Blog Comments

  1. shafty's Avatar
    Good write up Mate, bugger about your tip-over, but Congrats on your Diamond!

    Shafty
    Matiere
  2. LBD's Avatar
    Good Yarn...thanks for the effort and well done. You really should have gone in to Patarau river....

    Re Radar detector....I have a simple 3 red LED cluster on top of my dash in my line of sight, works fine for me.

    See younext year then...Diamond again?
  3. gijoe1313's Avatar
    Fantastic effort, glad to hear you got your reward in the end for your troubles! Guess the policeman was having a nice day and didn't want to ruin yours!

    Thanks for taking the time to write it all up, living vicariously through all your exploits!
  4. DRL's Avatar
    Gremlin - thanks for the feedback
    Yes the big lesson learned for me is to do a much better job of route planning and optimisation.
    I thought I had it all planned out but in reality not as well as needed. For example I hadn't really figured out my plan B if I didn't do Hakataramea - sure go the long way via Omarama, but what extra flyers would I do to make up the 900 points lost - no clear idea.
    In hindsight the Okarito, Riwaka, Pupu Springs, Runanga, Strongman and Kaikoura flyers were too far off the beaten track for the 100 points involved. But the Cathedral Gully and Manuka Bay combo were easy reach. And I should have been planning on Hakatere all along.
    I just hope the TT2000 is on again next year, and there is a similar level of 150 flyers to pick a route from.
  5. Gremlin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by baldy47
    Liked your story. On the note of your radar, You should try the wireless system . The radar sends a signal to a very small unit mounted in your helmet. this flashes a small red warning light inside the helmet that you can adjust to suit your line of sight.
    My opinion, I used HARD. The problem was, I was never 100% certain it was working, perhaps it had run out of batteries etc, and you'd never know until it was too late. Using a comms box instead, everything gets fed to one set of speakers in the helmet.

    Matey, it sounds like you had a real adventure compared to my experience (I simply rode my planned route). I'd suggest you double check all the checkpoints beforehand, next year, as I did. I think Mike deliberately misplaces the odd ones by a few hundred metres (ie, it's a Hint). Seems minor when you're sitting looking at a screen, but very different when you're cold and tired in the middle of nowhere.

    Congrats on the Diamond, you definitely did it harder than I!
  6. baldy47's Avatar
    Liked your story. On the note of your radar, You should try the wireless system . The radar sends a signal to a very small unit mounted in your helmet. this flashes a small red warning light inside the helmet that you can adjust to suit your line of sight
    Well worth having and lets you keep your eyes on the road..