General Bike Ravings

The first glimpse of the UK after a summer spent in New Zealand was comforting. It is, in spring; a soft land, without the intensity of light and the raw,adolescent edge of the Coromandel landscape. The spring flowers and trees blush colour against the grey overcast sky.

In a few months, the Olympics will be held in London. And like the rugby World cup's impact, there is a dulux freshness about the airports,public buildings and roads. Union Jacks, bunting, billboards, ...

It’s been a while in the making but after making this blog: http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/en...829-09-2011%29 I found out about IAM (http://www.nz-iam.org.nz/) and started on a campaign to improve my riding.

With the mileage I do I’m sure my riding isn’t completely hopeless, but I do believe in being the best you can be. I did a lot of visiting YouTube, searching for IAM and the British bikers in action, especially the ...

The alarm rings at 6am. Urgh, why did I set it this early again? I have to be out at Southhead by 9am, and it will take a little over an hour to get there. Mind you, I haven’t yet packed the gear I would take.

It’s pouring with rain outside. Hardly an incentive to get out of bed I muse. I ride enough in all weather conditions that deliberately heading out for a fun ride in pouring rain holds no appeal whatsoever. Still, the system is meant to have passed over during the night and ...

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5.30am… the alarm is ringing… urgh, don’t want to get up but I have to. Not for the first time, I find myself wondering why I sign up to all these early ride things. KoroJ is already up, so I pack and gear up, and we’re out the door shortly after 6am.

Gas is the first task (I had most of a tank left, but filling meant I wouldn’t need gas before Napier), but there is a Z near the Cenotaph meeting point, so easily done. Hard to believe how many normal people are at the station ...

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Friday

Two days of blogs in one, as neither was particularly busy, and mostly about getting myself in position for escorting a cancer baton to Auckland.

Toto’s alarm disturbed my peaceful slumber at 5am but he was on his feet far faster than I. I offered to return his key and he left via the ranch slider to catch his ferry. I never heard him leave as I was already back in bed fast asleep.

My alarm went at 8.30am and I seriously thought about turning ...

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I guess an air show doesn't really have much connection to a blog more about riding motorcycles than anything else....but I did have to ride to get there!!.....and what a good idea that was!!

Having served 20 years in the Air Force, when I heard about the Air Show I thought, 'Hmmm, it's been awhile...I've been out 19 years and haven't been to an air show in that time. I guess the last one I went to was when the Air Force celebrated its 50th, I was at Wigram and had to go as a worker. ...

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I finally stopped sulking about it all (cheered by news that I have a replacement in the pipeline) and went and had a look at my Triumph to see what happened on the main straight of Paeroa.

The first thing to do was take the fairings off so I could get to everything and locate where the problem was. Even before I'd taken a bolt out of the fairings I could see the belly pan was full of sludge (oil and coolant mixed together). This didn't surprise me because even though it didn't ...

We wanted to be up later, but the free breakfast finishes at 9am so we set our alarms for 8.30am. A nice big bowl of cornflakes and a scone or two was a most excellent start to the day. There was no rush either, so we slacked off in our room, browsing the internet and blogging for the entire morning. I got a couple of days done, with the word count rapidly passing 9000 words for the trip. It’s clear I must lay the blame for so many words squarely at the feet of GiJoe, for without him I’d still be ...

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