Thanks Paul, I've contacted ATV parts to see what they have and there are a multitude of strange Chinese things about, it's a matter of sifting the wheat from the chaff so someone elses experience is always appreciated.
Just thought I would reawaken this thread, first Vinduro of the season at the end of October at The Farm, Whangruru (somewhere in the northern wilderness, probably can't get good coffee). I have the XR actually running, just need to make sure it will run for an hour or two and fit some tyres with knobs on them and I'm ready. Training is taking the form of checking for a pulse each morning and being thankful.
Are you going to run with Jeans ( or short stubbies ), T Shirt, work boots and Bell open face helmet like back in the day?
Have you seen my legs? Small children and women running screaming in terror is never a good look... aren't you supposed to me off getting Delhi belly by now?
October 10 fly off to relaxing Delhi....
Whangruru ? Somewhere near Taupo?
Want to do the next one, DT175 is ready ish................
Bit further north than Taupo... The farm is between Whangarei and bay of islands, have a look on the Vinduro site or google "The Farm"
Just a brief note to say the Vinduro at Whangaruru was a ton of fun, despite heavy rain leading up to it the organisers had a great course sorted out consisting of two loops (run 3 times each) with a time trial section as a bonus. The riding was what I would describe as fairly typical of a farm trail ride, all very rideable and hilarious in places with mud getting into some very interesting places and leading to some spectacular slides, barely saved crashes and over the handlebar events, I must get a Go-pro! The XR200 did a lot better than I expected seeing as I had about 1 km of riding on it prior to the race, handled quiet well until I lost a seat bolt and had to sit down to stop the seat falling off, hot starting is a bit of a challenge and I remember why electric starters were invented. I pulled out after 4 laps as I managed to stretch the throttle cable outer casing resulting in a 6,000 rpm idle which made for an interesting 10kms of riding, luckily judicious use of the kill switch got me home. There were 38? vinduro bikes plus another 20 or so others roughly half pre 1980 and one 4 speed British bike (no idea what it was), everyone was having a ball and were really helpful with suggestions for improvements / repairs and things not to do! Next one is at Riverhead (just north of Auckland) on December 5th, looking forward to it!
hey crisism, just read your report, i saw through facebook etc that the whangaruru farm vinduro was a success, i want to do another one soon but doubt i can make it to the riverhead one....certainly not on a vinduro bike thats for sure, ive got two xl185s's in the garage so one of them may have to be my next steed. how did you go for standup riding on your xr200A? thatll be a bit of an issue on the 185..i bit too small to stay standing for long
The XR200 exceeded expectations in all departments, handling was better than expected with the rear coping way better than I expected two antique shocks too, absorbed everything well, the front was a bit soft and got a bit out of shape if you tried too hard with it. Standing was good but I am used to a fairly aggressive stance on the bike anyway, I tend to run lower bars to keep my weight forward and I'm not a big guy (175cm & 70kgs) at the best of times, I found the XR a hoot, just full throttle and chuck it around, good tyres did help..... If your finding the XR185 a bit small just sit, if the farm ride is anything to go by there were plenty of times to do that and save the standing for the rough sections, I had to sit for a lot of the last ride as I lost the seat bolts and my arse was the only thing keeping the seat in place, it didn't really slow me down significantly (didn't make me any faster I noticed tho). Really looking forward to Riverhead, it should be a good turnout and Riverhead is always a challenging ride, with a bit of rain this week it will be mud everywhere! The next one (february?) is at Maramarua I think so that is slowly getting closer to you guys.
Riverhead, 5th December.... The important bit, I survived, so did the bike, me with only a sprained ankle and the bike with a munted sprocket guard... tree stumps and roots! A very untypical Riverhead, the course was prepared for wet conditions and it was bone dry which made it a fairly fast (relatively) with the 70 kms of the gold course being complete in about 3 hours, no idea how long the silver course took but it was about 20kms shorter. Lots of easy riding on tracks and gravel roads with sections of single track that varied, mostly steep but very rideable in the conditions, even had it been wet it would have been ok with good tyres, it would have just taken a bit longer. I had a great time, the XR behaved faultlessly-ish with me getting the hang of hot starting, front brakes (lack thereof) proved a bit exciting, I have a feeling John Nic has a video of me plowing straight past him when I was supposed to be turning a corner, the front end is a bit independant minded particularly over roots which contributed to a few close encounters with the ground. It was a small turnout, VMX was running there Morrinsville meeting the same day which sucked a few away unfortunately so about 30 entrants on old bikes, still good to get to know a few new faces and learn some more about getting the XR to go. Next meeting is February at Maramarua (just past Bombay) but I'm in the south island on an adventure ride then so I will have to wait for the Kinleith round unless I can find some local VMX stuff to enter.
Maramarua 3rd April.... Well, that was interesting! Rained fairly steadily all morning which made for a very slippery ride, again a mix of single track and gravel roads, similar in layout to Riverhead but significantly more challenging due to the conditions. I have grown to hate the bloody Honda, sticking throttle and hard starting made life very difficult, there is nothing like a full throttle run down a hill with no traction, at one point I almost set the horrible thing on fire, luckily I couldn't find any matches. The really annoying thing is that it's been running well at the couple of VMX events I have done so both problems came out of the blue. Maybe it just doesn't like rain... A reasonable turn out, something like 40 bikes and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves (they must be the happiest group of masochists I have ever met), the organisation was great, once it became apparent that some parts were hard to get everyone through they modified the course to reduce the carnage and managed to maintain a rideable course for everyone. I managed a DNF as I couldn't get the bloody thing to start after a crash on the last terrain test but the highlights have to be passing a KDX up a hill (4 stroke power!) spending 20 minutes pushing two bikes up another hill and emerging completely orange in colour (you couldn't stand up on this hill unless you had a tree or bush to cling too) and managing the lower part of the final terrain test without falling off for over 30 metres, it was just a little bit slippery with completely clogged knobs and zero control over steering or drive. Bring on Kinleith!
Bloody masochist!!
