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Adventure/Dual Purpose Bikes

Riding any road. Tarmac, gravel or dirt.

  1. Morocco and beyond

    A New Year. A new challenge. That means a new motorbike tour.

    Regular readers of this forum may recall my contribution last year, detailing my 21,000 km , 22 country swing through Europe on my 2008 Suzuki V Strom 650.

    I finished the blog by hinting I was contemplating a tour of Morocco and Turkey in 2012. Well I have contemplated and I am off in April 2012 for a four month tour. This year the trip will not be entirely solo as a couple of friends want to join ...
  2. The Coro Loop ... sort of...

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ID:	250925Well Marggy and I set off after she got home from taking her mum grocery shopping... (yes she really is that nice)

    Unable or willing to face the Auckland traffic... I guided the Harley out through Morrinsville and Paeroa to Thames... we stopped at the Bakehouse for a coffee and then set forth around the various small bays and towns that make up the coastal section of the loop.... the Harley carving ...
  3. Curse Twisted Throttle! (16/04/2011)

    Having not had my BMW since early March, I'm getting withdrawal symptoms (most, if not all, the parts have arrived, now they just have to repair). To tide myself over this difficult period, I've taken to looking at what additional parts I should fit (coz I don't have nearly enough).

    Sometime this afternoon, I downloaded the 2011 Twisted Throttle catalogue: http://www.twistedthrottle.com/article/static/211/1/5/ My memory is vague, but I appear to have lost several hours in the 236 ...
  4. Riding around Europe

    In early May I leave the mild winter of the Coromandel to spend three months riding my motorbike around Europe.

    My route will take me from the UK, through the D Day beaches, down the Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, then Portugal. In mid June I will spend a week or so with friends in Spain, then it is off along the Med Coast to the sights of Italy, ferry to Greece , then through the Dalmatian coast , across to Austria, Czech Republic , Poland then up to the Baltic states . ...
  5. Cape Reinga to Bluff in 2010... the top!

    The slowest NZ traverse ever. [3]

    Cape day dawned fine and warm - we headed in to Awanui and fuelled up for the final leg north. Northland was looking more prosperous than our collective memories of 15-20 years ago, and the road improved the closer we got to Cape Reinga. There was about 15km of gravel but it was formed-ready-for-seal gravel and the new-ish top end of SHW1 sweeps over hills and around bends as if designed by a biker. The Cape itself has been truly DoC-imated: large ...
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  6. Cape Reinga to Bluff in 2010... made it!

    The slowest NZ traverse ever. [5]

    Returning to the correct route without further mishap, we headed up the amazingly wide gravel of Styx-Patearoa road. I wondered ruefully if the heavy rain that drenched this country the day before would have made much of Dunstan Trail II as nastily greasy as 'our' puddle... It turned out OK, I was probably more cautious but rain held off (though we did have a hail shower) and I was pleased to see the Clark valley woolshed and gravel under our wheels ...
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  7. Cape Reinga to Bluff in 2010... we go south

    The slowest NZ traverse ever. [4]

    On Sunday 12th December we left Westport and rode south, via the coast road, Moana and Arthur's Pass. Our destination was Timaru so Ruth could catch up with a museum exhibition she had assisted with over winter. We cut through Lake Lyndon Road popping out right at Rakaia Gorge Bridge where we had a spell; nearby tourists expressed amazement we had ridden over gravel, I accepted the implied complement to my great skill... In fact the loaded DL was ...
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  8. Cape Reinga to Bluff in 2010... barely

    The slowest NZ traverse ever. [1]

    In January, pillion partner Ruth and I set off on the Wee-Strom to get to Cape Reinga, somewhere I had never been which made it a suitable goal for our first decent motorcycle trip. Yesterday we returned from Bluff, completing a New Zealand traverse of sorts. Here are some memories of that ride.

    Between Westport and Nelson we encountered what proved to be the wettest weather of the whole northern trip, made more intense being stuck behind ...
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