The Ride from Hell or the worst ever trip you have had....

[Waihou Thumper]

Well, we are always posting awesome photos and trips of our bikes, mates and the amazing touring country we have here in New Zealand...:2thumbsup

Lets try something different...:whistle:
Post some photos, stories and highlights from your 'trip from hell'
It could be a breakdown, things that went wrong with the bookings or even that bloke or girl you were with, made the holiday on the bike an abolute horror! :argh:
I won't start this off as I have a few horror stories but I guess with the abundance of ADV riders out there, we must be able to fill some pages decribing those out of the way places near and far that really pissed us off!

Let it rip ADV riders near or far......We have heard from Jimmy, lets see if we can top things off and really shock our readers with OMG, I aint ever going there again on that thing with her....:mad:

[Monstaman]

Well ... I will keep it brief but in essence my bike caught fire while I was riding it, 2001 S4 Ducati Monsta R.I.P. :weep: :weep:

So mine is pretty much a total sob story and I am lucky NOT to have gotten bodily burnt due to my leathers, my neckie that comes from my jacket to my helmet was the only casualty as far as riding gear goes as the flames came up passed my face they licked the windstop neckie and it balled up and melted :gob:

Result was 554 hectares burnt on Makarora River Ranch Station, 3 Monsoon Helicopters, 4 fire appliances and 60 odd men, fire burnt for two days.

My stain is on google earth, generally not the best day I have had riding.

A further insult from Vero who paid me $13k when they the were selling $19k and I couldn't replace it with a basic unit let alone about the $4.5 k worth of lollies, they are w$^#%$s and I am I not insured with them now.

Some of the stuff from the papers and pics.

[JATZ]

Personaly I can't think of a "bad" trip" on the bike, I'm still here so it must be all good, I can think of a few to many Oh Shit moments but thats part of it, the bikes have mostly gone well and not completely died anywhere, and the company has on the whole been good, havn't yet met an ADV rider who's an asshole.
Not a good start to ya thread is it ?

[Waihou Thumper]

Check out Monstaman....:crybaby: wicked mate, now that is the sort of trip from hell I mean...
You have really set the bench mark my friend...:2thumbsup
On ya!

[Waihou Thumper]

Well ... I will keep it brief but in essence my bike caught fire while I was riding it, 2001 S4 Ducati Monsta R.I.P. :weep: :weep:

So mine is pretty much a total sob story and I am lucky NOT to have gotten bodily burnt due to my leathers, my neckie that comes from my jacket to my helmet was the only casualty as far as riding gear goes as the flames came up passed my face they licked the windstop neckie and it balled up and melted :gob:

Result was 554 hectares burnt on Makarora River Ranch Station, 3 Monsoon Helicopters, 4 fire appliances and 60 odd men, fire burnt for two days.

My stain is on google earth, generally not the best day I have had riding.

A further insult from Vero who paid me $13k when they the were selling $19k and I couldn't replace it with a basic unit let alone about the $4.5 k worth of lollies, they are w$^#%$s and I am I not insured with them now.

Some of the stuff from the papers and pics.

How the hell did it catch fire and did you get charged for the fire from the Rural Fire Authority....:mad: Farrk, mate, that's a lot of land scorched for one Duke!

[WuZards-Eugene]

One of my worst off-roading trips to date......

For quite a while, the one place that I really wanted to go trail riding (which I had not done before) was in the Akatarawa's. I've had an AG that I take up the tracks and firebreaks around Wainui for quite a while, and always had a blast, especially with the really tight, technical stuff (like walking tracks :nono: ).

....any way, I get this road legal XR250 Baja for commuting to work on, and (mainly) for being able to do trail riding without needing to trailer the bike there. I arranged to go for a ride in with a mate to stay the night at the Orange Hut, get the permits etc, etc.

Me being so impatient {little kid with new toy :whistle:}, I couldnt wait to go for this ride. Ended up getting off work early (about 2pm), so I decided I would go check it out and go for a blast through the tracks.

So...Off I go, in my work clothes and road riding gear, with an idea of which way I want to go (being so eager, forgot to grab a map :doh: ), bowling my way through the tracks, rivers ruts and mud without a single difficulty. Its about 6pm now, and im staring at a sign that says Perhams Rd (didn't mean much too me at the time :scratch: ). I looked at the sign, trying to decide which way to go, shall I go back the way I came; shall I follow this sign posted "Road"; or shall I go down this track that has no sign at all. Hmm......

.....Decision time over, I'll take the one without the sign, because I think I know where it goes :wacko: . Off I go again bowling down the track. I come to another intersection, and decide to go left (again, because I think I know where it goes). I then start bowling along, the track getting thinner and thinner as I go. I start going down a massive clay rut which I could stay away from (no where else to go :crybaby: ). I got so deep, that the bike skidded along on the engine guards, with the wheels slightly lifted off the ground. I get to the bottom, and think to myself "I'm sure this is the right track, it has to be".

