It sucks getting older

[russd7]

needed to do a trip to nelson to visit my ailing dad so organised some time of work and planned to leave friday night after work and ride througfh the night.
lunchtime friday a mate rings and says he coming with me, unfortunately he rides a harley trike and likes to pootle along so first change to plan, i suggested he ring and book us a cabin at omarama.
6.00pm friday night we leave home and head up to frankton via mossburn then on through the devils staircase, im feeling good and my baby is feeling the love, so far so good, colin is keeping up mostly so i don't need to slow to often to wait for him, we stop at frankton and fuel the bikes and a little for the body again, next stop omarama, we head off and once w hit the kawarau gorge, this sis where my baby really started to show the love and we had an awesome ride through but had to wait at cromwell for the trike to catch up, that done and next part was out past cromwell and up the side of the lake, just cruising along here and enjoying the relaxing ride and the wind hits, lots of fun trying to stay between the two white lines, thankfully rode out of that around tarras from here on in i picked my pace up and very quickly lost the trike but as this is one of my favourite stretches of rode and my baby was showing the love we didn't stop until the top of lindis where i waited for a while for the trike to go through, from there it was only a short jaunt on to omarama arriving at 9.45.
day two, i wa up at sparrow fart so went for a walk and had a shower, not long after colin got up so we packed up and hit left at 7.30am and headed across the road to fuel up before heading off through the mackenzie basin, very hard to keep the speed respectable on that stretch of road but i managed to stay below walking speed and the trike was staying with me most of the time until we went through tekapo and then i kept losing him, apparently he saw a cop so decided to slow to 100km/hr, so again i was having to slow and wait for him to catch up, at fairlie we turned and headed through to geraldine and again with a nice twisty road i shot off ahead and had to wait on the otherside for colin to catch up again, stoped in geraldine for a couple of pies then fueled the bikes and headed inland towards methven, dont enjoy those long straights but had a bit of fun buzzing through the rakaia gorge then waited on the otherside for colin to catch up then on to sheffeild, decision time here do we go via arthurs or down past oxford and on to culverden, arthurs won the day as colin hadn't been over since the viaduct was put in. so we fueled up in springfield then headed to arthurs pass, only 100kms but a lot of fun and not to much grit on the road, when i got to arthurs i had quite a wait but finally colin turned up, he had been stuck behind a truck all the way through, while he watched the bikes to stop the kea's attacking it i shot in to the loo then on the road again, it started raing and visiblity dropped right off so colin had no problem keeping up through here, turned off at jacksons and headed to stillwater, and still raining, got through to still water and headed towards reefton and rode out of the rain just up the road so the pace quickened s we rode through to reefton, fueled up the bikes then went for another pie and a coffee before heading off again out to inungahua then turning to head out through the upper buller gorge.
By this time my baby is getting snotty with me after all the slow riding and i have only riden this road twice before on a bike and one of those was 10 yr ago, now this short stretch of road is what motorcycles are made for, it was dry and my baby just wanted to go so off we went, it was one of those magical rides that we look for where everything just gels, totally awesome, needless to say when i got to murchison i had a smile that would have lit up the night and i had quite a wait for colin on the trike to turn up, from here it was on to the gowan where we parted company and colin headed through to havelock and i continued on my merry way to nelson. I mostly enjoyed the ride through from murch but what the hell have they done to the hope saddle, the chip repairs i am sure must have been done by a kindergarten kid, what a f**ken mess

[russd7]

stayed night in nelson with my dad and then headed away on sunday morning about 11.00am, back down to murch, this is where it sucks getting older, the shoulders were starting to ache and the upper arms were sore from the workout the day before, seemed i couldn't do much more than 100km before having to get off and stretch so although the road speed was up because i was traveling alone, the time to get anywhere was slow, first stop was murch for a coffee and one of the worst pies i have ever had, ended up throwing half of it away, then on down through to springs junction, this is another awesome piece of road and the tires were getting a good workout and by the time i got to springs i was feeling it again so stopped for another stretch then on down to culverden for fuel and a good long rest and a yarn to a few other bikers out and about, from here it was down to amberly then up to oxford where again i had to get off and stretch, the body was really feeling it by this stage so i made the decision to head for geraldine and stop there for the night. rather pleased i did after talking to the other half and finding out the weather had shit itself in southland and come in stormy.
Day four dawned bright and shiny so headed off from geraldine back through to fairlie and on to tekapo for a coffee and a pie for brekkie then on to omarama for another break and a coffee and fuel for my baby, lots of fresh snow down on the moutains and mount cook was out in all her glory.
from omarama it was back over the lindis and on through cromwell to frankton for more fuel and a stretch then down through the devils staircase to lumsden for another stretch and the home.
2200kms for the weekend and the body was feeling it, damned sure i never used to get this sore. need a new rear tire now, only got 7500kms out of this one, normally get 10000, guess i should slow down a little.

[Banditbandit]

Two days and 2200ks on a motorbike ... what do you really have to complain about ???

[unstuck]

Harden the fuck up, ya wuss. It sounds like fun to me.

[russd7]

yup it was a bloody good ride, ya shoulda come with me sticky one, ya possibly would have enjoyed it, but im damned sure when i used to do trips like that i didn't hurt as much

[ellipsis]

yup it was a bloody good ride, ya shoulda come with me sticky one, ya possibly would have enjoyed it, but im damned sure when i used to do trips like that i didn't hurt as much

...what hurts most is the cost of a bed and a steak...