New Years jaunt - Part two

 After a hot night in our sweltering motel room we were up and out of there by 7:30 and filling the bikes before grabbing a "breakfast" at Maccas - apparently what we ate was food, but it didn't really taste like anything I'd eaten before.

While finishing our coffees (yeah, they were like coffee), Carl and Sally turned up on another of those orange bikes.  They've been based just out of Turangi for the break and had decided to join us for part of our ride before returning to their batch.  More the merrier.

As we were in John's old stamping ground it was up to him to led us astray and our first stretch took us North of Taumarunui before hooking a left onto Opotiki Road.

I'd ridden this road a few times before (once with John and Colin) and it is a neat little gravel road that gets pretty tight in places as it takes you up through some bush and then back down the other side where according to GoogleMaps the road name changes to Ararimu East Road.

I think the name changes because the road changes from a windy little thing to a more open and fast gravel road.  We followed this onto Otunui Road to our first regroup by the old school.

Turning right on Kururau Road we got to enjoy some more fast gravel, followed by a neat charge up a hill (a nifty, narrow climb with grass growing in the middle of the road) before getting spat out onto the Forgotten Highway.

A short bit of seal got us to the next gravel turn off on Roto Road.  This and Huai Road snaked their way along the side of the Ohura River until we ended up in Ohura of all places...

Team KTM

After a short, guided tour of Ohura we leapt back onto some more great gravel through to Ahititi.

From this turn-off we were on tar (some of it hot and slippery already) to the main road (SH3) and all the way South to Urenui.  In Urenui we fueled the bikes and then were a little disappointed by the cafe.  They were basically closing the kitchen at 11:30 as they had run out of tucker!  We managed to get cold drinks and a sausage roll but that was about it - and man were they turning away a lot of business...

After lunch we retraced our steps a little before turning inland again and going in search of more gravel to get us to Kiwi Road and it's bumpy little track.  The route continued to take us over some great gravel through picturesque country.  Plenty to see and plenty of animals to dodge too - we had sheep, goats, dogs and cattle (including a few bulls and one cow pointing all it's hooves at the sky).  And of course, the odd tunnel.

Eventually we got onto Kiwi Road and I'd forgotten how much reasonable gravel you do before the final climb up to the tunnel and drop down the unmaintained side.  There's nothing too bad about the track but it is a bit of a challenge for this guy on a big bike.  A lot of slow, careful picking your way around the slow corners and obstacles along the way.  Worth the effort though.

More dusty but fun roads got us past the Mount Damper Falls and back out onto the Forgotten Highway.  

This where Carl and Sally left us.  They turned for Taumarunui while we carried on up over a slick Tahora Saddle and into Whangamomona for a cold drink and a bite.

By now it was after 3pm and very hot again.  John had to get back to Greytown and Colin Waikanae so we still had plenty of riding to do just to get home.  This meant that we decided to flag anymore gravel excursions and instead stuck (or in some case didn't) to the molten tar for the trip into Stratford.

From Stratford we well and truly entered cruise mode for the trip down the 'naki.  We even got passed by a cop chasing down some deviant in a car that dared to nudge 105km/h...

A quick roadside chat in Whanganui had John gapping it on us while Colin and I carried on to Sanson for fuel and a drink before parting.  We even got to watch John ride past...

35km later I was home after around 520km in the heat and plenty of good riding.  Nice little trip away to satisfy an urge and prepare for a decent one in February...

New Years jaunt - Part one

 'Tis the season for taking a break and what else would you do with some time off than get out for a decent pootle.  Even before the break Colin had been expressing a wee bit of interest in getting away for a few days and exploring a some gravel roads.  Just before New Years he booked a motel and we were kind of committed.

In the lead up to our departure the weather had definitely switched over to summer mode with temperatures in the early thirties ie. too hot...Checking the weather the night before and it looked like we were going to be heading into some pretty hot country - oh great.  Camel-baks required then.

Monday was the first day of our adventure and as I was leaving to meet Colin at the servo he arrived at my gate...  This meant turning around and going to put the jug on...Later on John turned up too and after he grabbed a drink too, we were off.

We started off following a similar route as our last ride, heading out through Pohangina towards Totara Reserve.  But this time, instead of turning right to go around Pohangina Valley East Road, we went left and continued on Pohangina Road through to Makoura and then to Apiti.  Just a little dry, dusty gravel to start getting our eye in.  It was amazing what difference a week had mad to the gravel - it was far dryer and dustier and definitely more "marbly".

After zipping around the Manawatu Scenic route to Rangiwahia, we dropped down into Mangaweka where we decided that we needed a pie to jump start the trip.

Next up was a little diversion that I've taken once before while in search of a certain road.  It still isn't the correct way to find that road...But, I did get us off SH1 for a bit...

Small 20km diversion to avoid 3-4km of SH1...

In reality, it's a fairly tight little gravel road with grass growing up the middle in places but it does take you through some nice country.  An added bonus was getting caught up in a mob of sheep coming towards us after they'd had a bath.  Sheep everywhere and not a brain cell between them...

Back on SH1 were carefully cruised up to Taihape before turning off onto Mataroa Road.  This and Ruanui Road were all seal but had had some great corners made for Adventure bikes.

Ruanui Road eventually dumped us out on Turakina Valley Road which we took North to our next turn off at Owhakura Road.  I quite enjoyed this neat bit of gravel which crosses over onto Fields Track.

Once again we turned North for a bit before taking the delicious Oruakukuru Road through to the Parapara's.  The start of this road is awesome as it is very fast - I probably enjoyed it a bit more than the others as I was out front, rather than behind in the rooster tail...

Towards the end of the road it does change to seal and in the high temperatures this was our first taste of crappy melted tar.  I had several wee moments on bits that actually looked ok (they had stones on them, not just melted tar).  Those couple of slides were a good warning to not trust the black stuff - best get back onto the gravel ASAP...

Just up the road in Raetihi, we searched in vain for an open cafe but had to settle for a sandwich (not bad actually) and a cold drink at the gas station.  It was quite good to get out from under the blazing sun for a minute and the light breeze was very nice.

After lunch it was time for John to take over the lead as he knows his way around this part of the country.  He got us off the main road at Raurimu as we made our way West on Kaitieke Road.  I'd ridden this road before as part of the Fishers Track loop but John soon had us heading North again on some new to me roads.

And yes, it was a bit dustier at the back of the pack...

More great, if a tad dusty roads got us Hikumutu where we came across some people messing around with horses in a paddock next to the road.  I'm not quite sure what they were doing, but it must have been interesting as the Ostrich in the paddock on the other side of the road was paying it a fair bit of attention.  I know it was hot but I swear that there was indeed an Ostrich...

Just up the road, was another really "cool" sight.  The school pool looked ever so inviting...

Instead of jumping the fence and then into the pool, we dropped down into Taumarunui which was our stop for the night.  We were soon in our un-airconditioned room, throwing off our riding gear, rinsing the dust off and the heading out in search of cold drinks and dinner.

A great days riding was all over, time to relax and plan the next day's ride...

Shed time

Ok, so there is a ride write-up in the works but first something a little more simple.

Today it was time to give a couple of Yamaha's a little love.

First, the mighty WR was given a quick bath in preparation for going into town to get a WOF.  Of course, she passed the warrant with flying colours although they keep telling me it needs a reflector for some reason...

Art shot...

Next was a bigger job.  The Shinko on the back of the Tenere needed swapping for a fresh one.  The first one lasted 5,349km - the second one should just about be toast after the TT2000 me thinks (ergo I might get 2 months out of it).  So it didn't last that long (and to be fair was pretty knackered around 7-800km ago) but they are cheap...

I'll be going back to an E-07 next time (ordered from my friendly tyre supplier already) but will definitely consider the Shinko again - especially for winter riding where they are probably better on wet seal than an E-07.  They're just not great on summer gravel (especially when poked).

The tyre change went really well with a lot less cursing and no blood.  The bead even went on perfectly.  Nice, maybe I'm getting a wee bit better at it...

It's great having heaps of room in the shed to do the work too...

After that, it was time for morning smoko and then, rather than changing two more tyres that need changing, I gave the Tenere it's bath.  This took a bit longer than the WR (I think it was even dirtier than the WR even though the WR had just been up Takapari Road) and I even took the screen off to give the dragon a scrub behind the ears too 😉

Dirty girl...

Good to get those little jobs done, and even better, it wasn't 30 plus degrees to do it in...

Last ride

 ...of '21.

No New Years Eve ride for this kid - the roads tend to be crazy - but, I did have my arm twisted to go out the day before...

Thursday's ride kicked off with Colin and Adi rocking up for coffee and then us finding our way out the valley.

This was supposed to be a road ride but I was on the Tenere, Colin his GS and Adi his Wee, so I just had to take them out through Pohangina Road - it was fun the day before on the WR so why wouldn't it be fun on the big bikes?

