General Bike Ravings

AMCC Round 1 at Hampton Downs signalled the start of Summer racing and the first race for me since Paeroa in February, 8 months ago.

This time I planned to get an unusually early start so that we're not rushed even if something doesn't quite go as it should so I'd set my alarm for 5:30am. That's an insane time to be awake. On the average work day my body might be walking around but my brain isn't awake until about 10:00am. Even then that's only after some breakfast ...

I know you’re thinking, “Yeah Right!”...but we did,...we did see the Gorgeous Babes!.....Well,... we saw pictures of them. I guess they weren’t in because it was Sunday!?

Today was a SH2 Claytons Ride to Mangatainoka. That’s the ride you have up SH2, when you’re not actually riding up SH2!

I recovered from last weekend’s trauma with my spewyy blog and thread about Mr Avon and I was looking forward to sampling the new Bridgestone 023’s on a decent ride. It was unfortunate ...

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Well the one last time ride I expected the last one to be wasn't and was followed by 2 practices and and 11/2 days of racing.

This first practice was lots of heart leaping little thomas the tank engine's "I can do this, I can do this."

The second practice was lets get some decent laps times and was more than happy with 46 sec laps (about a sec off my top consistent times)

With first day weather packing up and I crashing I'd had enough and went home after ...

This weekend was programmed for my last conditioning ride for the GC (with only 3 more weekends to go and a club ride next weekend) and since missing out on the big Honda sale, although I was resigned to keeping my bike, I’ve kept a weather eye out for a replacement ST.

There have been several nice looking ST’s on TradeMe and I turned down a good offer in Masterton, as I thought, “Nah, keep the $’s and keep the Big Red, it’s got 122,000Km on it, but it’s going great.” ...But, then ...

FU Mr Avon!! You can take your Storm 2 Ultras and shove ‘em where the sun don’t shine. I’ve had nothing but great riding off the Avon Storms but my last three rears (all Storm 2 Ultras) have cost me a fortune and given me no end of grief. The attached refers for the first two, to which I received no comment or reply….and then there was this weekend!!

The bike has been running great, I did have to get a Battlax 023 fitted to the front (I might note that this was because of Mr Avon’s ...

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I finally got around to putting my bike on the dyno and did we get a surprise!!

Sunday I hooked up the trailer, loaded the bike up and got things ready to go visit Gary Pendleton. I swiped the mother inlaws Garmin because I wasn't exactly sure I'd find Gary's place without a little help and then watched some rugby.

Next morning I was up far too early for a Monday (I don't work Mondays, they're evil), into the car and off to McDonalds. Can't go anywhere without ...

Ann had the Hawkes Bay Masters Tennis tournament to play this weekend and I don’t usually travel to these, but on this occasion it suited my purpose to go for a ride....so we did. We took Friday off and got away from home around 0900 for a quick fill at the Ngaio GAS then head over the hill to Masterton.

This was the first ride on the new Bridgestone 023 on the front and it’s been awhile since riding with Ann on the back, so the bike felt a little different and I was wary to see how ...

Yeup, you read that right. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been on a bit of a bent about survival and rider training.

Ages ago GiJoe had mentioned first aid kits and that sort of thing and I had shrugged it off. Since preparing for the GC last year I have been thinking of it more, especially when I had a few close shaves with cars on some runs, or helping people broken down in the middle of nowhere. Then Katiepie had her incident and it was a further reminder that I really should ...

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