groups leave before us, we were finally let off the chain at about 9:15 and left Ohakune with a few spits of rain chasing us out of town.  About 10-15km South of Raetihi these spits of rain went elsewhere and we ended up on a nice dry run down the Para's to the first checkpoint in Whanganui.

No need for fuel, engine running, quick stop and gone...

You'll notice in the above pic that some clever person is in his fluro wet-weather gear.  He obviously knew something...Not far North of Whanganui we rode into the rain.  And then it got wetter.  This wetness was then followed by gusty wind and even more rain.  And then a bit more rain and wind.  Overall, a lot of wetness - with wind.

North of Hawera on the Coast road, it seemed to get even worse and it was interesting fun trying to maintain a decent pace while avoiding some of the massively slippery bits of shiny tar.  Here's a we sample of some of the conditions.

A bit more splishing and splashing got us to CP2 at Rahotu where we all agreed that it was a tad damp.

More of the same weather chased us up the island to our first fuel stop at Oakura where I also bought some lozenges for a sore throat that I was working on - not ideal.

The next leg was a reasonable hop up to Te Kuiti and it featured a whole lot more rain and yet more slipperyness.  We still made reasonable time but did I mention that it was wet?

Check out the lovely blue skies...

Leaving Te Kuiti we had to make our way through a few sections of road works and new seal but eventually the rain eased off and the road out to CP3 at Raglan was even dry on places.  Nice, cos that bit of road is not too shabby 😜

Unfortunately, we now had to turn around and do the Raglan road again 😜.  This may have put a wee smile on our dials and check the video for some of the action 😜.

Eventually the fun had to end and we rain into our old friend "torrential rain" again somewhere North of Te Kuiti.  Oh, what fun...

The ride from 8 mile junction to Taumarunui was particularly memorable.  Talk about rain Trev, talk about slippery Trev.  This is normally a magic ride but this time around it was a real grind and it seemed to take forever to make it to Taumarunui.

From there, it was a slightly nice ride South to Ohakune as the rain eased off a tad.  We touched down at the finish at around 18:50, wet and ready for our burgers before heading back out into it...

2022 NI800

 Yes, I've been riding.  Finally there is proof:

http://banditrider.weebly.com/2022-ni800.html

NI800 write-up

 Last weekend's fun little endurance ride: 2021 NI800

The Hard men's stories

 Finally Chris has finished his write-up of his epic trip around the Top paddock and Julian was also good enough to write about his lap of the bottom paddock.

Both are great reads and Chris's has some good video as well as some of his planning tips.  Well worth a read.

Here are the links:

Riding the Bottom Paddock

Ride around the Top Paddock

Oh, and Julian has made it into Bike Rider Magazine for his efforts - I may need to grab a copy!

Hard men

If you've been paying attention, you would have seen this post a wee while ago about Julian completing an epic 3,015km lap of the South Island in a touch under 48 hours.  Well, last week he went out and did it again - more on that shortly...

A couple of days after that wee scoot Chris leapt aboard his trusty Connie and rattled of a quick lap of the North Island.  He managed 3,367km in 46.5 hours - epic!  I'll post a link to his ride report when he gets around to finishing it - no pressure Chris...

So, we have two hard men out cutting some laps around our wee islands.  Why?

Well, as Chris explains it here, he, (with a little help from his friends) have managed to get three new New Zealand based IBA rides (the 3rd being a special award for someone who as completed both of the paddock runs) approved by the IBA, and someone had to prove that they could be done.

And that's why Julian went out and rode another 3,048kms (with about 4hrs to spare) last week as the weather on his previous ride prevented him from actually completing the bottom paddock (he was unable to finish where he started from).  Rules are rules I 'spose and Julian appears to like spending quite a bit of time on his Indian.  That's his Indian pictured below in an IBA line-up (Julian wanted a photo of all the IBA plates) at the NI800/NI1600 last year - he did both rides one after another that weekend...

Stella's R1, Chris's Connie, Luke's ZX-14, Julian's Indian and my old girl 😍

Stella & Chris - both IBA certified riders 💪
(Stella needs a special award for completing hers on the R1)

Hopefully Chris won't kill me, but I suspect that he has put an enormous lot of work in getting these rides approved by the IBA (thanks Chris!) - which now means that any mad sod can give them a whirl and get a flash certificate...

Congrats Chris and Julian - you guys really are crazy but maybe the crazy got you through those epic rides!  See ya soon!

Hard man

Earlier today a distance riding machine named Julian completed a SS3000K.  That's 3,000km in less than 48 hours!

He actually rode his mighty Indian 3,015km with 25 minutes to spare.  But what makes it even more awesome is that the South Island got hammered by bad weather towards the end of his ride.  There were roads closed, bridges washed away and all sorts of carnage.  Rumour has it that his mufflers were underwater at one stage and he was dodging fence posts as they floated by...

