Sunday was a cracker of a day and there were these new tyres that needed some scrubbing. After the usual dog walking and such I decided to check out the Tagorama thread and go in search of the tag.
As it turned out, the tag was an easy find but a wee bit of a peddle to get to. I decided to make a bit of a loop out of it and you'll see that on the map further down the page.
The trip over the Pahiatua track was good but I did show a little respect to the new tyres and didn't push them too hard. They did feel pretty damn nice though - it is surprising what a decent tyre profile does to the handling...
More corners through to Mangamire and then onto Hamua-Rongomai Road, Mangaone Valley Road and Pa Valley Road finally got me onto Route 52 for the trip up to the tag at the Tiraumea Hall.
Tag!
Another crap day on the East Coast
More of the bumpy and windy Route 52 got me to Pongaroa where I needed to stop to remove a layer as I was working up a bit of a sweat.
The rest of the ride took me over to Makuri and then into Pahiatua for a pie before having an even better run over the track and home again. Somewhere along the way I even found a new tag for the game...
A mystery location
Home just after one and around 200km of great autumn riding.
Unfortunately no matter how good tyres are they still tend to wear out after a while and it's a bit of an inconvenience to this particular motorbicycle rider. I guess the tyre manufacturers don't mind quite so much...
This time around my PR4's only gave just under 10,000km which is definitely not as good as I have done on them before. The front possibly still had some life in it but the rear was starting to get the little cracks across the centre of the tread.
Now, I'm pretty good at putting down bad service or deals but this time around I have to give a bit of shout out to Cycletreads. They had an Easter sale on and when I asked for a quote they came in $80 cheaper than the other one I got from Boyds where I have bought in the past (good service there too). The tyres were delivered free and in 2 days - just like the gizmo below which I happened to have purchased a few weeks earlier...
This nifty little Chinese contraption sure made it easier to break the bead on the tyres - much easier than standing on my axe head...
And now for a story...I got the front tyre off very easily and after putting a new battery in the TPM sensor also got the tyre on the rim easily. But then came trying to get the tyre on the bead...
TPMS
My poor little compressor simply could not dump enough air into the tyre (valve out for max flow). It tried and tried but it was wearing itself out and deafening me. Annoyed I jumped in the car and headed off to a service station to try there machine. It seems that the modern compressors at gas stations useless for anything other than putting a few pound in...
Sitting on the forecourt of gas station #2 I rang our maintenance manager from work and asked if he had a better compressor. Sure, he says and off I went around to his place.
Well, his compressor and then his compressor plus an extra air tank still couldn't get the job done - what next?
So, for some reason Cookie had some hair spray in his toolkit and we ended up spraying it inside the tyre and applying a naked flame...
This ended up not being quite as violent as we expected but the tyre nicely popped out onto the bead and I was on my way again. A bit of a rigmarole but all good in the end and I got the wheel back on the bike before hitting the hay on Thursday night.
Friday night it was the rear's turn and after getting the wheel off it was time to try out the bead breaker again.
Piece of cake eh? And it really only requires one good arm to do the job. It also came in handy getting the last bit of the new tyre on over the rim too. Very happy with this new tool.
And now, after a quick squirt to break-in the rubber, I'm very happy with the new tyres too :)
Pre-scrubbing...
Oh yeah, FYI: in 147,000kms of Connie ownership I've spent over $8k on tyres...
Long weekends rock! Especially when you get some nice weather to go out and play in.
On Sunday it was the Connies turn to get some loving and after getting everything done really early (due to daylights saving ending but still waking up at the same time) I was geared up and off down the road by just after nine.
With still just a T-shirt and shorts on under my gear I cruised on over to Bulls to fuel the bike up and to scrape the bugs off my visor that I should have cleaned before I left...
I had a number of options in my mind and plenty of time for a decent ride. I was keen to do some sort of loop that would give me a few k's but also didn't want to run foul of the 4km/h tolerance running this weekend.
Getting closer to Whanganui I had to start making up my mind - a run up the Para's, further up the 'naki or somewhere else completely? Turning towards Fordell the Para's were definitely on and I was even wondering about going further North and doing the Forgotten Highway as well but then I thought - what about the River Road? I hadn't been up there for a while and it was definitely a lovely day for a slow cruise along the river...
In Upo there was a mufti cop giving some boys in a WRX some bad news and that suggested that perhaps he was patrolling around the Para's - how terrifically unsporting of him. That made my decision a little easier and I took the turn-off to head up the river.
It was still pretty early but there was the odd car on the road - mainly tourists in crappy rentals or campers, all doing around 20-30km/h and doing great impressions of mobile chicanes. Never mind, I wasn't in any hurry and it was fairly easy to get past them.
Not very far into the ride up the river I came across my first section of roadworks. They weren't too bad, just reasonably hard packed dirt and a bit of metal here and there. The roadworks soon gave way to a very long section of new seal - they are obviously doing the road up a bit as some of the roadworks were where the road was being widened.
I kept on heading North until finally the urge to take a photo overcame me...
Not much further up the road I came to another section of roadworks and this lot soon turned fairly interesting - so much so that I thought that I'd better video some of it. Check out the mud and puddles - no match for the Connie and her worn out PR4's...
Bog hole safely waded, I flopped the bike gently from side to side to hopefully remove any of the slippery stuff and carried on to Pipiriki.
I love the last bit from Pipiriki through to Raetihi - the road opens up a bit with what is generally a better surface and it is a lot of fun. But today I had to be a little careful as there was some sort of run/bike event on and there were bikes and people all over the road...
After a wee diversion to avoid all the action in Raetihi I rode across to Ohakune and attempted to find some lunch but failed. I couldn't be bothered waiting around at the few busy outlets that were open, so I recleaned my splattered visor and aimed for Waiouru.
Rather than hit Waiouru for food and then have to ride some of SH1 I turned off again to take Fields Track back towards the Parapara's. The road was in really good condition and I had a ball, so much so that I got a little wam from all the action.
The climb up from the bridge and back down to the Para's was particularly fun...
Riding South I was still managed to have some fun and it was great to be on the Paras again. They were in pretty good nick - just one set of lights that turned green as I arrived and not too much crap on the road.
By now I was getting fairly keen to take on board some lunch and a cold drink but at Upo the cafe looked overrun so I carried on into Whanganui where I managed to find grub at one them there fast food places - not ideal but the big drink was welcome.
And that was pretty much it, I rode home the boring and slow way, behaving myself all the way, getting home not long after 2pm with plenty of daylight left that I could have used.
The poor old girl now needs a bath and some tyres...
So after thunderstorms on Saturday, yesterday turned out to be an absolutely cracker. I ended up abandoning some of my plans and riding over to the olds to pick up a couple of things on the Tenere (her battery was in the most need of charging). And since I was on the Tenere then gravel was required...
After topping up the dino-juice I made my out to Pohangina and then onto the gravel of Pohangina Road - always a favourite for me as it starts off nice and fast. In no hurry I kept my eye out for spots to stop for pictures - bridges always seem to be interesting places...
Autumn!
Just up the road from the bridge, the road climbs up a little higher and there's great views out across the Pohangina Valley.
Good dog, stay...
Hitting Makoura Road I turned left to make my way towards Apiti. The gravel was fun but I did have to avoid a few locals on quads, out doing farmer stuff. At the bottom of the hill I stopped because there was another bridge...
While I was wandering around I got to thinking that there might be trout in the river so took a peek over the side and spotted this fella straight away.
And because I thought it might be hard to see the little joker against the river bottom I even took some moving pictures so ya could see him better.
And then when I took my eyeballs away from the camera I noticed his buddy about 2m away - I think there's trout in this river...
Remounting I crossed the bridge and clambered up the other side of the hill and got a rude shock...
Another rude shock...
It's not the bridge that was shocking
Some blighters have been hard at work sealing the road! There was no more gravel (just new seal and road works) for the rest of Makoura Road! Spoil sports!
Anyway instead of riding into Apiti I stuck to my hastily hatched plan and steered for Ridge Road where I saw a welcome sign...
It's not often that I ride Ridge Road (another fav) in this direction but I did, after all, have to get to Feilding at some stage. It was still only mid-morning so I managed to kill some more time stopping for more pics...
Seat cover anyone?
Wandering up and down on the road I was surprised at how squishy the road was but then, we did get quite a bit of rain the day before. Squishy or not, the Tenere felt pretty good and was behaving itself rather nicely.
Travelling the road in the direction I was I noticed another road heading off to the right. It had a signpost suggesting that it went through to Kimbolton. I couldn't remember riding it before so thought it would be worth a crack...it was a nice little road but it was bye-bye gravel...
Londons Ford Road spat me out on the Apiti-Kimbolton Road and I was soon in Kimbolton and settling down for the cruise into Feilding via Cheltenham.
At the olds place I was only there for about 5 minutes when 2 other bikes rode up the driveway. It was a couple of Dad's mates having ridden down from Napier to say hi. One even had a new horse to show off. Geoff will be most interested to hear that Dave (73) had just sold his GSX-R1000 (with nearly 100,000kms on it) and got himself a shiny new GSX-S1000. Sorry no pics Geoff...red/black it t'were.
Anyway, you can probably imagine what we talked about for the next few hours...
A pretty short ride for me and perhaps not the quickest way to Feilding...