I get no more than 50m further; and find bog, lots of bog, again I cant go around it. Well lets give this a try, it cant go that far. I manage to spend an hour to move forwards about 30m. Its now completely dark, with only the headlights providing any light. Another half hour goes by, and ive gained about 20m.

"Fark it, stupid farkin bog, who put this shit here". While ranting and raving, rather tired and pissed off, regretting not going back the way I came, I head off to get some cellphone reception to get a mate to come help me. 20mins later, the whole way being massive bog after hugely massive bog; "yaaeeeesssss, we have one bar of reception, yaaeeeeeesssss". I give my mate a call.

me - "Hey, hows it going"
mate - "yea not bad"
me - "Wotcha upto at the moment"
mate - "Just finished dinner, where are you"
me - "Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come for a walk with me in the Akatarawa's"
mate - "For Farks sake, where the hell did you get the bike stuck"
me - "Im still trying to figure that one out. I'll give you a call when I know where I am."

An hour and a half goes by, stumbling along in the dark, with nothing but a cellphone as a torch (and no, its not a phone with a built in torch), I finally reach a road entrance. I call up said mate, "Hey, im on Maungakotukutuku Rd." Mate - "Farkn hell eugene, youre all the way out Paraparaumu ways, I'll be there in about 45 mins" :Oops:

Said mate arrives, and off down the track again, with a torch this time, and some random extra company that we met walking down the road, out for a walk in the bush. Now everything is up hill, so were taking our jolly time getting there. We finally get to the bike at about 3am. Took us about 10 mins to get it turned around and back at the base of the massive rut. With three of us, and a rope, we make quick work of the rut, and back onto the easier stuff. Seeing as we now knew where Perham Rd went, we headed off down there, both on the XR now (our random stranger went walking off somewhere else at this point).

We ended up making it back to wainui at about 7am. :zzzz: Enough time for breakfast, a shower, then time to go to work.

What a night :crazy: . Now I just have to survive the day. :weep:

[WuZards-Eugene]

Well ... I will keep it brief but in essence my bike caught fire while I was riding it, 2001 S4 Ducati Monsta R.I.P. :weep: :weep:

So mine is pretty much a total sob story and I am lucky NOT to have gotten bodily burnt due to my leathers, my neckie that comes from my jacket to my helmet was the only casualty as far as riding gear goes as the flames came up passed my face they licked the windstop neckie and it balled up and melted :gob:

Result was 554 hectares burnt on Makarora River Ranch Station, 3 Monsoon Helicopters, 4 fire appliances and 60 odd men, fire burnt for two days.

My stain is on google earth, generally not the best day I have had riding.

A further insult from Vero who paid me $13k when they the were selling $19k and I couldn't replace it with a basic unit let alone about the $4.5 k worth of lollies, they are w$^#%$s and I am I not insured with them now.

Holy crap, now thats an achievement. The insurance company must have been shitting themselves when you called.

"Yea, I'd like to claim insurance on my bike, 554 hectares of burnt land, and two days of emergency services."

[Monstaman]

How the hell did it catch fire and did you get charged for the fire from the Rural Fire Authority....:mad: Farrk, mate, that's a lot of land scorched for one Duke!

We are not entirely sure how it started but we suspect the high pressure fuel line to the injector was chaffed and sprayed raw petrol onto electrics and hot rear header, mate of mine had an S4 as well and we checked his to find the scalloped fuel hose hence what I said above, only sumizing tho to be honest.

Either electrical fuel or both but the combo was the same ending.

It actually dropped one cyl so I pulled over thinking it was unusual, came to a stop, put the side stand down, lifted my visor then as I lifted my leg over the seat to hop off the flames came up passed my face, bike was on its side stand and within seconds was a blazing ball of flames, bike was fucked literally within seconds of me hoping off.

No charge to me, nothing negligent or malicious, they called it an act of God!, serious crash Feds came to have a look as the local feds wanted to nail someone (me), serious crash feds said for the local feds to pull their head in as I had lost my lusty and told them to go fight some crime, that was funny.

Honestly the bill would have been in excess of a $1m, Geovert spent 3 months with 5 guys pinning the face, ended up with 3 monsoon helis, 4 appliances, a road was put in a above the burn site and all in all the Monsta would have been the little figure just above the GST at the bottom of the bill.

Just a bike I know but I sat in my office for over a week like a crash test dummy just wondering WTF WTF WTF WTF, most unusual day of my life .... mighta cried too :weep:

Bonus, I was feeling really tormented and gutted witha churing stomach from what was happening I spewed in the cop car while talking with a cop, we had to hop out (for reasons of smelliness) and he said "don't worry mate I will get the girls at the station to clean that up", only time I will ever get away with that I think.

