Racing In NZ [Archive] - Kiwi Biker forums

Brian d marge

2nd August 2006, 12:41

Well its about time I told you all about me wee jaunt to New Zealand ( sorry I didnt hook up with some fellas and I didnt get to Kimmeys which was a shame. But I did get to do on trail ride and on race, and learnt a lot!.
We arrived at Auckland after a lovely flight, Air New Zealand may charge like a wounded bull but the flight was nice , I do like the digital TV. You can have a whiskey and and watch a movie or flick oer to a tv programme.

We drove to MD cycles in pukekoe where we purchase a CR125r of 1991 vintage, The bike was a good example , engine worked fine the chassis needed sorting , not to bad just been standing.
After driving to Napier, I set about sorting the bike. I re-valved both shocks , fitted springs to suit my weight. ( more on this later !) . Well I took on a bit more than I should have, right back to bare metal and completely rebuilt the bike in a week ( well not quite as I had family to deal with ).

Well we were ready ( not quite ) on Friday night and packed ready to go and wouldn't you know it, the road to Taupo was close due to snow. The first time this century, sort of.

Saturday The road opened at lunch time, so we were off. We arrived at the place around four in the afternoon, so we booked into a hotel and had a nice feed. I am not going to say how much the prices have risen in NZ, no not going to say a thing !

The next morning ,bright and early we arrived at the place, Sorted the bike ( Fork oil and gearbox oil ) , Then made the start.

The track was good, The first time I had seen this type of track, long open paddocks and tight twisty bits, The mud, let me just pop in here and talk about the mud. Its different. Its like an sticky clay that's mixed with grass, effectively making adobe blocks and sticking to everything. As in not clearing the treads, more on that later .

Right now the excuses, my goggle were crap forcing me to throw them away and causing my contacts to dry giving me double vision. Which was a lot faster cause I couldn't see the dangers so didn't slow down!!!
Secondly , Tyres they were not clearing the mud, so I was getting NO traction at all . Finally the suspension was WAY to hard so I was skittering across the bumps. More on that later!

Personally, the thing I found a bit difficult was trying to go fast without knowing what was ahead. Not a contradiction in terms but this was my first time on rolling pasture and I didnt know what was going to happen. I think next time I would be better prepared.

Everything was going to plan apart from the contacts, When the first of the funnies started to happen. A fella on a Yz250 came past and lost the front end, high sides in front of me. I check to see if he is alright and then trundle off on my merry way. The next bit of drama is getting lost. Two arrows means difficult, so I follow the 2 arrows, after a few min I realise that there are no other track marks around me, oh dear I am lost.!

The next wee jaunt is a gate. Lots of people standing round, well I better look good, don't want to embarrass ones self does one. Well round comes the back-end, I save it, round it comes again this time I abandon ship. So that's why those people were standing round me thinks.

Back to double vision and listening to the drone behind me, if it gets louder , move over. The next bit arrived to soon. The nagery bits. Again I found my suspension to hard and with the mud clogging up the front tyre, it was hard going. I tried going fast to clear the mud from the front , but that just made the crashes harder. Then I tried following the ruts, that ended up in a crankcase stuck on the ridges. So the best plan was to just to have no plan! and just try to go forward.

Until we came to the forresty bit and a river. Well lets just say I met some interesting people while waiting for the chance to cross. Cross I did lots of throttle, lots of clutch and a restart .

Once clear f the forest it was open paddock until the finish, where I was still standing but a little tired!
After Lunch it was another loop , This one was, Mud , MUD MUD. It was hard work and the only crash of note was a face plant in a black bog , Though in the final run, there was some airtime which I learnt that someone had some good air!

Now the food , lamb chops the size of dinner plates, roast spuds you name it ! Now after all that did we load up the truck and eat ! could have done with a beer, wonder why we left early ???

The bike was cleaned and checked , Running on 91 unleaded worked a treat, didnt think there would be any gasoline issues. Then the bike was taken to Main Freight where for 1/2 the price of another carrier the bike was shipped to Christchurch . Now the bike was shipped a week before the start of the race, The plan was to arrive on the Thursday so that I could get the thing ready for the race on Sunday.

Well, The tickets had been booked for the Saturday. Then on the Saturday we arrive at the airport only to be told that the weather had shut Wellington and we couldn't possibly get down there today. After some pleading we flew to Auckland then down to Christchurch ( Just made it , as we landed we were immediately told that the flight to ChCh was final boarding)

So at the end of the day we arrived in ChCh after the shops had shut and only enough time to do some basic checks on the bike,

The next morning we loaded up the trailer and headed to the race. I was thinking the start was 9.30 when in fact it was 11, with the start at 12 .
I managed to eat a sandwich, which ran out about 1 pm ! anyway the bike decided to block a pilot jet , so a quick drain and away we went. After queuing up to sign on we discovered that we hadnt quite the right paperwork, which was overlooked by the kind Gentleman in the tent!. Then after watching the Juniors we were gridding up and off. How can I say this , I didnt even make the siting lap ! No traction , the mud was worse than Taupo and the hill was steep. after bouncing my way round, I hid at the back of the pack.
To soon I was off, blast up the hill , hide , wait until everyone went past then do my best .

To soon I was off, blast up the hill , hide , wait until everyone went past then do my best .
In hind sight, on the last lap I should have just binned it in Style to keep the press interested or someone a good laugh!.
The hill was a killer , then it was a straight run through till a river crossing followed by a steep track , of slippery clay. If The two stroke hit the power band and the wheel spun that was it, you pushed. This is when I discovered the superman technique ! lie on the seat like super man , feed the clutch to the gods and nail it.
well after lap two I stopped to help a man Stuck in the bog up to his carburetor, I mean the bike was vertical and the hole he was in was 4 feet deep ( no I am not making it up ! )
By lap 3 the track was Mud Mud MUD and a wee touch of MUD . I was falling off every few feet and had reawakened the injury I did in Taupo. Lap three was my last lap.

They called the race at hour two , which means I didn't fall that far behind, I suppose I could have tried for one more lap but I was poked , I mean I needed help to get off the bike !

Lessons learnt, well; Tyres , suspension and power delivery. I spoke to Lynton at dirt Action later in the week and a comment by him opened up my world.

New zealand natural terrain doesn't offer much opportunity for airtime, so the majority of the time the suspension is in low speed territory, So you want to be reducing the restrictions on the suspension oil, ie soft shim stacks that open easily (compression ) and large ports with a stiffish rebound, so that it doesn't kick.

Tyres, Mud clearer's , I noticed that the Michelin S12 had larger cleats and were further apart. A good set of mud clearer's in the winter is what is needed!, In summer it would be much like Japan. Though the ground was a mixture of rock and clay, so if you went to soft in the carcass you would puncture, The tyres on the CR were screwed after two races , with the front losing a few Knob!s

Power Delivery; Soft . In the mud it just hit the power band and spun. the other bike were just shooting past me. How they were getting traction I just don't know. ! Big is not better, as to handle a big bike for that distance was difficult, the cr125 was perfect in CHCH size wise.

So ..After all that, I/and family were out 860 dollars in total. But when you think of what actually happened it was a big ask, But was done .

Be back next year, oh for sure baby!

No of this would have happened without the help of

FAMILY
WESTPOINT mx Kawagoe
SCOTT MD CYCLES pukekoe
and the wife ,,,,,,,,,,,