Well, yeah, it was just as mint but we did have the brakes put on us for a bit when we came up on some chaps moving some cows and calves (scared the crap out of the lad at the back pushing them along with his quad).  We eventually pushed our way through and were back into it and managed to avoid hitting a group of pedestrians wandering all over the road...

Then we popped back out onto Pohanigan Valley East Road and got stuck into some great sealed roads.  Along the way there were a couple of spits and the road was damp in places - always pays to give this road a bit of caution when wet.

I also showed a bit of caution on a certain bridge and checked to make sure that Adi got across ok.  No problemo, he seems to have mastered ice riding in summer...

More great roads got us from Rangiwahia to Mangaweka where stopped to check out how the new bridge is coming along and I took the only pictures of the ride...

Nearly there - I still prefer the old one

Busting out onto SH1, we turned South and pootled our way down to Hunterville where we turned off to make our way across to Fordell and Whanganui.

This was pretty much my favourite bit of the ride.  The road had obviously been majorly hammered by the bad weather (and some of the damage was amazing) with plenty of damaged seal, gravel sections and even some repairs (stop and go guy in action) in progress as we road across.

Why was the ride so good?  Well, I guess it was the first decent run on the Tenere it is just an outstanding bike on these sorts of roads.  That and it was just magic maintaining a nice pace through some delicious corners, listening to some primo tunes - it doesn't get much better than that...

Hitting Whanganui we got stuck in some seriously slow traffic crawling through town but eventually found that healthiest of lunches at KFC 😣

After lunch we detoured around the main street, took in some of the cemetery circuit (no racing this year due to some feeble reason or other) and purchased some expensive fuel at the BP before retracing our steps back out to Fordell.

Instead of riding right through to Hunterville again we turned off onto Turakina Valley road and made our way through to Marton on the truly magnificent (sealed) Makuhou Road.  A zip across Halcombe and Colyton then got us back to my place and more coffee.

Nice way to end the year - better than staying up all night...

The local hill climb

Happy New Year.  And, I actually have two late 2021 rides to blog, here's the first...

With my recent move, I am now a bit closer to some great wee gravel rides - and these are ideal for the mighty WR...

So, a couple of days before New Years Eve, I went and put $5 (2.3L) of fuel in the mouse and headed on out the valley with Takapari Road firmly in my sights.  Takapari Road can be an little gnarly in places so possibly not the best ride to go on alone but after the last trip up in there I reasonably confident that someone else would find me if I managed break the WR (unlikely as that is).  I should probably get a PLB at some stage...

Anyway, the ride up to the Takapari turn-off was reasonably uneventful except for a couple of 4WD's (who probably had just come down Takapari Road) wanting a fair chunk of my side of the road on a couple of corners - twangers, what if I had been in my Kenworth (luckily for them I don't own one)?  At least it backed up my thoughts that others might be on the track.

After many revs, I finally turned off onto the gravel at the bottom of Takapari Road.  I was quickly up at the top gate (after having to go through two other gates) but even this bit of the track has taken a bit of damage from our recent heavy rain.

Clawing up the little rise you can see in that last picture pretty soon got me into some more gnarly stuff.  The bad weather and 4WD's have really damaged the track.  There was actually some decent obstacles to negotiate just to get up to the big ruts which were muddy last time.  Those ruts were actually fairly dry (even though we'd had heavy rain the night before) and I manage to scoot through riding on top of the rut without slipping in - little skinny tyres on on little bikes are great!

After that section, the road wasn't too bad, just the same rocky track as usual.  I even stopped to take in the view...

Simply stunning!

After this well worth it photo stop it was just a quick skid (avoiding the deep puddles) up to the hut for some more great scenery.

This was my turn around point.  You can go a little further in but that bit of the road is even less maintained than what I'd just scrambled up.  Maybe another day when I can drag someone else along with me...

The descent was a lot quicker as I'd remembered how to ride by now and eventually I dropped out of the mist.

A very smooth section of the track - steeper than it looks though

On the way down I finally ran into potential rescuers - a couple of hunters in their utes just parking up and unloading the dogs.  I gave them a wave and carried on down.  I really enjoyed the trickier bits on the descent - it's cool just puttering down and picking your way through the snotty bits.  Makes you feel like some sort of expert trials rider...

Soon I was back at the gate again.

On the ride home I detoured to take in that magic little stretch of gravel on Pohangina Road, the mouse slithering it's way through some great corners and going hard.  Noice!

And so, two & half hours and about 115km later the bike was parked up in the shed looking pretty pleased with itself (a liberal covering of mud) and with me happy to have finally got out on one of the bikes...