Yes, he is awesome!

2019 1KC

Early November always heralds the running of the NZDR 1KC - it's a 1,000km cruise that also happens to raise a little cash for Muscular Dystrophy - and it's also a favourite of mine.  The Connie seems to enjoy it too...

After the weather had just seemed to sort itself out a bit, it was a bit of a blow seeing a pretty rubbish forecast for the weekend.  Oh well, I was going anyway...

As per usual, the Palmy riders start early to arrive in the Hutt around when the Wellington riders are leaving.  For this sacrifice, we also get to finish in Palmy rather than Wellington while still ticking off 1,000km.

Unfortunately, James and Monie had to pull out with James' bike having a couple of leaky fork seals.  This left just one other local to join me for the ride down.  At least he had decent choice in bikes.

The "new" and the old.  Guess which has more kms on it...

As both Murray and I were early and nobody else was supposed to be joining us, we got away just before five.  The was a little early morning mist around Palmy but it wasn't too bad and by the time we hit Opiki it was pretty much gone.

The trip over the Paekok Hill was fun (even if there were a few damp patches) and I warmed up quite a bit for some reason - must have been my waterproof liners and the thin sweatshirt I was wearing...

We hit the ride HQ just before 6:30 and there wasn't a lot of action going on with most of the other riders already on the road.  Murray went in to use the facilities, while I got moving again in the futile hope that I might catch up with Colin somewhere...

I had a pretty good run over the 'takas, only getting held up a couple of times.  It was a little windy on the Eastern side but Featherston came up pretty quickly, soon to be followed by Greytown and Carterton.

In Masterton I stopped early for gas as there wasn't much gas to be had where I was heading (Pongaroa was an expensive option) and I hadn't filled since home.  I also took the opportunity to scoff down a pie while losing my jersey and fitting my tinted visor.

As I was leaving Murray went through so I tucked in behind him for the next section to Checkpoint One, a sign outside a sheep station.

My stop was a bit quicker than Murray's so I got away before him and enjoyed a nice romp up to CP2 at Alfredton.

Next up was a squirt over Pa Valley Road and then up Mangaone Valley towards Pahiatua.  But, instead of riding into town we had to cross over to Pahiatua-Pongaroa Road to CP3.  It was here that I first started catching some of the other riders - my quick photo stops letting me get away from a reasonably large group of other riders.

On towards Pongaroa, it was nice to be on dry roads through the Makuri Gorge and then up over the hill.  I managed to haul in another rider before Pongaroa and arrived at the checkpoint where another team were getting there CP4 photos.

I was stopped a bit longer here as nature had been calling for a while and you can only ignore it so long.  I got away shortly after the other guys but caught them cruising, just up the road a bit.

Once again, Route 52 out to the Weber road was a lot nicer in the dry and by turning left towards Dannevirke we were going to avoid the worst section of 52 to Wimbledon.  CP5 was just on the outskirts of Dannevirke.

Next up was a quiet pootle down SH2 to Woodville before hitting a busy and now quite slow Saddle Road.  In Ashhurst I once again stopped early for fuel and letting the 3 other guys I'd passed out of Pongaroa sneak past me - for a while...

North of Kimbolton there was a few spits of rain and the road was even a little greasy in places.  There was also some mobile hazards coming the other way - a charity ride out of Taihape was rolling through and they had a pretty good turnout.  I even snapped a picture of Glen going past on his WR450...

Trust me, he's in the pic...

CP6 - Pemberton Historic place

From Pemberton it was off to SH1 for a while to Marton before making for the 'naki.  By now it was fairly warm (especially in Whanganui) and there was a bit more traffic to deal with.  However, the further North I rode the darker the skies got.  I eventually ran into some light rain at Stratford and the road was quite wet through to Inglewood.

Luckily it dried up not long after just as I caught John and Steve at CP7.

My fuel light had come on just South of Inglewood so New Plymouth was my next stop where I sorted the fuel out and answered another call.  Funnily enough, I'd got hungry along the way but by the time I stopped the worms had given up biting so I just carried on around the mountain.

CP8

At the last checkpoint I caught John and Steve again and was quicker at my stop so snuck away ahead of them for the trip home.

They caught me up fairly quickly just South of Opunake when we all caught up to a slower, unpassable driver.  It was an ever so slightly slower trip stuck behind him to Mania.

The other two pretty much sat behind me for the rest of the trip South (through an even hotter Whanganui) until Sanson where they turned off onto SH1 for their trip back to Wellywood.  Quarter of an hour later and I was home having a cold drink and finally something to eat.

Another great day out on the old girl and a reasonably good time for my 1,030km.  Even better that the forecasted thunderstorms waited until Sunday to hit - good stuff!

