Personal entry

Damn, two months between rides is tough going. I got a bit of a surprise when I filled this morning to see that the last fill was on 14 June and even if I hadn't been working 7 days a week since that last ride, I doubt I would have been out much as the weather has been such crap. I don't mind riding in the rain but what gets me is the focus required to find a line through the tar slicks. Our roads really are in crappy condition.

I was supposed to work today but last night I thought, ...

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When I changed from riding an Intruder cruiser to the ST1300 sports tourer, I considered getting a radar detector, however, I figured that a detector might well encourage me to ride faster than the allowable limits and therefore opted an alternative measure of speed control and that was riding off the economy gauge, whereby if the speed rose and the economy dropped, then one was inspired to button off a bit. Ahh the joys of being a tight-arse!

The other major factor that entered into ...

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Today was a Uly ride to Hunterville for lunch. My worker has abandoned me for three months so I definitely don't have time to ride at the moment....and hence I needed to go.

As it was a relatively long ride, the start was scheduled for 0900 rather than the normal 1000, so I checked the tyre pressures last night, as well as packing the wets and other usual gear, charged the Sena and phone, then had to get up early this morning to scrub, gear-up, fill at BP Mana and get to the Weigh ...

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Commercially, stepthrus rule! They carry everything including the kitchen sink.....and the bar-b-q!!




....or the recyling.



You can use them to ...

We spent a week in Phuket recently and that was a bit if an eye opener.

On the night we arrived, I was gobsmacked as we were driven to our resort at Patong Beach (about 40 minutes) and small bikes and scooters were passing us on both sides, and vice versa. Then at one point, a bike passed us on the inside, then continued to pass the vehicle in front of us as they negotiated a right hander. My heart was in my throat because the road was quite narrow and twisty, with no verge and a ...

Shucks, another space of just over two months between blogs!! It has been Summer and early Autumn, so I have been riding but I guess I'm getting lazy and there hasn't really been any rides that have merited a blog?

We did continue doing the Capital Coast Coneheads thing on Wednesday evenings through to the end of daylight savings and that was quite good, although, after Christmas, there weren't a lot of punters turning up....and in fact on the last evening, it was just me until AndrewT ...

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Sat 21 – Day 3

At this point we already had 38,000 of our required 50,000 points and Saturday's plan called for collecting another 36,500 points and 1,114km. I arose before the alarm went off at 0500, geared-up, re-packed, put a bit of air in the tyres and we were on the move by 0605 heading south for the first three CP's at Menzies Ferry, Mataura Island and Bluff. I had Chriss behind me and his headlights were bloody bright so I turned my mirrors down and got on with the job, only ...

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Another TT done and dusted and it was a beauty!

After the frustrations of last year I took a slightly different approach this year, ….but then Mike Hyde has constantly evolved the concept of his ride so each year is different anyway and this time swung back to a ride where one could easily get their required points, then ride where they liked to stack up the km's.

I didn't do that though!

I looked at the layout of the checkpoints and my plan morphed theough ...

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