The Wee Pootle

The day of the pootle finally arrived and after getting up early I jumped on the bike and headed down to meet the rest of the guys at BP Rangitikei. Waiting there was my old man (SV), his mate Goldie (CB1300S) and Steve (Twosup, 'Busa).

As we were missing a few bods and everyone other than me had already ridden nearly 200km we decided to abandon the full route and just see where the day took us.

We left Palmy just before 8am and headed out the back of Halcombe

and then Marton via some back roads to Wanganui. The weather was ok through here although the roads were quite wet in places.

Leaving Wanganui we hit the Paraparas and had a great ride through to National Park. The road was more often than dry and a great deal of care had to be taken as there were fresh slips to go along with the usual storm damage and stock. Quite chilly going through National Park too.

A quick top up for the bikes and we continued off up

to Tamarunui. We stopped here for an early lunch before heading back out of Tamarunui and up over Highway 41. Had a great ride over here as the weather had improved and the road was mostly dry. We turned off 41 onto 32 to head around the back of the lake. This is a great bit of road but we had a few drizzly patches and the roads were wet and slippery in places.

We took the Kinloch turnoff and wound our way onwards to Taupo. We stopped here for another quick pitstop before tackling the Napier-Taupo. And here's where things went a bit pear-shaped. Not long off the plains we came around a corner with a bit of steam on and there was a mufti-cop! Yep, you guessed it, he got me (TEC) while the others escaped. Great way to ruin a ride! My first ticket in 17 odd years...

After this I was separated from the rest of the guys and I only caught up to them when they became stuck in traffic. I quiet ride the rest of the way to Napier where we stopped in at the olds for a coffee before Steve and I headed back home via Highway 50.

Not a great end to the ride but otherwise it was a good day out on the bike with about 720km clocked up in preparation for the Grand Challenge.

More pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.l.thomson/130908AWeePootle#

SV1000S VS VTR1000F

Awesome - two weekends in a row I get

to try out different horses and compare them to the might VTR!  Dad only picked up his SV on Friday but was quite keen to take it for a run and meet me somewhere so I could have a little squirt.

I got on the SV at Porangahau Beach and road it back up Route 52 to Waipuk.  This is a primo ride with plenty of nice corners to throw a sportsbike at.

Getting on the SV, I noticed that the ride position is pretty similar to that of the VTR - the bars may be a little bit lower and also feel a little wider.  Seat comfort was a much of a muchness and weather protection was also similar - the standard screen of the SV was pretty good compared to the Givi one on the VTR.

Riding off and naturally you know it is V-twin - the same lumpy sort of power delivery although the motor seems to smooth out a bit more than the VTR once there's some revs on.  The fuel injection is very smooth and helps the quick response from engine even if in a high gear with not many revs on - to me this felt better than the VTR.  Once steaming along the bike feels very relaxed just like the VTR and it is easy to speed - the standard pipes are a bit louder than the VTR's but definitely not noisy.  As we were not riding hard and didn't try any top gear roll-on comparisons or anything it's hard to say which bike had more go (although the SV should win here), let's just say that the two twins offer similar performance and it's the kind that puts a big smile on the dial!

It took me quite a while to get used to the steering damper - especially in slower corners.  I haven't ridden a bike with one for a long time and you forget that you need to put in a bit more effort to get the bike through the corners.  I also felt (again because I'm not used to a damper) that it damped out some of the "feel" from the front wheel.  It was good however, in the bumpier corners where the VTR would have been a bit twitchier, the SV held it's line a bit better.  Dad had been playing with his suspension settings (softening them up) and it was in these bumpier corners where the bike felt a little soft in the rear.  The brakes were fine although I never had to use them hard.

Looks: well, the SV has a more modern look to it and is nice in black but they're pretty similar in that they both have minimal fairing's so that the motor can go on show.  The SV is perhaps the more aggressive looking and that probably fits as it is the "sportier" package of the two.  Twins are fun!

The beach & back

Being a nice fine Father's Day I thought it would be a good idea to go for a little potter and meet up with the old man so that I could check out his new bike properly. Chatting on the phone earlier in the morning we'd decided to meet in Waipukurau and then find some back roads.

View Larger Map

As the old man's new bike is an SV I had to take the Honda so that it could be a day out for the "twins". I left Palmy knowing that I was leaving earlier than Dad so I decided to take in some back roads rather than sticking to the boring old main road. First up was the Saddle and it is in good nick at the moment so it was a lot of fun heading up the hill until I got up into the mist. Luckily the mist wasn't that thick and I didn't have to ride by braille to get up to the lookout at the windmills. Quite neat seeing the windmills "stir" the fog.

From here it was more back roads into Danniverke and then another turn off at Matamau took me out through Ormondville to Takapau and finally to Waipuk where the old man had just arrived when I got there. A quick top up with gas and coffee and we headed off on Route 52 to Porangahau - a great piece of road.

At Porangahau we swapped bikes and pottered out to the beach before turning around and retracing our tracks to Waipuk - but this time trying out different steeds. Back in Waipuk we had some lunch and then headed South again. Dad turned off to Onga so he could enjoy Highway 50 back to Napier while I pottered across the plains.

After a quick stop in Woodville I took the Balance turn-off and headed home via the Pahiatua track. Nice little Sunday ride - and I've now clocked up over 1,200km on the VTR.

MotoGP Petition

Came across a link to this petition on Kiwi Biker. Supposedly someone is trying to get the MotoGP to Taupo. Pretty optimistic but if it happens I'm there!

Cruiser in Colorado

Not sure about all the riding on the wrong side of the road but it looks like a nice stretch of road: