More farkles...

 Yes, there has been farkling...

One of the most important items I wanted to get sorted on the T7 was the GPS.  Before the bike even arrived I splashed out on another (this makes 3) holder for my 595 but then waited until the bike arrived before sorting a mount.  I should really have done a bit of research and got the amount underway too...

Anyway, the T7 comes with a hand little cross bar above the dash for things like GPS and phones etc.  But to get the holder onto the bar requires some sort of mount.  Ram mounts were an option but are expensive and tend to put a bit too much vibration into things - this is ok for a lot of applications but occasionally I might want to look at the GPS screen.

So, after trolling the internet I stumbled on a Rally Raid product that I thought would do and then bought the Chinese knock-off (or perhaps even the real thing direct from China?) and got it here for less than price of shipping the Rally Raid item...

Initially I just bolted everything up and gave it a go.  You can see how that went...

Looks good

Hang on...

Ahhhh...

Not ideal..

That big GPS and the silly fat bit on the bottom of the holder are just a pain.  Time to make something - Uh-oh...

Copying my idea from on the Super Ten, I chopped up a bit of the same bread board and made up a little spacer to go between the mount and the holder, allowing the GPS to be mounted up higher and be tilted so that I could actually see it...

Much betterer

Could have cleaned the screen before taking this pic - could have...

One ride down and everything is groovy with the mount.  I may eventually pull it off again and give it a tidy up and a lick of paint.  Or, I'll probably just go riding instead...

This week a couple of more packages arrived.  The first one was a headlight protector (yeah, Chinese, but less than a quarter of the price of the Yamaha option).

This fitted up pretty easy and I quite like the look of it.  There is a reasonable gap between the headlight and the guard so if something big hits it then I'd say the headlight won't get damaged even if the protector is written off.

Next up was another cheap little wind deflector for the screen.  I have one of these on the S10 and it is great.  I can mostly ride visor up year round, which is what I like to do - particularly on gravel.  With the stock screen on the T7 I find it hard to ride visor up once the speeds get much over 50-60km/h.

The quality of some of the fittings on this one (the ones that attach it to the screen) don't seem to be as good as the one on the S10 and I'm not too sure how well this is going to work out on the smaller screen on the T7.  Time will tell and there is something else on it's way that may help too.

Anyway, I'll need to ride the bike (damn it) to find out how good the little deflector is and maybe try a few different positions before the final verdict is made on it.

Well, that's it until the next parcels arrive...

Quads, bikes and clay...

Recently, a certain KTM/BMW rider did the sensible thing and bought another Yamaha.  Trouble is, it somehow has got four wheels.  Oh well, at least it's a 700 - just not quite the right 700...

And it needed to be taken out on its first excursion and to which I somehow got persuaded to come along.

So, yesterday I loaded up the yellow bike and made the trip down to Waikanae.  The weather forecast was good, so naturally I ran into rain about halfway down...Good thing I was in the ute.

Arriving in Waikanae, the quad was loaded and we headed off to the carpark on the Western side of the Maungatoks.

As we left the car park the weather appeared to improving and the end we had no rain.  But of course, that rain had fallen earlier to make things interesting...

Colin lead us up the first bit before waving me past, telling me to stop at any intersections.  Sweet as, off I went and pretty soon was slithering all over the place on wet clay or exposed rock.  Exciting stuff.

We ended up poking around all over the place before a quick stop at the Orange Hutt for a snack and a chat with some 4WD drivers.  It was good to see a few families out enjoying the tracks and some young fellas on their cheap little trail bikes having fun.

Anyway, off we went again and now Colin really started leading me astray, picking some more and more tricky and/or overgrown trails.  His quad seemed to handle things fairly well and I actually enjoyed some of the more technical riding when we clambered up steep rocky tracks or had to take to the bush to avoid some ruts that would drown an elephant.  The rocks in the slippery creek crossing were still slippery and a pain...

Out on a more major logging track I had a major moment (one of a few).  The track was pretty hard but also very wet and muddy from all the truck traffic.  Colin blasted off up the hill so I naturally had to give chase.  Giving chase involved a wee handful of revs in third gear and the rear wheel pulling out to overtake the front - while still maintaining a pretty fast pace up the track.  Picture a bike totally sideways but somehow still moving forward...

