Friday night ride goes wrong

Okay, so it was over a month ago so I can talk about it now without getting to annoyed…

I had a great Friday night ride with the guys.  We’d had a blast doing the Apiti Loop in pretty short time before finishing up at the Ashhurst Pub for refreshments.  Enjoyed the relaxing for a while but eventually decided it was time to head home.

Supersonic and I fired up our bikes and took off.  As per usual when I the Honda I popped a little wheelie and landed it reasonably ok but then my trouble started.  It had been quite a hot day and as I was braking for the turn onto the main road my front tyre came into contact with some hot tar.

The next thing I know is that I’ve lowsided and am sliding down the road watching the Honda do the same.  As I was sliding down the road I can remember thinking: damn metal on the road!  Luckily I was not going that fast and didn’t really hurt myself so I was up in no time running over to check the bike.

The Honda had landed pretty hard on it’s left hand side and with various bits bent and broken was going nowhere – damn!    Supersonic pulled up and came over to see if I was ok and find out what had happened.  It was him that discovered that it wasn’t metal on the road when he spotted skid-marks in the hot tar – unbelievable, it was 9 o’clock at night!

Anyway, after a fair bit of nutting off at myself for being so stupid to fall off, I got myself sorted and pushed the bike back to Meanie’s and then the pub to share my tale of woe.  Later on Meanie and Sarge helped my load the bike onto Meanie’s ute and get it home – very much appreciated guys!

I ended up with a decent bruise on my thigh and a very sore thumb but otherwise pretty much unscathed – even went to the AC/DC concert the next night.  My gear did it’s job and my Spidi pants are now toast and my old Nazran jacket has a torn sleeve.  My helmet never hit the ground so it’s ok and my Alpinestars gloves will live to see another day.

As for the bike, there is as I said quite a lot of damage to it but luckily it has not been written off and is in the process of being nailed back together.

All in all, not a very good Friday night ride and not the sort of thing I want to repeat…

Ohakune and thereabouts 20-02-10

Yet another fabulous Saturday and after walking the dog it was time to get the Connie out of the shed.  Brian had been wanting to go for a bit of a decent ride prior to getting his bike serviced for the TT2000 so after a bit of humming and harring we decided on hitting the Parapara’s and Fields track.

We left Palmy just after 10am and made our way to Halcombe via Mt Stewart.  From Halcombe we made our way to Marton and then took the same fantastic back roads that Mark & I had ridden in the rain a few weeks earlier to Wanganui.  This time around the roads were dry and a lot of fun.  We also had great timing as we went past some farmers just as they were about to bring some cattle out onto the road – any later and we would have been stuck somewhere in the middle of the herd.

In Wanganui we stopped for gas before attacking the Parapara’s.  Once again the Para’s were in great nick and we had a lovely ride through to the Feilds Track turn-off.  The only downer was having to stop for roadworks a couple of times.

Fields track was fantastic as well.  I haven’t ridden it very often in the direction we took (northerly) but it was great winding our way up the hill and enjoying the great views on offer.  Added to this was the lack of traffic – we did not see another car until we were nearly back onto SH49.  Also absent was stock on the road and there was not too many issues with gravel across the road.

At the main road we turned left and pottled on to Ohakune where we stopped and had a nice steak sandwich before deciding to ride up to the ski field.  Unfortunately they were working on the road so we could not make it all the way up but we were able to stop and get a quick view of the mountain before turning around and riding back to Ohakune.

Now it was decision time again and because we’d enjoyed the Para’s so much on the way up we decided to give them a second go.  As it turned out they were just as good the second time around with the only issue being a mob of sheep being moved along the road – after a five minute hold-up we powering off up the road again.

Nearing Wanganui we turned off on a detour which meant that we didn’t have to go into Wanganui and came out on the Fordell road.  This was actually quite a nice ride and had two particularly good sweepers on it which will need to be revisited again at some stage.

From Fordell we took the back roads all the way through to Hunterville.  The ride was hardly uneventful with plenty of wildlife to avoid along the way – Brian had a very close call with a couple of sheep, then there were turkeys and even a bloodhound (eating some roadkill) to avoid!

Never the less we made it to Hunterville all in one piece and after a bit of discussion decided that we probably had enough fuel to get home via Vinegar Hill.  So off we went.  After a bit of spirited riding over the Hill my fuel light finally came on in Bunnythorpe – no problem though I made it home easily after clocking up another 350km on that tank of juice.

Another great day out on the bike with a ride of around 440kms all up – roll on the TT!

New Super Tenere

Loving the look of this beastie!

What's up?

I've been a bit slack in my blogging lately but I've actually got quite a bit to write-up when I get around to it. I've got the next 2 weeks off but will be away for about 10 days on the TT2000 so I'll have to try and get up to date before I go.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is the Apiti Scamper, a charity ride to raise funds for Ronald McDonald house so I'm looking forward to that (and that's another write-up I'm gonna have to do) and there's more preparations to be done before the TT.

More soon...

Off to the movies

Yep, went to the flicks today to see Avatar in 3D. The problem is - no 3D theater in Palmy so I had to go to Wellington to see it - damn!

Luckily the awful weather we've had over the weekend had decided to move on and I could take the bike down. So I geared up and stuck the luggage on (empty so I could stash my gear in it) and hit the road.

A pretty boring ride down until I hit the Paekok hill and then things got a lot better! What a great little piece of road - it makes all the pootling down SH1 worth it. Near enough to no traffic on the road and only a few damp patches to be wary of so I really sweet ride.

The movie was pretty damn fantastic too - the 3D and other visual effects were stunning and a pretty good story to boot. A new Star Wars...

After the movie I had a bit of a look at going home via the Rimutakas and Masterton but it looked a bit black over that way so I just had to do Paekok hill again - it's a tough life...

So another nice ride home in good weather - I could have just kept on riding...

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