gijoe1313's Blogs

Still with me? I admire your persistence and veracity for applying yourself to my litany of lambast to the life of the ride I like to live! So, on we shall go!

From Waiouru to Taihape, there was serendipitous moment, as the snow receded, the state of the road conditions improving, a small unbidden thought came to my mind.

“Cindi”.

Que vera que?

“Cindi”.

A small voice at the back of my mind spoke to me, it was my Predator communing with me. My preddy was announcing her name to me! No longer just a Honda made CB1000R Predator, my bike had proclaimed she was a female and her name was Cindi! Marvellous!

She also informed me that the names of my two male Hornets at home were “Max” (CB900 Hornet, aka Big Ol’Hornet) and “Pete” (CB250 Hornet, aka lil’ol’hornet). Apparently she had a nice conversation with them, I didn’t realise the significance of this until later … (hush, all shall be revealed when I get to Ashhurst, so you can just stop your blubbering and be patient until then ).

With a much improvement in the weather, the pace picked up and in next to no time at all Taihape was just a down hill run (oh ho ho, for all those that know the Taihape area, I made a funny … )

Stopping at the … wait for it … BP servo, I refuelled, gathered my wits (be quiet! Yes you in the cheap seats! I know I could better be known as witless, but it’s my story and I make the cheap shots!) txtd DONOR (I think the chap had gone to beddy byes long before this) and leaving a rather large puddle of water on their floor and forecourt. I also begged a couple of plastic bags to put on my feet, since the water proofing liners of my Garnes had somehow wicked in water and it was sloshing about a bit. I remembered to tip the water out into the bin inside, hah, see what good upbringing I had! So remember that tip! (ho ho, made a funny again, chortle).

From there, it was a relatively quiet run from Taihape down SH1, moving through Marton, blasting onto Bulls quickly, followed by Foxton, leaving Levin, over through Otaki … before passing some time at a … MOBIL servo in Paraparaumu. Gasp! I hear you cry dear reader! A MOBIL? Oh noes! That traitorous dog! Well before pillorising me, I would have you know that Cindi (or is that spelt Cyndi? Or even Sindi or Syndi?) is a lush, she has a mad thirst for go juice and goes through it like an alcoholic in a bottle store. I think she is trying to make a statement against a Firestorm’s consumption! Anyway, being filthy biker scum, I care not a jot for how much liquefied dinosaur goes through my ‘zorst (which shall be replaced by a nice can later on, but I do digress) – the more fuel I use the betterer it is! (25 times moar betterer even!)

From there it was pretty quiet until the penal colony of Porirua came into view. Now, I met the a of plonkers in a beat up car, as I was passing them on the right hand lane, they decided to engage in drop kick activities, they sped up and it was about the time I saw them rolling their windows down I decided to give Cindi a little tickle on the throttle.

My oath.

Roger me sideways with a steel wire brush.

I was dearly holding onto life and sanity as I hit warpspeed.

I somehow managed to make the fused show tripping the light fantastic into some semblance of pastiche vignettes. I recall the engine growling out aloud, the lines on the road becoming one solid block and the tunnel vision … for those who come from the 80s, there were shows called Automan and Streethawk. Respectively they were shows about vehicles doing ludricous speeds with the attendant thrill and terror all rolled into one.

The car load of idiots were left far behind quickly, since I had clearly crossed over dimensions with my acceleration, I thought I could hear the conversations of the passengers in the car “Hah! You got owned by that bike!”, “Dude, he just … went” and other such epithets (actually I felt like those characters in “World’s Fastest Indian” who were watching Burt take his Indian on a speed test run “look at him go!”)

With that incident left behind in the prehistoric stone age, such was my velocity I had actually broken the space-time barrier, I found myself in Wellington, home of the team I hate to love, or love to hate, the Hurricanes/Wellington Lions. It is my home, I was born here and raised here – and I love to come back to it when I can (probably explains why I inadvertently travel here so often!)

But, it is time to have another moment of reflection – I’m sure you have a few chores to catch up on, don’t worry I will still be here waiting anon for thee to return upon the nonce, mark ye well I will!