2019 Highlights

Wow, we're 6 days into the New Year as I write this and I've only been on two rides so far.  Perhaps I should have made some sort of New Years resolution about riding...

So, it's time to do my yearly highlights reel.  It looks like I did better distance wise than last year but still feel I could have done better:

Super Tenere: just over 10,000km
Concours: approx 5,500km
Mighty Mouse: perhaps 1,200km

January

Early on in the year I got my first gravel fix and spent a bit of time puttering around in the shed.  At least the Connie got out for a wee ride too.

February

February was a big month with plenty of riding including completing my ninth TT2000 and having a great blast around the South Island again.  And then, a major development - a mouse in the house!

 

March

March's blogs seemed to be mostly catching up on the TT trip but Mighty Mouse was introduced and then climbed up a wee hill.

April

In April the Aussie's invaded and Colin and I spent the morning showing them around.  Farkles were bought and the Mouse got dirty.

May

In May it looks like the poor old Connie got a bit of a rest but both the Yammies got out and about.  The Tenere seemed to spend a fair bit of it's time up the Mangamahu Valley while the WR discovered the Maungatuk's and slippery clay.

June

In June the Tenere did get an outing but the Connie got in not one but two rides and the WR got to tackle it's first Trail ride.

July

July was a slow month but the Tenere had a wee scoot and the FRDC MC had it's first ride - which reminds me, it's time to organise another one...

August

If July was a bit slow then August was dead.  just the one post and it was around mouse farkling rather than riding - very poor form!  At least the farkle has definitely been put to the test now...

September

In September both the Tenere and the Connie got some suspension servicing, the FRDC MC were out again and the WR tackled another even harder Trail ride.

October

When October came around the Tenere got parked up and the Connie got out for it's first NI800.  I'm also entered in the 2019 NI1600 and must complete it before this years one so look out for that at some stage.  It then got a wee bit more exercise and the month finished up with the little bike playing in the sunshine.

November

November was a busy month farkling the WR but the Connie racked up another 1000km and the big Ten got out more than once.

My wallpaper at work...

December

The year ended in a bang - or perhaps a splurg of farkling - the WR is nearly ready for a big adventure at then of January...The Connie did some of the Coast to Coast and Colin and I managed to sneak in a few more gravel rides around Xmas and New Years.

Well, that's about it for 2019 but the New Year has already kicked off with a bang - two rides in 4 days - and there is plenty more planned for the next 3 months at least.  I can't wait to get out there and do it!

Be safe out there and just:

Out East again

With the return to work rapidly approaching Colin and I thought that we'd better get in another quick ride.  This time around we substituted the extra KTM of John's for Glen on his mighty S10.

Naturally we had put a lot of effort into our plans and so right on time -  according to our magnificent plans - the guys rolled up to my place, drank coffee and then we vamoosed up over the track.

As usual when heading over that way on an Adv bike, we managed to sneak in the short bit of gravel of Tararua Road and check that we still knew what we were doing.  The gravel was dusty and hard and I worked out that my rear Motoz is definitely getting a little tired...

Once again we fuelled in Pahiatua before scooting off towards the Makuri Gorge.  But, rather than either climbing up over the hill to Pongaroa or turning off onto Coonoor Road, we turned onto Pori Road to ride it in the opposite direction than we have on our last few trips over it.  The photo stop is still the same whichever direction you ride it in...

Nice to have the Yammies outnumbering the KTM's for a change

Purty bikes

The ride down the hill was pretty uneventful even if there were the odd woolly obstacles to avoid.

Turning left on Route 52 we smashed a bit of tarmac for a while before turning off onto Waiohoki Valley Road.  It was here that we first got to enjoy some superb gravel that had benefited greatly from the recent rain.  It was sensational - no dust and a slightly softer surface offering oodles of grip and some nice controllable sliding.  A stop at the turn-off to Huia road saw three maniacs grinning at each other and hungry for more.

Huia Road was more of the same and got us onto Spur Road which was generally in a similar condition except that it is a bit narrower and has tighter corners to contend with.  There were also a few sections where some heavier gravel had been laid to cleanup after slips and around a current logging operation.

Dropping down the other side of Spur Road the road gets a bit tighter and it was also a bit softer in places - the big bikes tend to slither around a little in this and braking into corners can get a little exciting.  There was also a really big tree that had fallen across the road but someone had cut a small, perhaps car-sized gap in it to allow us through.

Marainaga Road was next and this was a bit more open and still offered up some really nice gravel with just the odd mushy bit in some of the corners.  It was great to start to get the speed back up in preparation for Coast Road...

We only got to ride a short section of Coast Road's famous gravel as we were making for Pongaroa for lunch but if you watch a little of the last bit of the video below you'll be able to see why we like it so much.

What we didn't like so much is that we managed to catch up with the rain and with plenty of vents open on my jacket I was kicking myself a little bit.  I was too stupid to stop and do them up either, we just gapped it for the pub.

Thanks to some frequent downpours, we spent quite some time having our lunch before finally gathering up the gumption to get out amongst it once again.

The next bit of 52 to the turn-off up Waione-Horoeka Road is not what you would call a delight when wet.  It is a mess of slippery tar with plenty of humps and bumps that can make things exciting - perhaps it'll get fixed properly right around the time hell freezes over?

