Today was a Dawn ride to watch the sun come up at Castlepoint. That event was scheduled for 0715, which meant an 0500 start from Brown Owl, which in turn meant an 0330 alarm!! Yuk! Oh well, alarm went, I slid out of bed and into the shower, dried off, kitted up and hit the road by 0407 having already checked the tyres etc last night. It was “A Starry Starry Night” and therefore we were pretty much guaranteed a sunrise viewing, the temp was a pleasant 15°, there was little traffic ...
So, I decided (after being told by several people in the past) to start a blog. Dunno if anyone out there will be even slightly interested in my ramblings, but here's the address: http://ayearinthelifeofabiker.blogspot.co.nz/ So far I've only done the Intro, but hopefully will be posting up on it every day (or so!) with my thoughts, ride experiences, and just general stuff going on in my life.
The alarm went at 9am, but this time there was no rush to leave the accommodation. We had two nights in Hanmer Springs, allowing us to explore the Rainbow Rd and Station without the weight of all our luggage, and also more time to do things at our pace. I wanted to leave earlier, as I knew the Rainbow would be about 3 hours, if not more, we had to do it twice and some side tracks, but at the same time, it was our holiday and time to take it easier, sample the food, enjoy the scenery and so on. ...
It’s 9am and the bloody alarm is going off. I had used the other bed in the room this time, which while still soft at least wasn’t like the other bed which did its best interpretation of water. I’d woken during the night cold, so had stolen the other thin blanket from the other bed (this time there was a pillow and blanket for both beds, not the one like my previous stay). It was hard packing everything up already and I could have slept longer on a better bed, but we had more riding ...
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Well returned today from my first bike rally ever!...The Waimate March Hare..apparently the biggest and best in the south island and a great one to use as my virgin rally run....from all accounts it usually rains..and I wasn't disappointed...it Rained! and Blew! and did it dampen our spirits?..not at all! "Bring it on" we cried, determined to enjoy...yeah right, Saturday morning we gave it two hours to clear or we were packing up! The threat worked and the sun showed its face and we stayed. ...
My TT2000 for 2012. I have a R1150GSA but managed to fall off that a few months ago in a farmers paddock at 10 kph and break my foot in the process. So for some reason I decide to take my trusty old K1100LT which I had fitted some extra lights to last year before the Grand Challenge. Also rigged up my radar detector on the LT, with a cool LED flasher in the middle of the dash - I had used the radar detector on the Grand Challenge but it is positioned way out on the handle bar well ...
The alarm is going off at 4.30am, our pre-arranged time. I have some 1200km to cover before completing the TT2000, which I budget to be 14 moving hours, 16 hours all up (rough maths), plus a buffer of one hour for safety, so I want to be on the road at 5am. I send a txt to Toto to confirm he’s up (as our rooms are not near each other) which he confirms and I complete packing. Most of my gear had already been packed where it needed to be, but there are always the final tweaks. Sticking ...
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