KoroJ's Blog

Since my last blog I've done a few rides but I've been as slack as Gremlin at not getting anything written up!!....again.

Last Sunday I went for a ride with some of the local IAM group....so I had to behave myself!? Unfortunately I needed a decent ride, but it was a bit short and I couldn't be bothered going for a bit of fang after the lunch stop, so I just slotted in with the group and came back over the hill. It was pretty windy, which wasn't much of a problem going north over the hill, but we copped a few good puffs going along the Western Lake and I caught a couple of beauties on the way back over the hill. The worst place is where all the work was done on the Wellington side at the summit and sure enough, I felt the gust coming on, decided to try to blast through it but wasn't quite set and ended up bailing on the corner as I got swept onto the yellow lines....yuk!

Saturday I did the ACC Ride Forever course with the Bald Bikers. That was the 1st formal training I've done in 4 years so it was quite good to reassure myself that I hadn't picked up any more bad habits in that time...not to say that I've lost any of the old ones. It was quite a full day and worth the effort.

Sunday was a Uly ride to Waipuk' and unfortunately it clashed with the Pink Ribbon Ride, but the programme was done 6 months ago and I needed the conditioning for next month's C1KC (1,000Km Ride). We ended up with a dozen riders and I set the GoPro up on the front of the bike before we left Brown Owl, with the intention following one or two of the riders over the hill. I had the remote unit in the glovebox and pulled it out as we passed Kaitoke, only to witness my glove liners get whipped out of the box, across the dash and out the left side. I went back for a quick look but alas, that's the last I've seen of them.

Consequently I didn't shoot any footage over the hill, but once we'd gone out through Martinborough, I filmed through the tablelands. (A quick scan revealed it needs stabilising and I'm just trialling Premiere Elements, so can't deal with it just yet). We paused for fuel in Masterton, where I shifted the GoPro to the back of the right pannier, then we went out via Te Ore Ore, to Pongoroa, on to Wimbledon, Porangahau and Waipuk'.

I haven't been over Route 52 for a year or two and I'd have to say, it's in a very good condition at the moment, with little grit or crap and apart from a herd being moved, I saw no loose sheep or other critters. There were a few spots of subsidence but East Cape is probably worse, the weather was great, the pace was a little sedate, but all in all it was a bloody treat.

We got to Waipuk' at 1430, had a snack and made our way back by various routes. I wanted to come straight back via SH2 and by now, the wind had really got up and the weather was starting to close in and look a bit dirty to the south and west. My economy was sitting on 18.5Km/Ltr at this point and since I wanted to preserve it to get back without refuelling, but I was punching into a stiff breeze so I just slotted in behind cars that were getting along at a good clip. Even then, I was still often down at 15.5 – 16Km/Ltr.

There wasn't too much traffic though so I made good time and once I was past Mt Bruce, the wind had eased somewhat and the skies looked clearer. It would have been a fine line to make it home on the fuel so I elected to stop in Featherston to fill before taking on the hill. I was back into the eye of a very stiff breeze at this point so opted to drop a gear and tended to use a fair bit of brake as I enjoyed the fang over the hill, braking late into the corners and always ready to power out and even though I was ready for the vicious blast at the top, it still blew the ST around a bit.

I got home just after 1800 and had a marginally sore butt....so I guess I achieved what I set out to do and get a bit of conditioning by doing 587Km for the day at a moving average