New Rider (Rikard) let's tear it up Auckland

**Rikard** · 16th April 2015, 00:14

Hey everybody

So yeah got my first road bike. A 1997 Suzuki Bandit 250 with clip ons, she's a bit rough around the edges and needs a little tlc. Bought her with no wof and no reg for $1200, fork seals were gone and she's got a crack at the bottom of the engine casing and the thing had neons. NEONS! You know? The things that some people think are cool to put on their rusted up Honda Odyessy with a big bore exhaust.

Anyway so had a look at the fork seals and the inside fork was all pitted on the left fork so I replaced them with a set from a wrecker round Huntley for $300 bucks. Tore the neons off and BOOM wof and reg (still need to look at that crack but it's not leaking so it can wait till next pay day).

I'm coming off the back of some trail riding experience first bike was a kdx 200 at age 14 and since then it's been 250 4 strokes. One sxf 250 and two crf 250's. Mostly rode around Wellington which is where I'm from so spent a lot of time round karapoti forest and occasionally long gully (anyone here tried the Devils staircase at kara?).

In the lead up to getting a bike I've watched the twist of the wrist 2, oooohh about 10 times and have just read the book. Yes a bit over the top maybe but the way I see it when you're riding off road you don't have 2 tonnes of metal lurking in the bushes ready to pounce at you so probably best to be prepared.

Gear wise I've got a helmet (duh) rst leather jacket, rst boots, alpine stars reinforced jeans which I will change for the compliable rst leather pants when pay day hits and gloves (that was a really tight month after buying all that at once haha!).

Looking to find people to learn off really. I've ridden mostly through the waitakeres with a few rides to maraitai and up to kawakawa. Still plenty more to learn and action definitely keen to hit a few track days but I'll probably hold off till I can pick up an mc22 or another learner favourite. Riding most weekend day's weather permitting. On the look out for a nice roundabout for this weekend to get my body position dialled in so any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers for reading guys n gals if your every in need of a riding buddy let me know. Oh yeah and if anyone can talk me through cbta that would be great!

Richard