Lias
23rd March 2005, 15:17
Having finally managed to replace my deceased GN250 with yet another shiny new black GN250, I decided I needed to go for a nice long cruise, so you get to listen to me ramble about my weekend :-) It so happened a friend of mine was having his 30th in wellington last saturday, so I thought I'd take a few days off work, and take a 4 day cruise from Hamilton to Wellington. To ensure that I had some sembalance of feeling in my ass afterwards, I arranged to stay at a mates place in New Plymouth friday/sunday nights, so the trip was split up into 4 rides.
Friday morning I took the bike in for its 1k service, just so I knew everything was all shipshape before I took off for the weekend, then set off southwards towards taradise. The semi-frequent roadworks were mildy annoying, but the worst part of this ride was being stuck behind a slow-arse cage through my favorite part of the trip (Awakino gorge), and it starting to rain while I was slowly crawling behind this car. Rain thankfully abated after about 5 minutes and I arrived safely in NP a bit later on. I'm mildy curious to know what the two cops cars heading north from Urenui at full tit with lights and sirens were off to thou :-) First one was a few minutes north of Urenui, I'd say the cop was doing at least 160ish, he was fair hocking, and the second one was doing doing 100ish in the 50k part of Urenui and accelerating as he past the 100k sign.
Saturday morning dawned bright and early, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. Woke up at a slightly more reasonable hour and set off southwards. I filled my bike up at the mobil int he middle of NP before leaving, and was bloody stressed out that something had gone badly wrong with my bike. On the open road, in 5th, my bike was topping out at 85-90k max. I know its a GN250 but this is still bad.. very bad. No strange engine noises, just a complete lack of oomph in the top end.. I was stressed, but figured I mayswell keep going. Had to switch onto the reserve just past Wanganui, and pulled in to fill up at some small blink and you miss it township between wanganui and bulls. After I'd filled up, the bike seemed fine, so I can only assume that the gas I got in the morning was either A: Shite or B: contaminated. I cheered up quite a bit once the bike started going faster :-) Plenty more roadworks from Wanganui to Levin thou dammit. Nice smooth ride down to plimmerton and then over haywards to have dinner with a mate. If any of you lot are in the vicinity I HIGHLY recommend Texarkana burgers just north of silverstream Mcplastic's. Chicken deluxe is to die for. Rolled into Wellington itself, rain started the second I came off the motorway onto ghuznee *mutter*. Arrived at parents, hugged assorted family members, then found out the party was out in naenae and rode all the way back out to park bike at friends place in Taita *mutter*. Party was good except for the jelly wrestling strippers getting arrested for DIC on the way over.. DOH! the pool of jelly and oil was all set up to go too.
Sunday morning rolled out of bed, thankfully hangover free and cruised back up to my parents (had spent the night in Taita rather than being a pissed twat on a bike) & nagged my dad into cooking me a huge fryup of bacon and eggs for breakfast.. mmm grease!. Set off, weather was still crap, but cleared up fairly quickly once I got out of Wellington itself. Stopped in to see a few friends along the way, (Jville & Levin), but it was really an uneventful ride back north. I was starting to feel more comfortable on the road, and exploring just how fast I could get the bike up too (topped out at about 130km balls to the wall, not too bad for a GN250 with a fat bastard and 2 ventura packs on it!). Still dont like overtaking trucks without passing lanes thou. Arrived in new plymouth to all my mates kids being home and descending on me with near hero worship.. All 3 of them had drawn me pictures and stuff, was quite a pleasant surprise.. The roast he'd laid on was also a nice end to the day.
Monday I headed off, took a fairly slow leisurely ride back north, stopped for breakfast in Mokau, and lunch in Te Kuiti. Roadworks again pissed me off, but once I was north of TK I got to cruise nicely on the big long flats. Arrived home and crashed out.