I can remember thinking that this was going to hurt but must have grabbed the clutch and somehow got myself out of trouble.  I decided to treat that bit of track with a little more respect - for a while...

Colin approves of the 450

Sort of making our way back to the Orange Hut, Colin decided that we need to check out a section called "the Ruts" - I wonder why...

We managed to avoid a lot of the really gnarly stuff but soon came across the 4WD guys trying to drag a stuck ute out.  The little bloke in the photo with Colin had great delight in pointing out the stuck vehicles and was really keen to watch us go through...

Little bloke and winching wagon

Partially submerged ute

Safely through the ruts we got back onto some more decent tracks and I particularly enjoyed one climb where I was able to really give it to the RMX and even hit 5th for a short burst.  Man, does it go and man, does it get you pumped.  At the top of the hill it was time for coffee and hot cross buns 😁

A bit more larricking around and we were back at the car, slightly sweatier and slightly sorer than when we'd left.  Awesome fun and great to get out on the dirt bike!

First Service

 ...and a pootle

Somehow it took me nearly two weeks to get the T7 near it's first service but on Saturday I was booked in to get the deed done.

Wanting to be there by 9am, I left home at about 6:45 and got to test out the 4 LED's sticking out the front of the bike - yes, they work just fine!

After a quite potter down to Waikanae, I stopped in to pick up a KTM rider and off we went, pointing the bikes to the recently opened Transmission Gully to try out the new road.  Well, after a heap of delays it was nice to see that it's a fairly decent strip of tar that will save motorists a fair bit of time getting into Wellington.  There were a few others out trying the road, including some boys in blue and a reasonable line up of Ferrari's, Porsches, Audi's, Maclaren's and the like - all zipping along at the ridiculous pace of 100km/h.

Ditching the new road, we turned off onto the Haywards to make our way over to the Hutt.  Along the way we rode past a big gaggle of T7's turning out of Moonshine Valley where some idiot went trail riding once.  Colin and I suspect that they were all part of the orgainised Tenere tour on over the few days prior.  Ross was probably in there somewhere.

Ten minutes or so later we were at the bike shop and the bike was soon being seen too.

While we were waiting we spent the time chatting to Mac and checking out the shop.  We also met another bloke with good taste - his T7 still has a few k's to go before it's first service - hope he sorts that out pronto 😉

Once the bike was finished, we zoomed off to get some fuel and then popped over the hill to Featherston in search of brekkie.  This proved futile and I even discovered a bakery that didn't deserve the name - no pies!  Back onto the bikes we went.

Eventually we stopped in Masterton where we found a cafe we hadn't been to in a while and actually got a nice breakfast lunch.

After lunch we took off Route 52 and made our way to Tiraumea via the short bit of gravel on Bartons Road which after a bit of drying out during the week was a slightly different ball game than just 6 days ago - it wasn't as hard packed and the bikes moved around a bit more on the marbles.

North of Tiraumea, we turned East to make our way through the Waihoki Valley - one of our regular stretches of fun gravel.  The road here definitely had had some weather with even the first section through to Huia Road showing the odd damp and slippery patch.  Stopping at the turn-off, we both agreed that Spur Road might end up being "interesting".

And yes, it was...

After stopping at the usual spot, we dropped back down the other side and made our way through some more slippery stuff and out to the Coast Road turn-off.

There we stopped briefly and traded bikes so that Colin could sample a quality machine 😉 and I could see what the orange attraction was all about.  Actually, we both enjoyed comparing the bikes and it gave us something to talk about when we stopped in Pongaroa for a drink and a snack.

Eventually we had to make our way home so we took the seal as far as Millers Road where we got to taste a tiny bit of gravel before making our way through Hopelands to Woodville and then back over the Saddle to my place for another coffee at my place.

Another great little ride on the new bike and yes, I'm really enjoying it - it is so easy to ride fairly quickly on gravel and has pretty good manners on the seal as well 👍

Where to next?