KoroJ's Blog

Apart from some commuting, I haven’t been for a ride for nearly a month thanks to the crap weather and being busy at work, but this week I suggested a route for a club ride but I hadn’t been on some of the roads and didn’t even know anything about them, so Steve and I decided a Recce Ride was required.

Fortunately we got a great day but I still decided to put the liners in my pants and wear the Spidi Gloves. That was a good idea because getting away from home a 0850, it was only 5° and by the time I had ridden the 30Kms to Steve’s place I needed to put a skivvy on and don the inner gloves as well.

From Steve’s we went to Caltex Rimutuka to fill up and I led out over the hill at 0950. We took it easy expecting the possibility of slippery bits, but the road was in good condition, dry except for the odd patch and pretty much straight after we went over the summit, the temp rose to 13° then settled to about 10° for the rest of the day.

Into Featherston and we took a left onto Wakefield St, headed past the park where it became Underhill Rd and was soon pretty thick gravel, but we continued on until after about 5 or 6 Km we hit a dead end…..Bugger. Google maps showed this as a link road right through to Woodside and my good North Island mapbook indicated there was a short gap half way along but now we knew it wasn’t a goer so headed back to Featherston.

Our next diversion (which I new was OK) was Matarawa Rd, so we took SH2 through Greytown and turned left after the bridge, right onto Watersons Line, crossed Dalefield Rd onto Thomas Rd, a right and left onto Brooklyn then Mannings, a left right at Belvedere and onto Cobden Rd and had a nice pootle from there onto Hinau Gully Rd and Hururua Rd to Carrington. From there we took Mangaterere Valley Rd, Chester Rd and Norfolk to emerge at Waingawa. It’s been 30 to 40 years since I had had been over these roads and this diversion proved to be great, so I think I will probably incorporate it into a few of my future rides.

The next stint was familiar taking us along the bypass to the LoopLine and out to Kaiparoro via Mauriceville, so Steve led through here after a natural break at the Mobil, then I took over again as I had the directions taped to my dash when we got back to SH2 just north of Mt Bruc. We continued straight across the road and onto South Rd No2, left onto Priests Rd, right onto Mangatainoka Valley Rd, left onto Mangaroa Rd and this is where I thought it might get dodgy. Sure enough, it turned to gravel just before Mangaraupiu Rd but the next 3Km or so was hardpacked and had reasonably good tyre ruts to follow, so it wasn’t a problem and we were soon on Kakariki Rd and through to Hamua. Another success!

We were now onto the last leg, most of which was familiar, heading into Rongomai then across to Alfredton Rd, taking that to Route 52 and on to Masterton for a cup of tea with my mum. We had to take care through here as there were a few sections that never saw any sun and ranged from partially damp through to wet-as, with the odd patch showing a hint of brilliant green colour. We had no problems though, with the 220+Km trip from Brown Owl to Masterton taking just over 3 hours, which included our deadend doubleback and a few pauses along the way, so depending on how many riders, it would probably take 3 to 3½ hours as a group ride.

The return over the hill was pleasant and I got back into Wellington about 1530, having done 385Kms for the day at an economy of 18.3K/Ltr and 70,880Km now on the bike. The day settled the withdrawal symptoms of a riderless month and I now look forward to when we do this as a club ride.