Takaka Hill

I've started the onerous process of editing some of the video I shot on the TT2000 and here is the first three. They make up a fair portion of the Takaka Hill - 28km of corners and by the time we got to this part of the ride we already had about 900kms under our belts for the day. It's a great ride and certainly wakes you up!

Apologies in advance for the music - I was having trouble previewing when using Audioswap and so just picked some at random...

TT2000

Well, I'm back from the TT2000 and what a great time I had. Brian and I covered just over 5,000km and really only had 2 days of bad weather. The TT itself was great fun with 1,000km days pretty easy to cover in the South Island. The rest of the trip was also a lot of fun with plenty of miles to ride and some great sights to see.

I'll be doing a decent write-up for the website and also uploading some videos at some stage but in the meantime here are the pics:

Or click here to go to slightly bigger versions

Camouflage?

The standard muffler on the Connie has always drawn criticism for it’s size and design – the one ugly feature of the bike.  Most owners rectify this by immediately fitting an aftermarket muffler.  I haven’t wanted to go this route as I quite enjoy the fact that the Connie is a quiet bike (as opposed to the Honda which is a yeller), especially when on a long trip.

A few of the guys on the Concours forum have experimented with painting the aluminium end cap and heat shield in various shades of black and I quite liked the look.  So when Brian offered me the end cap and shield off his muffler (he’s fitted a stainless pipe) I jumped at it and took them in to get powder coated.  And below is the result – I think it looks quite good and perhaps make the muffler look a little smaller.

More noise

Sick of the feeble standard horn on the Connie I’ve now installed a Stebel to strike fear into the hearts of dodgy motorists!  It took a little bit of doing but with the help of my old man we finally got it wired up correctly and the sound is most pleasing.  Now I’m tooting like crazy!

Friday night ride 12-02-10

After two weeks of recovering from throwing my poor little Honda down the road it was time to get out and do another Friday night ride.

At the usual time I met up with probably 6 or seven others at Ashhurst and after the usual about of crap talk we had to settle down and decide where we were heading.  We finally settled on the Saddle, Topgrass Road, Oringi, Hopelands and then back to Ashhurst.

I led off over the Saddle with a snarling GSX-R600 (no muffler) behind me and had a great run although there were a few dampish corners and others with loose metal on them.  After a brief re-group Al led us off along the ranges.  Riding up one small hill we came upon a lot of unmarked and nearly invisible new seal.  It was difficult to see as the road was also slightly damp and after having a wee moment Al actually pulled over to see if he had a puncture.  After a bit of cursing at the idiots who had done the resealing but not left signs out or swept the road we carried on.

I led again and missed one crucial turn but we still ended up at Oringi and onto the very nice ride through Jacksons Road.  After another quick regroup we followed Al again as he took as through Hopelands.  Riding through here we had to put up with a couple of showers but the ride was still enjoyable.

A short ride through to Woodville and then through the gorge to Ashhurst and the ride was done.  At the pub I caught up with a few more of the others before calling it a night and heading home.