My black burn stain remains on the road today and it reminds me every time I ride past.

[Monstaman]

Some more pics, see in thr last pic one of the Helis, to the right.

[Waihou Thumper]

I posted this thread and already you have made it memorable....:2thumbsup
Come on everyone, spill the beans....
Monstaman has a wicked story, it has everything except the dirty bits.....
AND, if he had been taken to the nic' there might have been a bit of that too...lol:hug: and ......:moon: ....

[Waihou Thumper]

Some more pics, see in thr last pic one of the Helis, to the right.


All because of a Duke...:whistle:

[kevfromcoro]

A few years a go i was living down at taupo.
a few mates came from auckland down for a ride.
i new this track .. it was all good fast stuff.
about half way through there was a very steep dropoff.
i sort of new when it was coming up..
ok.. says me i will put my hand up when we approach it.
well.. corse we didnt slow down.
straight of the top we went
i was about ear height when the first bikes came flying down.
not to popular that day

[Waihou Thumper]

A few years a go i was living down at taupo.
a few mates came from auckland down for a ride.
i new this track .. it was all good fast stuff.
about half way through there was a very steep dropoff.
i sort of new when it was coming up..
ok.. says me i will put my hand up when we approach it.
well.. corse we didnt slow down.
straight of the top we went
i was about ear height when the first bikes came flying down.
not to popular that day

So, you one of those guys that you should never ride with or listen to your experience of 'Follow me guys, this way...' :argh::2thumbsup

[Eddieb]

Well ... I will keep it brief but in essence my bike caught fire while I was riding it, 2001 S4 Ducati Monsta R.I.P. :weep: :weep:

.....

Result was 554 hectares burnt on Makarora River Ranch Station, 3 Monsoon Helicopters, 4 fire appliances and 60 odd men, fire burnt for two days.


Faarrrkk, you win. I'm not going to even try and compete with that.

[Waihou Thumper]

The first post would be the show stopper....
Maybe the odd girlfrind you didn't want on the back anymore or the 'missing the ferry' story or the day 'I got a flat tyre heading to a Job interview'.....:2thumbsup

He has certainly set the scene, we could make a movie about this one....:eek5:

[NordieBoy]

My black burn stain remains on the road today and it reminds me every time I ride past.

"Yep. Did a burnout there once"...

Has a certain ring to it...

[dmc]

Riding home from Akaroa with a broken ankle wasn't much fun.

[Peril]

Every trip on the Tenere is a bad trip.Something usually goes wrong with it.

[AlpinePossum]

Post some photos, stories and highlights from your 'trip from hell'


Ok, I certainly can't top the "flaming ducati" guy....

Anyhoo, I decided to see what Swaziland was like... it's a wee inland mountainous kingdom on the eastern side of Southern Africa.

The trip down was absolutely beautiful, nothing much eventful except to learn that rotten logs are slippery as hell under the bark. (Front wheel gripped the bark, ripped it all off and went off side-aways whilst in true newtonian fashion I carried on straight forward.)

(Why was I driving over logs you ask? Something about being utterly unable to resist "long short cuts" very much off the road)

One morning up in the mountains I woke surrounded by brilliant red headed millipedes crawling everywhere through the misty twisty rocks. Deeply weird.

Got hungry and decided to look for a restaurant as a change from my camp cooking... Saw a sign and followed it down a dirt track. Missed the restaurant and then heard a devil of a racket. Bellowing like the apocalypse was right here, right now.

A bunch of guys had a rope around the back legs of a cow and was hauling up a tree.

I decided that would be a Good place to eat that night. Obviously the beef was going to be fresh....

Got to the far end of Swaziland when a ute undertook me whilst I was turning right. Except he hit my rear wheel. (I'm rather nervous about metal plated idiots coming up behind me these days for some reason...)

So I'm lying on my back looking at the stars... and the driver comes up and grabs my ankles... and starts pumping them. That's right, picks up my ankles and pumps them like I'm riding a bicycle and he's the pedals.

I think it's some Swazi form of artificial respiration.

Great idea... except I'm not winded... and my ankle doesn't feel too good.

So eventually I get him to stop and then say I'm Ok, I'm Ok, and to soothe them down I stand up...

...and fall straight down again.

Left ankle is broken.

Anyhoo they get me to the local hospital and get a cast on it.

So now I've got to get me and bike many hundreds of km's home.

With a cast on left leg.

The one that changes gears.

Friendly hotel owner wires an old pool cue to the gear shift and loosely to handlebars.

So off I go... Clutch in, right hand off throttle, grab pool cue, yank it up, clutch out, grab throttle...

Oh yes. This is on ye olde kick start bike.

Fortunately the Swazi's are an absolutely marvelously friendly bunch. I always get a bunch of guys who offer without even asking to start the bike for me.

