Sunday 26 November - Where Did You Ride Today And What Did You Practise?

[Terminated]

The weather is grim here this morning in the Hutt Valley. So will leave Golf November Two Five Zero in the garage.

Practice: Well yesterday was one of the few occasions I have joined in a group ride, ah hum a huge group ride well over a 100 bikes on the white ribbon ride around Wellington harbour and coast.

So I paid attention to staggered formation, left and right head checks, and following distance.

Also wore my fluorescent orange vest, felt like a bit of a nana, but got plenty of good feedback and encouragement from riders who saw me on a GN

Heads Up and Enjoy

[Uncle B]

Headed off to the Wairarapa Sprints today.
7am on the Rimutaka's, no traffic.....Priceless!
Practised throttle control and vision through corners.

The ride back........very windy, very wet.
Practised keeping the rubber on the road.

[Hitcher]

No ride today. Yesterday? Different story. Practiced the fine art of pillioning, not something I do that often. Nice smooth lines, no sudden stops or squirting away from the lights. Plan your route or root your plan. And compared to the ST1300, the FJR is magnificent two-up in really big winds.

[Lissa]

Went to the sprints today. No rain on the way.. was all good.
Going home was a little scary.. rain and wind.
Practiced looking around the corners.
Keeping the bike straight in the wind.
And riding carefully/safely in the rain... even if I rode like a slowpoke.
Now know to wear wet weather pants in rain.

[klingon]

Yesterday I had my first real ride on my "new" 1995 Suzuki Volty. We went round and round the carpark across the road. I practised learning where everything is and how it works - the grab-point for the clutch, the position of the foot brake, how much pressure I need to use to change gear.

Then after about 30 mins her throttle got stuck on "go fast" so I got Dave C to take her back to the Volty-doctor. They have kept her in for observation and they gave us a scooter to take home in her place. Poor Volty's wondering if she's ever going to get a real ride (or maybe that's just me...)

Today I became a klingon again on the back of Dave C's SV and we went hooning all around Clevedon. Great fun! Then we came home and swapped to the scooter to run some errands around town. What a contrast! Poor little under-powered beastie! But we put our groceries under the seat to bring them home. Can't do that on an SV or a Volty.

[Waylander]

Had a great day up here. Partly cloudy warm temps and dry as roads so blatted over to Matamata to meet up with someone then over to Hamilton to catch up with my brother and a blitz back over the Kaimais in the dark with a tinted visor... Certainly an interesting ride home.

Heaps of bikes out aswell and even saw another Vmax while I was in Matamata.

[WasPhantom]

Road from Nelson to Picton today - it was wet the whole way - so that was a little more than unpleasant. That said, it was a hell of a lot nicer than the ride from Picton to Nelson Thursday week ago, as that was torrential rather than the relatively light rain that I had this time around.

Jumped on the blue bridge - it rocks! I'll post another thread on that however.

[ZeroIndex]

went to WINJA's place with Sayam5.. WINJA got a little boat with a 45hp motor, and we did some laps on the Waikato River, towing a seabiscuit was mighty fun.. then decided to have a 'look' at the 22, so headed out of Ngaruawahia and followed that through Glen Murray way, until we hit the Raglan turnoff, where I gave 2 american chicks directions (haha they couldn't work out how to get to Huntly....even with a map..)

Travelled down that raglan road off the 22, past the section of gravel road, nice pace, followed up this one left hander at about 90km, and then suddenly it disappeared and transformed into the nicest looking downward perfectly cambered 60ish km/h right hand sweeper.. now remember, i'm thinking it's a 90km left sweeper, and suddenly everything has gone to shit.. GRRRRR well, long story short, hit the brakes, back locked up as soon as it hit the first bit of loose stones/gravel, half into someone's driveway, towards a fence, and literally stopped 10cm from the fence, then fell off to the right of the bike.. I'm fine, except my foot's a tiny bit sore, but should be ok in the morning.. my bike? well.. thanks to people who live in the middle of nowhere, my bike got to lie down on a nice bunch of knee high grass, so only the mirror broke off.. got back up, took some pictures of the road, and the fact that there weren't any 'warning' roadsigns, and then we went on our way (Sayam5 was a bit behind me on his Comet GT250).. rest of the ride was great, and didn't have any of the 'standardish' loss of confidence around corners See everyone at Busa_Pete's on Saturday

Pic1: the left-hander
Pic2: disaster waiting to happen - an unexpected direction change
Pic3: the aftermath
Pic4: my mirror
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[Kendog]

Rode home from Wanganui after riding from Auckland the day before via highway 22, and the "back roads", good fun!
Practiced riding through really shitty road works, cornering smoothly, smooth throttle control, passing every car in sight and staying at a constant speed through gusty wind and pouring rain.
Mrs KD.

[TerminalAddict]

spent the weekend covering the missus while she is doing school reports.
but *early* sunday morning got a call
6am "meet me in Te Awamutu"

so head to otorohonga, through waitomo valley road, west to the south of kawhia harbour (te anaga I thing) north to kawhia, then back up to hamilton, home by 10am to meet the wife who was still having breakfast

scraped my pegs for the first time.
had a wicked slapper experience ploughing into a 75km corner at 1XX kph only to discover a nasty drop in the road surface of about 2 inches.

short (maybe 10 km) section that hasn't seen the sun in years wasn't fun.
Over cooked one corner, a leftie, that I managed to "brut force" around with no dramas (nice hot tyres)
the loose gravel is still there. the same gravel that was there 4 months ago.

[placidfemme]

I didn't go for a ride, but Sam took the ZXR out for a blast up to Orewa and back... said she had a great time and only saw about another 10 bikers out on the road...

[Hailwood]

We rode back from Auckland having been to U2 concert on Sat night..practiced riding in gale force northwesterly winds and rain on friday on the way up and the winds again from Taupo south yesterday. Also practiced passing a long long line of stationary cars outside of Otaki who were all stopped because they don't know how to merge..hehehehehehehehehehehe

[HDTboy]

I rode at Taupo and practised winning.

[Motu]

followed up this one left hander at about 90km, and then suddenly it disappeared and transformed into the nicest looking downward perfectly cambered 60ish km/h right hand sweeper..

I know it well,it's better going up as a left into a right.I still have the odd drama on it - earlier this year following Oscar on his KTM and me with fresh knobs....I was pretty loose going over the top on the hot road.But going into the right hander it's wide open and you can just flick it over and go down and around to the next left.One of the most exilerating bits on that road.It's SH22 by the way,although the road appears to be a side road,the road to Waingaro Springs is actualy the side road.

[ZeroIndex]

I know it well,it's better going up as a left into a right.I still have the odd drama on it - earlier this year following Oscar on his KTM and me with fresh knobs....I was pretty loose going over the top on the hot road.But going into the right hander it's wide open and you can just flick it over and go down and around to the next left.One of the most exilerating bits on that road.It's SH22 by the way,although the road appears to be a side road,the road to Waingaro Springs is actualy the side road.

ahhh ok.. so it is actually still SH22.. but yeah, a sharp right hander was the last thing I expected, and that shows I need to learn to observe more, and speed less on roads I don't know