Personal entry

Well - rather than write huge outpourings of woe and angst, it's probably easier for me to do this blow by blow while on the road so the detail is preserved, and the sanity (and time) of anyone wanting to have a peek will remain relatively intact also. (That didn't make perfect sense but I'm jetlagged to hell - sue me!)

So I book some flights - off the Europe pretty much on the back of a US trip, home for 6 days then lift off again for 2 weeks on and near the continent.
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I'm in Vancouver at the mo and I shot down to breakfast the other morning to the musical sound of kiwis talking at the next table. I stopped and said hi got talking and they're the Air NZ Kapa Haka team here in town for a couple of things - including the send off of the flight I'm on tonight back to Auckland.

Man - if anyone in here works for Air NZ say thanks to them. It is SO nice to hear and meet people from home while on the road, and to be given a full Maori send off tonight... ...

The highlight of this week was taking my mate Jake to see ‘Thomas & Friends’.
We saw the show on Wednesday morning with about 5,000 other kids….some old kids like me and a lot of small kids like Jake. We had to chuff and toot to get Thomas on the stage, toot to wake up the sleepy sheep on the tracks and clap and sing and wave as Thomas saved the day after the big storm, by finding a big diamond to replace the broken lamp in the Sodor Island Lighthouse so that the festival of Lanterns could ...

I had to come down off the high and get the energy levels back up after completing the GC this week and being a short week for me meant it went pretty quick.

On Tuesday, my lower back and shoulders were pretty tight from struggling in the crosswinds on Sunday so a Massage was in order, but that was about the only event for the week.

I didn't have a ride planned for this week but decided to visit my mum in Masterton on Sunday. I finally cleaned the bike then had a pleasant ...

Between the weather and the desire to preserve tyres for the Grand Challenge, the last two weeks have been very lean on K's. In fact, this week is the first in over two years that I didn't use the bike to go to work at all and I've probably only done 200-300Kms.

My total rides were a jaunt up to Raumati Sth last Friday to see a client. It was a beautiful day, although a little cool after the southerlies from the previous days, and the short ride was made a little more interesting ...

Two weeks of not much riding, but it's been quite eventful.

A couple of us were talking on Tuesday of last week about going down to Blenheim for the 'Longest Day' 1000km endurance ride on 3 November when I suggested, “Why bother with the Ferry, we can organise our own ride”. The next day I had established several route options, but on that day, my mate Steve came to grief when his 'Busa decided it didn't like p-gravel.

He wasn't going to be much help (and it put him ...

I'm working in a new office with a door that doesn't lock. Makes me nervous about leaving my gear here when I go out for lunch-meetings-whatever.

Here's a description of the gear I usually wear to work in case the worst happens and it goes walkabout...

Helmet: HJC CS-12, black with tinted visor
Gloves: Spool size 8, black leather
Trousers: Dririder Nordic 4, black
Jacket: Spidi On Track, navy blue with silver/black winter liner
Boots: ...

I'm not very good at this blogging thing. All kinds of momentous stuff has happened since my last entry and I haven't bothered to blog it. Things like:

• Got hit by a car in May, I had concussion and a fractured rib. Volty was written off by the insurance company! I bought her back, fixed her up and she's back on the road again with few clues to her adventure.

• In July I did my 6R test and passed - no more L plate! Since then I've been allowed to do more than 70kph

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