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James Deuce
13th March 2005, 15:15
Just got back from a week at Castlepoint. The Dolphins were frolicking as we left.

What a brilliant day to ride back!

We packed up, had breakfast at the store and I left there about 9:15am. I'd threatened to ride the Tinui-Alfredton road many times before, but someone had always talked me out of it because of the 30km of gravel.

Boy am I glad I did it. The roads leading to the gravel were heaps of fun. Twisty, smooth, and no traffic. The gravel itself was "interesting". Freshly graded (as in deep) in parts, about as wide as someone's driveway most of the way, and full of little deceptions. The signpost at Tinui says "Alfredton 33Km". The signpost where you begin your ascent says "Alfredton 29Km". After you've travelled 14km from Tinui. The next signpost you see says "Alfredton 29Km" after you've travelled about another 6km. The gravel road was mostly pretty good, meaning I could do about 40-50km/hr pretty comfortably on my hard ballon tyres (compared to a dirt bike that is) and I got used to the bike moving around pretty quickly.

The scenery through here is unbelievable. Real "backblocks" stuff interspersed with dark forest sections, with switchbacks, steep descents, gullies, rams the size of jersey cows, and a hawk devouring roadkill round every second corner.

Lots of logging trucks use the road, so every bridge or corner has a lovely series of corrugations. Soon got used to standing up a lot. Only moment came when the rut I was following headed for the ditch and a deep layer of gravel on a downhill 180 corner. What was that maxim again? "When in doubt, gas it". Oh yeah. Bwaaaaaaaaaaa - shot a couple of magpies down with the roost. Got round the corner too. Really want a KTM Adventure 640 now. The 40 or so kms of gravel took me about 50 minutes, but it was actually fun. I can kind of see what all those dirt bike people rabbit on about now.

Once back on the tar stuff, the rest of the trip to Pahiatua went pretty darn quickly. Met an Intruder 400 rider from Hamilton called Verena. I was a bit flummoxed with the 400, because it's the first 400 Intruder I've seen. Looks like the 800, but it's water cooled. She was a dag, and we chatted about family and attitudes to female bikers and Japanese cruisers. She's not exactly getting the red carpet rolled out for her by either the cruiser brigade, or the rest of us (you fellas know who I'm talking about), so if anyone bumps into a woman on an Intruder 400, be nice, 'cos I said so. Grrr.

The rest of the trip home was a blast. There was practically NO traffic all the way home, just the normal McKay's crossing snarl. From Palmy to Levin was the quietest I've ever seen it. I saw two L platers today, one obeying the 70km/hr restriction religiously just out of Shannon (stop that, you'll get hurt), and another person teetering down Paekak. We gotta get that law changed folks, it's stupid. 70 km/hr is just a mobile hazard on the open road.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean all that dust off my bike.

Joni
13th March 2005, 17:18
Glad you got home safely Jim...
:niceone:

Ms Piggy
14th March 2005, 06:49
Yahooie! Sounds like a blast! :2thumbsup Hope you're well rested.

bear
14th March 2005, 07:31
Sounds like a good adventure - such great weather for it!

StoneChucker
14th March 2005, 09:57
Good stuff Jim, sounds like you had a great time. It's great to get away on a small break now and then, I'll be taking more of them!

Women on bikes??? What next, give them the vote? :wari: hehe (PT)
I'm nice to everyone, on everything. That should go without saying for everyone. People who discriminate against sex or bike are irrelevant imho, as their opinions wouldn't matter to me anyway!

Ride Safe Y'all
Dave.

Hitcher
19th March 2005, 15:04
Gravel? Good on you mate! Too many adrenalin moments on the ZRX have curbed my desires to go onto this stuff for prolonged distances on a bike with a fat rear tyre.

NC
19th March 2005, 15:19
No drift netting there, then?

James Deuce
20th March 2005, 19:41
No drift netting there, then?

Nah, but I ran out of blasting caps two days early.

MOTOXXX
21st March 2005, 15:32
good to hear you had a good time dude.
Its always a good time out castle point, riversdal, ngawi etc.
it gets realy hot there over summer too. went to riversdale over new year once and was like a sauner in the lounge by about 10.00

BNZ
21st March 2005, 15:34
Hey MOTOXXX where you out eastbourne/days bay on sunday arvo?

MOTOXXX
21st March 2005, 16:17
sorry dude, wasnt me.
was hung over like a mule on sunday. watched movies on the computer all day :banana:

Hitcher
21st March 2005, 17:46
was hung over like a mule on sunday.
Metaphors can be an amazingly evocative literary device. But on this occasion somebody will need to draw a picture for me...

MOTOXXX
21st March 2005, 21:16
Metaphors can be an amazingly evocative literary device. But on this occasion somebody will need to draw a picture for me...


yea dont know who made up that one

BNZ
22nd March 2005, 09:41
Metaphors can be an amazingly evocative literary device. But on this occasion somebody will need to draw a picture for me...

Just remove "over" :niceone: