KoroJ's Blog
The Long and the Short of it!
by , 10th April 2016 at 12:30 (4137 Views)
It’s odd really, I don’t feel like I’ve done much riding this summer, but the fact is, I’ve done one 1,000 km ride and three 1,000 milers since October and a bit of Conehead stuff since just before Christmas. On top of that there was the 1300km MDA ride before Christmas and the wee scoot up to and around Hamilton then back between Christmas and New Year… and then yesterday, a 900’ish km out and return to Rotorua to attend a funeral …all in all, over 15,000 km.
I guess it’s because I haven’t done many club rides and the km have been compressed into a few weekend bursts, but I figure three 1600+ Km rides within a 6 month period must be quite rare… at least in NZ anyway.
The first was the annual pilgrimage to Turangi for the Nth Island 1600, in which 60 riders took part and I rode with James (XP@) Riley (also on an ST1300). That was blogged here: http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/en...e-we-there-yet
The second came about because Murray Gray wanted to do a 1000 miler after he had turned 80 and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be privileged to be a part of his attainment of ‘legendary’ status and that ride is blogged here: http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/en...th-of-a-Legend!
With a vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctXZ...ature=youtu.be
The third 1600 ride from a few weeks ago has been blogged, but unfortunately I can’t post it because it was an earlybird ride of October’s NI1600, because as one of the organisers, I wanted to get the checkpoint photos for the Rider’s Guide, as well as do it now to free me up to be a volunteer on the weekend, as things could potentially get quite hectic if we get a good subscription to the new Nth Island 800 event that is being included with the 1600.
When one includes the 320 Km each way to Turangi from Wellington, that ride turned into nearly 2300 Km in 27 hours and although I harboured faint hopes that I could have done the whole thing in 24 hours, unfortunately the weather was against me and, at the end of the day, I wasn’t in that much of a hurry nor was there motivation to push the boundaries further than I did.
Distance riding is a strange beast. We often wonder why we continue to do it after overcoming the challenge of the ‘first time’, but Murray has done sixteen 1000 milers and Brian eighteen, while I’ve done ten with three of them extending to over 2,000 Km.
We’re absolute nutters!
Yesterday’s ride was really just a wee pootle that was a trade-off of riding to an economy whilst managing the trip in 4½ hours. Basically a consistent 102-105ish pace with the odd blip, like when getting through Reparoa on the way up and I was 6 minutes over schedule. The weather was OK, but care had to be taken over a wet desert road because there are still a couple of treacherous, potentially slippery sections through there, and when the temp hit 10°, the heated grips got cranked up.
The ride home was much better because when I left at 1630, it was rather drizzly in ‘Vegas, so the wets got donned, but as soon as I got out of town, it was clear and I only got the odd ‘splatter’… and the temp on dropped to 14-16°, …and the Desert Road was dry. I did lose 4 minutes after Waikanae though, thanks to slow pokes in the 80-zones and a couple of bad sets of lights …but an 18.7 Km/Ltr economy was pretty good.
On the other side of the coin, James and I are quite fond of riding in carparks. We are coneheads, but James is more of a conehead than me. He’s so into it, he built up a CBR125 especially and now he’s nearly finished tweeking a CBR600 as well. He seems to like coming off them because then he knows he is pushing the bike to its limits, but it’s paying dividends for him because he now edging into the top ten in the world on the WC-Gymkhana circuit, whereby a course is posted on the internet and participants have a certain time in which to submit videos of their attempts on the time.
So I’m just a nutter, but James is absolutely certifiable!
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