Gremlin's Tall Stories

Once again, I was marshalling for Paeroa, which means an early start Sunday, so the accommodation is sorted for officials, marshals etc. This year, same as the last, accommodation was Thames. They were happy to have us last year, and presumably having their motel booked out for a night appeals to them.

Ange had asked to have a go on the BMW, so I took her down on Saturday. As is Gremlin’s way, we left late, departing Auckland at only 2pm. Ange needed to be in Thames to give the accommodation layout to the motel lady at 2-2.30pm, so there was no way we would meet that. Still, no stops after Takanini for fuel, we made good time, arriving in Thames at almost 3pm on the dot.

A quick check-in, we had to be on our way to Paeroa, for the briefing of organisers. My room had 3 singles and a double, with two of the singles in an adjoining room. A father and daughter would take that, Toto and I would take the double and single. Since none of them were around, and Toto is smaller than me, I put my panniers next to the double. Sweeeet.

Back on the road to Paeroa it’s an easy 25 min run, except a large truck and trailer unit delays us quite a while, with no suitable passing spots. We reach Paeroa at 3.40pm, head to the normal HQ, and find it suspiciously quiet, as in, there is only one other person and the building isn’t open. It turns out the HQ has moved several streets away, so we head off and eventually locate it.

When the short meeting is over we head off to explore how to get to building, entry through the pits, parking for marshals etc, as we can’t get our vehicles into the track the following morning. We return to the Thames motel to find more people have arrived, grab a few drinks and spend the evening planning marshal layout on points, sausages from the BBQ and drinks.

Toto makes good time and arrives before 7pm, except his Honda doesn’t have an issue with not starting. He made it down fine, but now it won’t start. We head off to get more fuses, replace them, but there isn’t a lot we can do. The bike makes all the right noises, turns off, but won’t cough into life. Toto gets someone to collect him shortly around 9pm, and heads back to Auckland to collect his van.

Neighbours complain about the noise, but we’re in bed shortly before midnight, only to have Toto finally turn up just after midnight (having ignored the txts and calls checking he is OK). We load his not-broken Honda into the van and return to our beds.

I would say sleep, but a freight train comes visiting regularly during the night in the shape of a Toto… reducing the amount of sleep to less than desired. I must remember he snores like that. I’m a heavy sleeper, but he’s still capable of waking me up.

Sunday

The alarm goes off far too early at 5.30am, having not had nearly enough sleep. Toto is surprised to hear about snoring, but several others (from other rooms) confirm he indeed snores.

Load up our gear, we all depart for Paeroa, and as usual, I’m first last away, but it was fortunate, as we find sausages, bread and sauce left behind. Lucky the BMW has heaps of room, so it’s all loaded up, and we run down to Paeroa in a little over 20 min.

I try to sneak my BMW into the track, on account of transferring stuff to the van (which carries all the flags, marshalling gear and holds our bike gear). The track is already closed, so foiled, but we find the van still trying to get in, outside, so hand over the sausages and bread etc.

A quick brekkie pie, sandwich and drink, and into laying out flags, collecting radios, gearing up etc. We’re on our points around 8am (on the hairpin this year) and practise commences a short while later.

I take a couple of photos of the Britten circulating, but busy during events. Keeping an eye on bikes entering and then exiting the hairpin requires almost 360 degrees of observation. There is no shade, and the first 1.5L of water disappears mid-morning. The day continues to get hotter, great action, but pretty exhausting.

Only one decent incident on the main straight, everything else was relatively minor, thankfully nothing like last year.

I pop by Plugz 4 Lugz on the way to de-gearing, having spoken to them in the morning about a custom set of custom plugs as the standard shape hurts like hell when doing 20+ hours of riding. He’s thought about it during the day, and sets to work, and will send them the following week. They will courier, as I leave on Thursday morning for the South Island.

Drop the radios off, pack up the gear, bring the bike in, some of us marshals adjourn to Jokers for a catch up about the day.

Toto has already headed north, and warns of speed cameras on the straights, which is extremely predictable after every Paeroa. What wasn’t predictable, and his txts reach us too late, was the amount of road works on SH2, with massive delays stretching for kilometres. I try my hand at splitting, but a fully laden BMW, with panniers and pillion is heavy and wide (think 2/3 of a car). I make my way down the passing lane, waiting for vehicles to give me a bit of room. I can’t squeeze between the vehicles and yellow lines, so wait to pass more conventionally.

By Maramarua I’ve had enough. I could have U-turned, but thought against it. At Maramarua I head down Monument Rd, as I’ve used it before, and head to Mangatawhiri via the back way. Back on SH2 we’ve bypassed the traffic. A good pace resumes again, making excellent time, until just north of the Bombays (if only I’d got off then) when we hit more traffic down to Ramarama. A boat wasn’t on a trailer, which meant another car park.

Cruisers eventually pass, so I use them to open the traffic up, and work my way through to Ramarama, where I get off. At the top I realise the incident was under the bridge basically, so get back on the motorway and a smooth pace is set home. All the delays and dropping off Ange mean I only walk in the door around 9pm, so a long day.

The necessary mileage for service is done however, with the bike sitting on 9950km. 5 weeks, 6000km… not a bad effort. Tomorrow I drop the bike off for her 10k service, Thursday I leave for the South Island.