Hawke's Bay Ride Outs - is anyone there?

[fridayflash]

Looks a bit white up on the plateau! Up a pylon trail near Ngamatea station.
DR650 worked well as snow plow especially through hidden trenches! Bugger all snow on Napier side, nothing significant till Ngamatea area.
View from Comet hut track is amazing will have to include on a HB rideout sometime...


20130716_7138 by DR650NZ, on Flickr

wheres the access point for that pylon trail mate?

[R650R]

Thanks Robin.
I was Merino wrapped plus the bike gear so wasn't too bad, finally got round to fitting the antifog pinlock insert to visor so can ride with it closed at lowspeed and that helped too.
Snow plowing sure is good for polishing dirt of wheels and boots! Never done the ski thing, everyone I know who goes near those gets more broken bones than a biker! Maybe one day...
Here's the view across the road from Ngamatea station.

[R650R]

Just a few hundred metres east of Ngamatea gates I guess... oh hang on may as well google map it...

http://goo.gl/maps/QkDSm Couldn't see any no entry signs with the snow and all, mind you I didn't see the road closed signs either

The track up to comet hut is easy going, lots of big flat areas for group ride to pull off onto for lunch etc too...

[Night Falcon]

Spring is only 28 days away A great time for adventure riding in the bay. Spent some time in the garage today sorting out some issues on the 690 and giving it its annual physical.

Managed to straighten out a rather disfigured looking break pedal, sanded a few scratches out of the safari tank, fixed a broken indicator. Tried to find out why my speedo digital display keeps disappearing...suspect the speedo is on the way out again, first one was replaced under warranty but not likely to get another one on the good folks at KTM this time. Looked on line at those Trail Tech Vapour jobbies which look like a good alternative and are way cheaper than the OEM one. Has anyone fitted one of these? Are they any good?

[Box'a'bits]

I've got a Vapor on Gus. Works well.

[Woodman]

I got a vapour, done about 20k km. all good

[Waipukbiker]

Its one of those times when you wish you had a video cam with you, had an amazing ride on the Air forces 'DR" last friday, old design, Simple , strong and can do pretty much anything, Im talking about the mighty Bell UH 1H Huey or "Iraquoi" as its known here. About 40 mins at low level west of Ohakea, High speed along the beach just above the sand, over Sandhoft forest and then over to the Manawatu river and down and twisting and banking following the course of the river. The big side doors were locked open so when the chopper was banked hard over I was looking straight down, the massive "Chop" of the big rotor was pure music, The bloody thing shakes and vibrates like you wouldn't believe during hard turns. freaking amazing ride.
Also had some serious Glamour sitting in the crewman's seat, non other than Miss Louise Nelson who was crowned Miss Manawatu recently, she is a crewman in 3 squadron RNZAF.

Also had a play in the huge flight sim for the new 109 training helicopter, makes any computer game look stupid, the sadistic bugger in the control room was happily bringing on lightning storms, fire warnings, dropping one engine out etc, lucky I had a "Real" pilot in the other seat and he just calmly took over each time and dealt with each of the "situations" The whole time threatening his mate about the amount of shouts he was accumulating. Flew the 109 over Palmy, over the wind farm and around Woodville and back to Ohakea via Pahongina valley. Awesome multi million dollar Toy.

Waiting for photos to get sorted out and will post when available

[R650R]

Its one of those times when you wish you had a video cam with you, had an amazing ride on the Air forces 'DR" last friday, old design, Simple , strong and can do pretty much anything, Im talking about the mighty Bell UH 1H Huey or "Iraquoi" as its known here. About 40 mins at low level west of Ohakea, High speed along the beach just above the sand, over Sandhoft forest and then over to the Manawatu river and down and twisting and banking following the course of the river. The big side doors were locked open so when the chopper was banked hard over I was looking straight down, the massive "Chop" of the big rotor was pure music, The bloody thing shakes and vibrates like you wouldn't believe during hard turns. freaking amazing ride.
Also had some serious Glamour sitting in the crewman's seat, non other than Miss Louise Nelson who was crowned Miss Manawatu recently, she is a crewman in 3 squadron RNZAF.

Also had a play in the huge flight sim for the new 109 training helicopter, makes any computer game look stupid, the sadistic bugger in the control room was happily bringing on lightning storms, fire warnings, dropping one engine out etc, lucky I had a "Real" pilot in the other seat and he just calmly took over each time and dealt with each of the "situations" The whole time threatening his mate about the amount of shouts he was accumulating. Flew the 109 over Palmy, over the wind farm and around Woodville and back to Ohakea via Pahongina valley. Awesome multi million dollar Toy.

Waiting for photos to get sorted out and will post when available

You lucky bugger Ross, how did you manage to score that gig? Spent six years in Air Cadets and only managed a ride in an Andover, Cessnas and Gliders. We used to go "Adventure Touring" in Unimogs at our winter camps at Kurikapango though...

[Night Falcon]

Waiting for photos to get sorted out and will post when available

pics or it never happened

[Waipukbiker]

Im an Officer in the Ruahine Cadet Unit and we, along with the Lower Hutt Cadet Unit "invaded" Ohakea last thursday evening for a "Barrack Weekend". The Cadet Forces staff there manage to pull some strings ( more like bloody big ropes) and get 3 Sqn to do an actual flight tasking to give the Cadets a ride they will never forget. We had 38 kids there so it took 5 flights, A Huuuuuge thumbs up to the Air Force The look on their faces in the hanger when 3 Sqns resident beauty queen finally told them at the end of the briefing that they were getting a ride was bloody priceless, (We had kept it a secret) An awesome Adventure ride was had by all.

[DR Girl]

Sounds like an amazing weekend Ross Also look forward to seeing any pics you may have.
Only been a v small helicopter high in the Harris Mountains near Wanaka. When it tilted forward you thought you would full through the glass bubble. Scarry Had to jump out with our skies at the v top of a peak & as it hovered with tail rotor not too far away

[Night Falcon]

I've only been in a helicopter once. I remember it was red and had something to do with a bank or something

[DR Girl]

Thanks Marty, you reminded me, X2 . . . . . . & the Lowe Walker Rescue Chopper.

[Night Falcon]

finally a dry weekend for some adventure trials....

[R650R]

Looks like fun, keep on meaning to go for a nosey on the DR through there.
Found some soft stuff out Dartmoor way on a solo ride, got interesting fast lol...