NI800 Write-up

Finally finished my write-up.  It's here on my website.

2018 1KC

This Saturday there was a pretty decent excuse for a wee ride - the NZDR's 1KC.  That's a quick 1,000km jaunt around the North Island that John runs to raise some funds for Muscular Dystrophy - nice to help out a good cause while getting in a little fun.

In the lead up to the ride I'd been tossing up on which bike to take as the Connie had just had a decent run and the Tenere has been missing out.  I ended up registering to ride the Connie and taking the Tenere...

There was also a few other reasons to take the Tenere:

• I need to get the last few km out of the current tyres as I have a new set ready to go for the TT.
• I had half a tank of gas and that would get me to Upper Hutt and mean I was on a 3 fill ride - less stops.
• Glen decided to come along, so I thought the photos would look good with 2 Tenere's in them...

Anyway, back to action.  As per normal, we start earlier in Palmy and ride down to the Wellington start with those kms helping make up our 1,000km total (all the Welly riders have to come back down the West Coast anyway so we pretty much ride exactly the same route).

So after a reasonable sleep (I can't complain as Glen had to get up a fair bit earlier to ride from Taihape to Palmy), I got up just before 4am (alarm set for 4:10), had a quick brekkie and was forced to put on my wet weather gear...

At the local BP I met up with a few of the other riders from Palmy and chatted while waiting for Glen.  While there some idiot Tenere rider discovered that they were missing their wallet and had to zap home to pick it up off the driveway...

First and last piccy with only 1 Tenere

After this wee faux pas, we were a bit late getting away (probably about 20 minutes) but headed off as a group of 5 on wet roads and the odd bit of drizzle.

The ride down was pretty uneventful and there wasn't too much rain but it meant that we were probably some of the last riders to arrive at the official ride start.  We quickly gassed up and signed on.

Count 'em!

Somehow we'd arrived before the other 3 Palmy chaps and then got away just as they were arriving.  The ride up over the hill consisted of more wet roads, rain, fog, idiot car drivers and a B-train that had us down to 20km/h at times...

After the 'takas we settled into cruise mode, riding up SH2 to Masterton and then to the first checkpoint at Mauriceville.

The weather was definitely trying to improve with only the occasional rain and drying roads as we took Dreyers Rock Road over to Route 52.

Route 52 got us to Alfredton where we turned off onto Pa Valley Road to take us to the next CP at the corner of Estcort Road.

More familiar roads took the Teneres out to Pahiatua and then over the track to CP3 at Aokautere School where Glen did a quick check of his bike for pukeko feathers...

The next leg took us further North up over Vinegar Hill and then SH1 into Taihape for our first fuels stop.  We both had a quick drink and bite to eat before losing our wet weather gear - the day was definitely on the improve.

Fueled up, we carried on up to Turangi and then took a right at Kuratau to take us to Whakamaru and up past the Waipapa dam.

The next CP was one from a past NI1600 and to get to it required ignoring the Zumo's instruction to ride through a paddock and instead take a great little winding road through to Ngaroma.

Leaving Ngaroma there were more nifty back roads that needed to be ridden...

Back roads meant plenty of interesting turns to take and after nearly overshooting one turn we got onto Barber Road which took us to the next CP.  This one had been a bit tricky to nail down for a GPS coordinate but I needn't have worried - there was a welcoming party waiting for us.

The next CP was another one pinched from the same NI1600 and last time around I was in a group that road right past it and had to do a "few" extra kms to find it.  This time around I'd nailed it on the GPS route and also noticed the slight widening in the road at the Rangitoto Hall.

Cruising past the Rangitoto School we noticed a couple of riders parked up.  They gave us a wave and I just assumed that they'd missed the CP - they were exactly where I'd got to on the NI1600 before having to turn around...

Just up the road from Rangitoto was Te Kuiti where it was time for more fuel and a really big cold drink while another layer was lost.  Two sheepish riders rolled up while we were getting ready to leave and confirmed that the Rangitoto Hall is easy to miss...

The next leg was a pootle across to Taumarunui where we both managed to dodge a car that decided to stop right in front of us with no warning (Glen reckoned Mum was yelling at Dad) and then a cruise down to Raetihi before taking on the Paraparas :)

BTW: we were being very good boys...

Really, we were!

The final checkpoint was at Upo where we were forced to park near some dirty old KLR's...

The last leg of course, was to get me home.  We had a quick stop at Fordell where I said toodle-loo to Glen who had to make his way home via some disgustingly neat roads to Hunterville on then on to Taihape - he ended up with just under 1,200km for the day. Not enough for him to miss out on a Sunday ride too apparently...

I was home just after 5, so happy with the pretty easy 12 hour time.  The Tenere seemed pretty happy with itself but the damn tyres still look good - the front now has 18,600km on it...

Great ride!