Waione-Horoeka Road got us across to Towai Road fairly quickly and we were really enjoying the ride until we started hitting some very slippery stuff.  I've ridden this road quite a few times now, including once in pouring rain and it's never been quite as interesting as it was yesterday.  Wherever there was the littlest piece of clay sticking out from under the gravel it was slippery, very slippery.  Often both ends would head off in different directions and that's not that ideal when there is a decent drop off over the side...I decided we needed a conversation about it halfway up...

Might be raining at the beach...

In the video you can see a the clay sections starting to appear at around the 9 min mark.  The video doesn't really capture some of the "moments" that well but it looks like there may have been one at around 11:13.

Back on the bikes we submitted the hill and dropped down through the lime works (19:15) before hitting some really nice gravel again (22:50) and quickly forgetting about the dodginess on the other side of the hill.

At the intersection we veered right again to scoot through Waitahora Road where we managed to find plenty of wind to blow us around before joining up with the Weber Road to take us back into Dannevirke.

From Dannevirke we took all sealed (but back roads wherever possible) to Pahiatua.  Once again Tararua Road needed to be ridden and then there was one last dash over the track before finally ending up home again.  I believe Glen brought some wool back from Tararua Road with him on his gear lever too...

Another top ride to finish off a most excellent break!

Starting the year on the right foot

Just prior to New Years, Colin had decided that we needed to get out on the little bikes - something about a conditioning ride for the Dusty Butt...

We decided that we were going either New Years Day or the day after.  I then caught up with Colin on the phone on New Years Day and he initially a little doubtful about the weather as it was a bit grey and overcast down his way.  We had pretty much decided to put it off a day or two and carried on yakking about other stuff for a while until we finally decided to put our Nike's on...

Pic stolen, dunno where from...

I had most of my gear sorted but needed to load up the ute and put some diesel in it before hitting the road to Colin's.  My timing was perfect though - I arrived just in time for some roast lamb sandwiches...

After lunch, we finally got our act together and tore off on the little balls of fire that are our magnificent little WR's.

We had to deal with a fair bit of the windy tar of Akatarawa road before turning off to tackle Odlins Road.  The very first section involved a little scramble up over some decent rocks and this kinda set the tone for the rest of the road.  Here's what Adventure Riding NZ says about it.

Riding in it took us quite a while to get our heads around the track and just what the little bikes could get away with.  I was pretty much never getting out of second gear and first got a work out climbing up out of hollows and over tricky rocky sections.   But in reality the little bike just laughed at everything and I had no issues of the binning kind.

We were working hard though so needed a breather to check out the scenery every now and again.  If you're interested I saved the GPS coordinates wherever we stopped for photos and they're shown on the map at the bottom of the post.  These ones are from Photo Stop 1.

Just a bit further on we came to a bit of a clearing where there were three families in 4WD's who'd driven in to have lunch at the hut.  All the 4WD's were ones that don't do the school run - they were the muddy, scratched and dinged up type that actually gets off road.  No RAV 4's or CRV's...

After a bit of a chat with them we carried on down towards the hut and got into some more "technical" sections where taking it quietly and then nailing it was the way to go.  The track in general is pretty rocky and so you're always trying to pick the best line so you're not bouncing off too many sharp rocks and the bush is trying to take over so standing up can be tricky in places.

We also met a very serious looking Nissan Patrol coming the other way, luckily in a bit that was just a little wider than a Patrol.  Down the hill a bit we finally made it to the Hut.

Photo Stop 2

After a decent breather (and opening all the vents in my jacket) we rode a short way down the hill to the river.  Apparently the track pretty much ends there (or gets even worse) and we didn't really like the look of the drop down into the river anyway - I walked down and we probably would have been fine but hey, we didn't need to die or drown the bikes...

Photo Stop 3

Steeper than it looks...

Rested up, we attacked the track going back.  Both of us seemed to have really got our heads around what we were doing and what the bikes can do so generally I was a gear higher all the way back, only using first for the really tricky stuff.  We were also more relaxed and were not getting nearly as hot and bothered - it was great!

Photo Stop 1 (or thereabouts) again - better weather!

Somewhere in there both the bikes both had their fuel lights come on (I'd already done about 100km on my tank before the ride) but looking at the levels we still had oodles of fuel so back at the road we decided to carry on over the Akatarawas and come back via the Pram track.  This meant more tar and dodging oncoming vehicles on the damn narrow road through to the start of the track.

The Pram Track was a whole lot easier and even 4th gear got used in places.  A little ways in we parked up for a breather and a chat with a couple of other guys out there enjoying the tracks.

Photo Stop 4

Rest over we crossed a river and got back into it.  In fact we crossed it or another one (I had no idea where I was) a few more times (once where it was reasonably deep and swift) and blasted up and down quite a few hills before finally dropping back down to the carpark on the Paraparam side.

By the time we got back to Colin's, we'd ridden around 120km and were fairly knackered - I'm still getting over some of the soreness in my legs - but had had an absolute ball!  We even still had plenty of fuel - gotta love those Safari tanks and the incredibly economical little bikes!

Absolutely some of the best (and cheapest) fun you can have on two wheels!