One thing I should mention thou is I'm convinced that Taranaki bikers are the friendliest around.. I'd say out of the 30-40 bikes I saw on the roads in the greater Taranaki area, all but 1-2 waved back at me, as opposed to like 1 in 10 everywhere else. Go the 'naki boys imo :-)
PS: If your still reading this ramble you must be nearly as bored at work as I am :-)
*edit* changed to slow-arse for hitcher :-P
Friday morning I took the bike in for its 1k service, just so I knew everything was all shipshape before I took off for the weekend, then set off southwards towards taradise. The semi-frequent roadworks were mildy annoying, but the worst part of this ride was being stuck behind a slow-arse cage through my favorite part of the trip (Awakino gorge), and it starting to rain while I was slowly crawling behind this car. Rain thankfully abated after about 5 minutes and I arrived safely in NP a bit later on. I'm mildy curious to know what the two cops cars heading north from Urenui at full tit with lights and sirens were off to thou :-) First one was a few minutes north of Urenui, I'd say the cop was doing at least 160ish, he was fair hocking, and the second one was doing doing 100ish in the 50k part of Urenui and accelerating as he past the 100k sign.
Saturday morning dawned bright and early, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. Woke up at a slightly more reasonable hour and set off southwards. I filled my bike up at the mobil int he middle of NP before leaving, and was bloody stressed out that something had gone badly wrong with my bike. On the open road, in 5th, my bike was topping out at 85-90k max. I know its a GN250 but this is still bad.. very bad. No strange engine noises, just a complete lack of oomph in the top end.. I was stressed, but figured I mayswell keep going. Had to switch onto the reserve just past Wanganui, and pulled in to fill up at some small blink and you miss it township between wanganui and bulls. After I'd filled up, the bike seemed fine, so I can only assume that the gas I got in the morning was either A: Shite or B: contaminated. I cheered up quite a bit once the bike started going faster :-) Plenty more roadworks from Wanganui to Levin thou dammit. Nice smooth ride down to plimmerton and then over haywards to have dinner with a mate. If any of you lot are in the vicinity I HIGHLY recommend Texarkana burgers just north of silverstream Mcplastic's. Chicken deluxe is to die for. Rolled into Wellington itself, rain started the second I came off the motorway onto ghuznee *mutter*. Arrived at parents, hugged assorted family members, then found out the party was out in naenae and rode all the way back out to park bike at friends place in Taita *mutter*. Party was good except for the jelly wrestling strippers getting arrested for DIC on the way over.. DOH! the pool of jelly and oil was all set up to go too.
Sunday morning rolled out of bed, thankfully hangover free and cruised back up to my parents (had spent the night in Taita rather than being a pissed twat on a bike) & nagged my dad into cooking me a huge fryup of bacon and eggs for breakfast.. mmm grease!. Set off, weather was still crap, but cleared up fairly quickly once I got out of Wellington itself. Stopped in to see a few friends along the way, (Jville & Levin), but it was really an uneventful ride back north. I was starting to feel more comfortable on the road, and exploring just how fast I could get the bike up too (topped out at about 130km balls to the wall, not too bad for a GN250 with a fat bastard and 2 ventura packs on it!). Still dont like overtaking trucks without passing lanes thou. Arrived in new plymouth to all my mates kids being home and descending on me with near hero worship.. All 3 of them had drawn me pictures and stuff, was quite a pleasant surprise.. The roast he'd laid on was also a nice end to the day.
Monday I headed off, took a fairly slow leisurely ride back north, stopped for breakfast in Mokau, and lunch in Te Kuiti. Roadworks again pissed me off, but once I was north of TK I got to cruise nicely on the big long flats. Arrived home and crashed out.
One thing I should mention thou is I'm convinced that Taranaki bikers are the friendliest around.. I'd say out of the 30-40 bikes I saw on the roads in the greater Taranaki area, all but 1-2 waved back at me, as opposed to like 1 in 10 everywhere else. Go the 'naki boys imo :-)
PS: If your still reading this ramble you must be nearly as bored at work as I am :-)
*edit* changed to slow-arse for hitcher :-P