Doc gave me a supply of nice little blue pills to kill the pain.

Way too few.

So it's blue pill in the morning when I'm driving... several vodka's when I stop at night to get to sleep. Those work better than blue pills... but no good if you trying to ride.

Get home and to the doc for a check up. All the hopping around has made things worse... he needs to reset the bone.

Except his anesthetic turns the blood in my veins into peanut butter, destroying the vein and just plain not working to stop the pain...

Remind me why I'm back to motorbiking again?

Oh yes, it's that "unable to resist the 'long short cuts' very much off the road" thing again.

[bart]

Poor bugger. That would suck.

I broke my gear change ankle playing rugby when I was a young fella. Peice of bailing twine attached to the gear lever and draped across tank, and attached to right side of handle bar, and I was away. Down changes were easy with the cast. Up changes, pull in clutch with left hand, pull bailing twine with right, away you go.......got very interesting when you had to stop though.

[Jules13]

AlpinePossum I love the way you tell a story. Just when I was feeling yuk looking at poor monstamans bike feeling like it was a death you made me smile with your story.

[Waihou Thumper]

Ok, I certainly can't top the "flaming ducati" guy....

Anyhoo, I decided to see what Swaziland was like... it's a wee inland mountainous kingdom on the eastern side of Southern Africa.

The trip down was absolutely beautiful, nothing much eventful except to learn that rotten logs are slippery as hell under the bark. (Front wheel gripped the bark, ripped it all off and went off side-aways whilst in true newtonian fashion I carried on straight forward.)

(Why was I driving over logs you ask? Something about being utterly unable to resist "long short cuts" very much off the road)

One morning up in the mountains I woke surrounded by brilliant red headed millipedes crawling everywhere through the misty twisty rocks. Deeply weird.

Got hungry and decided to look for a restaurant as a change from my camp cooking... Saw a sign and followed it down a dirt track. Missed the restaurant and then heard a devil of a racket. Bellowing like the apocalypse was right here, right now.

A bunch of guys had a rope around the back legs of a cow and was hauling up a tree.

I decided that would be a Good place to eat that night. Obviously the beef was going to be fresh....

Got to the far end of Swaziland when a ute undertook me whilst I was turning right. Except he hit my rear wheel. (I'm rather nervous about metal plated idiots coming up behind me these days for some reason...)

So I'm lying on my back looking at the stars... and the driver comes up and grabs my ankles... and starts pumping them. That's right, picks up my ankles and pumps them like I'm riding a bicycle and he's the pedals.

I think it's some Swazi form of artificial respiration.

Great idea... except I'm not winded... and my ankle doesn't feel too good.

So eventually I get him to stop and then say I'm Ok, I'm Ok, and to soothe them down I stand up...

...and fall straight down again.

Left ankle is broken.

Anyhoo they get me to the local hospital and get a cast on it.

So now I've got to get me and bike many hundreds of km's home.

With a cast on left leg.

The one that changes gears.

Friendly hotel owner wires an old pool cue to the gear shift and loosely to handlebars.

So off I go... Clutch in, right hand off throttle, grab pool cue, yank it up, clutch out, grab throttle...

Oh yes. This is on ye olde kick start bike.

Fortunately the Swazi's are an absolutely marvelously friendly bunch. I always get a bunch of guys who offer without even asking to start the bike for me.

Doc gave me a supply of nice little blue pills to kill the pain.

Way too few.

So it's blue pill in the morning when I'm driving... several vodka's when I stop at night to get to sleep. Those work better than blue pills... but no good if you trying to ride.

Get home and to the doc for a check up. All the hopping around has made things worse... he needs to reset the bone.

Except his anesthetic turns the blood in my veins into peanut butter, destroying the vein and just plain not working to stop the pain...

Remind me why I'm back to motorbiking again?

Oh yes, it's that "unable to resist the 'long short cuts' very much off the road" thing again.


Yes, these are the things that keep us riding and coming back...
Those hard luck rides from hell we all read about on ADV.com and here....
It is good to know that we all still have some wierd, wacky tales to share.....:2thumbsup

[Monstaman]

Faarrrkk, you win. I'm not going to even try and compete with that.

You don't have to mate it is not recommended ... do NOT try this at home :shit:


The first post would be the show stopper....


Wasn't meant to be, I am sure there are many more and worse, I have a really bad one in which we let a mate go on the road in my arms as probably a few of have, not gonna talk about that one tho, bike baddies is far enough for me and at least keeps a positive spin on our crazy recreation :Punk:.


"Yep. Did a burnout there once"...

Has a certain ring to it...

Never thought of it like that, next rally I go to with a burnout contest I will larf remembering your post.


Ok, I certainly can't top the "flaming ducati" guy....


Glad you can't and don't.

Very cool story you wrote and one that inspires you to carry on in face of injury and doubt :Punk: :Punk: love it!!