2004 Rusty Nuts 18th Grand Challenge - 1000 miles 24 hours

[Blakamin]

Well the grand challenge was on last weekend.

The weather helped make it tougher than the other two I'd done. Some heavy rain on the way to Opotiki and the fog around Te Kuiti slowed us all down.

I rode up with mangell6 and dave (not on KB), saw Hitcher and Mrs Hitcher, Rider in Black and Jackrat. Not sure if any other KB'ers where there. Pretty sure I saw Velox, Melonman and a couple of others on the Desert road as we were heading to checkpoint #1.

The Brutale's fuel consumption added probably an extra 6 gas stops when compared with the other runs. Most of the legs were around 230k each so with a max range of 190 my refills where usually small ones to get me to the next checkpoint. To give a comparison Dave was on a VTR1000 firestorm which aren't the worst with fuel comsumption but hardly a saint either. The Brutale used about 40% more gas for the same mileage. I won't even try to compare against mangell's FZ1, that thing could run for days on smell of an oily rag!

All in all it was a good ride, everything up to Gisbourne was great and once the weather cleared on Sunday coming back from New Plymouth was a blast.

The attached photo's show:
1) the route, start by going south from the red dot (which I added)
2) everyone waiting inside for the start (those looking closely can see Hitcher and Mrs Hitcher)
3) collection of bikes outside
4) Dannevirke sunset (checkpoint #2)

Good shit... so you completed allright?... was the brutale comfortable? (was staring at them today waiting for my Duc)

Nice sunset BTW... must be a miracle for Danniverke... everytime i go thru it rains... middle of summer and all

[matthewt]

Good shit... so you completed allright?... was the brutale comfortable? (was staring at them today waiting for my Duc)

My previous two 1000 milers were on my old MV-F4 which is probably one of the most uncomfortable bikes every made. So yes it wasn't to bad. My neck, shoulders, back and wrists were fine. My backside needs another day before it will speak to me again. Although I did get one offer of a free backside massage.....

What sort of duc are you looking at ??

[Blakamin]

My previous two 1000 milers were on my old MV-F4 which is probably one of the most uncomfortable bikes every made. So yes it wasn't to bad. My neck, shoulders, back and wrists were fine. My backside needs another day before it will speak to me again. Although I did get one offer of a free backside massage.....

What sort of duc are you looking at ??

Glad you did well!!

i was looking at and bought this

[Blackbird]

A job well done

We thought of you guys when it was fair tossing it down in Coromandel during the night. A really testing ride and we look forward to seeing a blow by blow write-up!

Cheers

Geoff

[Ghost Lemur]

Looking foward to Mr H's write up.