View RSS Feed

Ambling around

Hi! I'm currently living in Tokyo, where there are way more bikes around than in NZ. It's near impossible to do track days or offroad events etc, so I'll just be updating this blog with pretty 'ordinary' stuff. Hopefully some fellow bikers may find it interesting...
(Update: I am in Auckland now - Jan'08, but most of the blog is from stuff in Tokyo)

  1. Homeward bound

    Well this will be my last blog entry from Japan. I'm on the plane in a few hours, and as you can see from the pic some things have already begun the journey...
    My stuff will arrive in mid February, and once it's certified and I have some wheels under me I will be making the most of the remaining summer. Hope to meet up with some of you sometime.
    Categories
    Personal entry
  2. Various test ride impressions

    Well it's been a while since I blogged. The last few months have been getting colder, havent done much distance riding. The 'family' has grown by three more bikes in that time though, and in the process I did a few test rides.

    TMAX - ok it's a scooter, but performs pretty well. I tried a new one from a dealer. I was a little disappointed, maybe because I had seen too many youtube vids where the acceleration from zero is very good, or ...
  3. Japanese hoons



    I thought I was just about done documenting the various bike species of Japan - but how could I forget these?! The bikes in these pics are not the result of a freak accident involving a truck full of paint, they are actually the way the owners intended them to be. Usually the owner of these kind of machine rides around in a group with his buddies ...
  4. Dad does Tokyo

    My dad was here for a week last week. It was great to see him because every time I go back to NZ I go to Auckland, but I don't always manage to get to Levin where he lives. I have told him a few times that he should come over but he never seemed that interested, until lately when I pointed out that I would only be here a few months more and he might not get another chance.
    We spent a few days getting around by bike since I have so many now ...
  5. Price shock


    I was browsing around Ricoland again recently and felt compelled to take a pic of the prices for aftermarket parts so I could bitch about them on my blog. The three units in the first pic are around NZ$2100 each. I have bought whole bikes for less than that! And how about those 'fenderless kits' which are just an alternative mount for your number plate to allow you to take the rear fender off. They ...
  6. Daytrip robbery

    On Saturday I went for a ride with some friends of my wife's, the first time I've been riding with more than two others. It was quite neat to see a string of ten bikes in front of me all going around the corners one by one. Great weather too.
    We went out to the east coast of Chiba which has a decent beach, which is not crowded, yay! Our friends were camping there but we decided to come back that evening since we needed to do a bit of shopping ...
  7. New boots

    I finally got some waterproof boots today, and right in the middle of a typhoon too, so I used them straight away. I've been wanting to get a these for about a year now but whenever I go and check they never have my size. My feet aren't even huge or anything (a little over size 10) but finding shoes of my size in Japan is bloody hard. They offer to order them for me but I'd have to buy them and I didn't want to do that without trying them first. ...
    Categories
    Bike Gear
  8. Moto-guzzi a pipe and slippers bike?

    This gentleman certainly seems to think so, for the slippers anyway. Maybe he left his pipe at home. This is a great example of how people here are pretty carefree with what they wear while riding - this fellow's gear could almost pass for pajamas. Rather than ATGATT, it's more like NGATT. On the other hand though, they don't go around crashing bikes anywhere near as often as Kiwis do, at least from what I can tell reading the forums here! ...
    Categories
    Bike Gear
Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast