Picasa Weirdness #3

And this one is a good one!  First the three (yes, three) original pics I took on Saturday's ride:

All taken with my pretty crappy (quality wise) little Fujifilm camera while I was sitting on an idling V-Strom.  Magic then happened to give me this:

Unfortunately Picasa will only let you see it a low resolution version but in the full sized version (4531 x 1200) I was able to download you can only just see the places where the pics were knitted together.  You can however see where it has cropped the pics height wise to line things up - pretty cool software and totally automatic if you have a Picasa account.

Castle Point and gravel

This morning Brian rang and said that he and Lloyd were heading for Castle Point for a ride and did I want to join them.  Dilemma - I had a new tyre on the Vee needing to be put to the test but Brian and Lloyd were road riding...

I put my thinking cap on and decided that with a careful choice of route I could go to Castle Point and take in some gravel to test the new rubber.  In the end I told Brian that I'd see him in Castle Point and then loaded the DL up.

The tyre took a wee bit of getting used to as I headed up over the track but I guess it was just that new tyre feeling as I settled into things fairly quickly.  For my first taste of gravel I took in Tararua Road and once again had to get used to riding on gravel again and on the new tyre.  I think the damn grader had been through at some stage as there seemed to be plenty of gravel to slip around on.

In Pahiatua I gassed up and then made for Alfredton.  It's all seal through here so I just cruised on down before stopping just out of Alfredton at the turn-off to Castle Hill Road.

Here I fiddled with the Go-Pro to see if I could get it to take piccys for me but after ten minutes I had absolutely no joy so turned everything off and started on my way through to Tinui.

Last time I came through here it was with the BRR team and the gravel had been graded leaving it very slippery.  Today it was a lot better and I really enjoyed the ride.  Another thing I noticed was the logging that had been going on - there were quite a few pine plantations that had just been harvested with logs lying awaiting pick-up and some serious hardware parked in paddocks.  Rather than take pics of this I tried to find something better to photograph.

Look!  A V-Strom!

In the end I discovered that it's only about 90km from Pahiatua to Castle Point so taking in a bit of gravel certainly gives you a good short cut.  This meant I wasn't surprised to find out that I'd beaten the other two there so went for a ride up to the car park for some more pics.

Serious boat trailer

Then it was back to the shop to park up and order some lunch while I waited for the guys.

About ten minutes later the guys turned up and we caught up over lunch before deciding on the route back.  Rather than retrace my steps I decided to ride with the guys as far as Eketahuna and then go in search of more gravel.

We had a good ride back towards Masterton and then turned off to take Route 52 up to Alfredton.  Brian and Lloyd missed the turn and as I didn't, I ended up getting away on them.  When I got to Alfredton I was really puzzled that they hadn't caught me up.  I waited about 5 minutes and then decided that they must have taken another turn-off further South and that they were probably wondering where I'd got to.  As I turned into the gas station at Eketahuna I found myself pulling in behind a certain bug-eyed Trumpy and VTR so my suspicions were confirmed...

Just out of Eketahuna I turned off the main road and straight onto more gravel to take me over closer to the ranges.  I had a great ride up Cliff, Quarry, Mangaroa, Mangaraupiu, Kakariki, Pukehoi and Kopikopiko Roads (even if the graders had been at work again) and got to take in some more great scenery.

Kopikopiko Road eventually got me back onto tar at Nikau Road and I settled in to cruise home for a well earned cold drink.  Fabulous day out on the big Vee!

Tyre works!

More pics here.

Friday Night Ride

The Connie and I managed to get along to the Friday night ride tonight for a wee pootle on some back roads to Feilding.

When I rolled up to Courtesy Suzuki there was already probably 20 bikes there and more kept coming in right up until the time we left.  I caught up with a few of the gang and then somehow managed to get lumbered with lead rider duties.  After a quick discussion on where we were going (I thought I had the route sorted) we all mounted up and made our way over towards Fielding.

I had the GoPro on but seeing as there was nobody in front of me I decided to set it to take pictures.  It then decided that it would take about 20 and then stop...

We managed to get a bit spread out on the way over due to traffic and I guess just the number of bikes so in a couple of places I slowed right up or stopped to make sure we hadn't lost anyone.  Once in Fielding we took Makino Road out past Stanway, back into Halcombe (I took the wrong road robbing us of a few kms of nice twisty roads) and finally back into Fielding for a drink and a chat.

A nice wee ride of about 70km.

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Vee Rubber

After 9,500km the rear Heindenau K60 is coming off the DL and going in the bin.  Here's what it looked like when new:

Very chunky

I bought the Heinies because I'd heard that for quite aggressive tyres they were supposed to wear very well.  When I first put them on I took things a bit easy on them wanting them to last but after a while I decided to just ride them like any other tyre.  This meant hammering them whether on tarmac or gravel.

A puncture I picked up while possibly running the pressure a bit low on rocky terrain

On road they've felt pretty good, on my first ride it was wet and they slithered around a bit until they got buffed up a bit and then they were fine.  On gravel they have been great except when in very deep stuff (with the centre ridge they tend to not sink in to give decent bite) and it takes a bit of a handful to get the rear sliding.  On one trip across North Range Road it was quite wet and the tyres handles the clay/mud in the big puddles up there pretty well - the rider was a bit nervous though...

Half gone

Looking at the wear on the tyre you can kinda tell that a 1,000cc V-twin does a bit of damage - most of the wear is in the centre of the tyre and even though the tyre has been to the edge there is still plenty of meat on the sides.

9,500km

If only the centre had lasted better...

Overall I'm reasonably happy with how the Heiny has gone (and the front is still going strong) as I have been hard on it but one negative is the cost.  I could get a PR2 for the Connie for the same money or less and get more km out it - the PR2 would probably not have been so good in the gravel though eh?

So the wheel is off and hopefully the guys at the shop are getting stuck into putting the new hoop on.

Mmmm, fresh rubber

This time around I'm having another experiment - I'm trying a Mitas E-07.  Neil runs these on his Tiger and likes 'em so I thought they were worth a try.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the compound is not as hard as the Heiny but they are considerably cheaper than the Heinies.

Might get the chance to give them a test tomorrow...

Here's Neil giving his thoughts on the E-07's:

Koro's vids!

Tucked in behind some likely lads just cruising up SH1:

Koro on the Paras: