Wgtn Ride - Sunday 23 May?

**Marknz** · 22nd May 2004, 18:51

Late notice I know, but after spending most of today riding round in the pissing rain on my Pat Malone and getting more confidence up on the new stead, I'm keen to get some more miles in tomorrow if the weather is better. Anyone up for a ride, and if there is already one on, where and when do you meet?

**James Deuce** · 22nd May 2004, 20:02

Originally Posted by Marknz

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Late notice I know, but after spending most of today riding round in the pissing rain on my Pat Malone and getting more confidence up on the new stead, I'm keen to get some more miles in tomorrow if the weather is better. Anyone up for a ride, and if there is already one on, where and when do you meet?

8:30am at the Rimutaka Caltex station in Upper Hutt. It's pretty casual, and folks normally head to the Flying Fish in Martinborough for a coffee and then either go further or head home depeding on personal requirements.

Might see you tmorrow

**riffer** · 22nd May 2004, 21:51

Originally Posted by Jim2

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Might see you tmorrow

Its halfway through the first half of the super12 final and I don't think I'll be staying up celebrating so I'll have no excuses for missing the 8.30 callup.

Hope to see you tomorrow Mark.

**James Deuce** · 22nd May 2004, 21:57

Excellent!

**riffer** · 22nd May 2004, 22:20

Originally Posted by Jim2

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Excellent!

Is that excellent I'm turning up, or excellent the cantabrians are getting done like a dogs dinner?

see ya too Jim...

**k14** · 22nd May 2004, 23:30

Originally Posted by celticno6

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or excellent the cantabrians are getting done like a dogs dinner?

Yeah I second that aswell, although they got it back pretty close at the end.

:P to Ben Blair

(sorry for slight hijack)

**wkid_one** · 22nd May 2004, 23:41

Don't rate your chances

**pete376403** · 22nd May 2004, 23:43

So it's all over? Maybe they will have to change the slogan slightly
"Of course you Can'terbury"

LB · 23rd May 2004, 07:06

er....today we're leaving at 10.00am....just a "one off" sort of thing. Didn't post here cos the weather looked like shit, but it might not be too bad.

**Ms Piggy** · 23rd May 2004, 07:57

Originally Posted by Lynda Blair

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er....today we're leaving at 10.00am....just a "one off" sort of thing. Didn't post here cos the weather looked like shit, but it might not be too bad.

Looks ok here - I won't see you guys & gals today though, I'm meeting up with another rider & just having a short ride. Once a month over the Rimutakas is enough for me at the moment!

Have fun!

**riffer** · 23rd May 2004, 14:42

Originally Posted by wkid_one

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Don't rate your chances

Once again, the optimistic people ignored the miserable weather forecaster's predictions, and had a bloody good ride.

Jim, his mate Paul on a Guzzi Lemans 850, and I met up at Caltex Rimutaka at 8.30 and while it was a bit grey and cold, there was absolutely NO rain at all in the five hours we were out.

Rimutakas are absolute shit on the Hutt side, with piss poor asphalt repairs, rutted road, and most irritatingly, gravel on the top third of the hill, plus the usual potholes, diesel and clowns in cages. But the other side more than made up for that.

We made our way over to Flying Fish for that all important 9am flat white, where we met up with MarkNZ, who missed us by less than five minutes at Caltex. Mark's riding a particularly tasty 2k3 Gixxer thou in silver. yum.

Coffee at Flying Fish is up to its usual standard, so we stayed for a while talking the usual shit, and decided to take the Gladstone/water tower road out to the back of Masterton.

If you've not taken this road you should definitely try it. Mostly two lane road in excellent condition (NO traffic!!) with really windy corners. Average speeds between 80-110 with a few fast sweepers of corners where one can really clean out the cobwebs. An interesting lichen on some of the roads, and a flock of particularly stupid sheep were the only real hassles.

So we ended up at Stellar in Masterton for another flat white, and then off home the slow and boring way down SH2 for lunch at home.

Only real hassles for me were blowing my fork seals on the Rimutakas. Got lots of fork oil on my forks now, with an interesting side effect that the bike now is a bit more of a hassle to ride (less dampening). There were a few moments where I got some head shake coming out of corners with the bike a bit unsettled, but the back tyre was sliding a bit on the lichen so it sort of compensated, in a weird way.

Great to meet you MarkNZ. Hope to do it again soon. Got home to a nice warm house, with freshly made banana and chocolate chip muffins for lunch, along with more fresh coffee. The sun's shining and everyone at home is happy and relaxed. If it weren't for the recent family court shit my life would be perfect

Hope your riding was good today too. And a BMW rider even

at us on the road to Martinborough.

**Ms Piggy** · 23rd May 2004, 15:21

Originally Posted by celticno6

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Hope your riding was good today too. And a BMW rider even

at us on the road to Martinborough.

Yes thanks Celtic

I met up with Tigger at Mana Caltex and we headed up SW 1 for a cuppa & a chat at The Brown Sugar in Otaki. Lotsa of traffic on the road & one particularly annoying man driving a ute at around 70kms/hr. Arrived at the cafe & it was very nice sitting in the sunshine talking about bikes, boys & bikes some more. Eventually we decided to hit the road again and apart from some tosser in a 4WD getting a little too close for comfort it was all good. We rode back over the Paekak Hill Rd and had a lovely ride (not nearly as scary as Rimutakas for me!) but, we both just about crapped our pants when we were pulled over at a rountine Police stop.

Thankfully they were just doing a breathaliser, WOF & rego check and not license...we had both "lost" our L plates. So all smiles & chats and I'm sure the ears on Tigger's helmet made things a lot more light hearted. Phew!

We saw a few bikes on the road - some waved & some were snobs.

Thanks for a great ride Tigger

**Marknz** · 23rd May 2004, 15:39

Hey, pleased to meet you Jim2, Celticno6 and Paul. The Rimutaka's was it's usual crap road, but those on the north side were fantastic, apart from the odd tricky bit of liechin.

I'll have to do those roads again sometime soon.

Cheers

LB · 23rd May 2004, 15:41

We had a good ride today too.

15 of us left Caltex Rimutaka around 10am, went straight to Carterton via boring SH2 (some people were on tight time limits). It was a bit cold, but dry, just a bit of damp here and there on the roads.

Spent a good hour and a half at Wild Oats, upstairs with the fire roaring, talking bikes and shit as you do.

Some headed back home, the rest of us went through Parkvale/Ponatahi to Martinborough.

Stopped there for a while in the Square (along with about 20 Mustangs - the Mustang Club had a "drive" (I guess that's what you call it when a car club goes for an organised cruise???) ) and talked with Grant who had a ZX10R out on demo (to maybe replace his Aprilia Edwards Replica with). We then headed back to the top of the hill, where we stopped for an hour or two.

Quite a few bikes were out and about, caught up with quite a few people we knew.

Mark Dunn: sorry to hear about your wee accident in the garage.

Celtic No 6, Jim2 and Marknz: Glad you guys had a good ride. They are great roads eh. Sorry we didn't meet up with you. Jim2 do you wear a blue helmet and red/black jacket? if so we saw you go south through Carterton just as we were leaving Wild Oats - we were parked in their carpark down the side street, so you wouldn't have seen us.

Celtic SL and Tigger: Glad you had a good ride too. They do nice coffee at the BS cafe.