Hamilton Wednesday night ride

**carver** · 5th April 2007, 14:20

Originally Posted by The Flux Capacita

hey if i make my bike naked i could get a bigger rear sprocket and just practise wheelies and stuff at slow speeds haha that way i won't go to fast and crash but i'll still have my imaginary large penis same as jono

come on bruce, you know the more hard n fast riding you do-the bigger it gets.
yours is just small..

**Teflon** · 5th April 2007, 22:12

sucks to hear about the crash. Were you boys trying to keep up with Warr?? ( i gave long time ago)

**Warr** · 5th April 2007, 22:40

Originally Posted by Teflon

sucks to hear about the crash. Were you boys trying to keep up with Warr?? ( i gave long time ago)

You will have to get something bigger than the CT... And I remember getting a ticket following something yellow!!

**Teflon** · 6th April 2007, 09:53

Originally Posted by Warr

You will have to get something bigger than the CT... And I remember getting a ticket following something yellow!!

yeah that was a interesting day.. i blame the red one, peer pressure..

**ZeroIndex** · 6th April 2007, 12:38

Originally Posted by Teflon

yeah that was a interesting day.. i blame the red one, peer pressure..

OMG... a CT, have you learnt to do wheel stands yet? what happened to the beautiful TL1000?

**carver** · 6th April 2007, 14:11

Originally Posted by ZeroIndex

OMG... a CT, have you learnt to do wheel stands yet? what happened to the beautiful TL1000?

yea...speaking of the ct 90, did you hear about my new ZX14?

**Bnonn** · 8th April 2007, 23:16

Hey chaps, forgive me but I didn't read the whole thread. Are you guys still doing these rides? I met Carver and I presume ZeroIndex outside Domino's the other day and it would be good to meet up and ride with some people. But before I say I'm in it would be good to know what sort of riding you guys do. On a scale from slow and relaxed, through fast and aggressive, to Rossi, what sort of riding style should I expect? I'm not hugely skilled or experienced and I don't know the roads so well so I don't want to be left behind (:

**ZeroIndex** · 8th April 2007, 23:39

Originally Posted by Bnonn

Hey chaps, forgive me but I didn't read the whole thread. Are you guys still doing these rides? I met Carver and I presume ZeroIndex outside Domino's the other day and it would be good to meet up and ride with some people. But before I say I'm in it would be good to know what sort of riding you guys do. On a scale from slow and relaxed, through fast and aggressive, to Rossi, what sort of riding style should I expect? I'm not hugely skilled or experienced and I don't know the roads so well so I don't want to be left behind (:

Welcome to the site Bnonn... don't exactly remember stopping at Domino's the other night... I remember stopping in at the Te Awamutu BK Lounge (Burger King), but it was a long day...

The rides still do happen, and they're somewhere paced anywhere from slow and relaxed to averagely fast and mildly aggressive... We always wait for people, so that no-one is left behind. Hope to see you at Caltex Dinsdale this Wednesday night (5:30pm)

**Bnonn** · 8th April 2007, 23:43

Yeah, might not have been you...I dunno. Anyway, see you then (:

**Bnonn** · 10th April 2007, 12:45

So I thought to myself, "Self," I thought, "today is a beautiful day, and since I am planning to go riding on Wednesday with a bunch of people whose riding styles and route I don't know, why not prepare by taking that route in advance?"

Marvelous. I contacted my friend Jamie, with whom I often ride (and who will be coming on Wednesday as well), and off we went. We started out at about 1.45 pm yesterday (Easter Monday). All was good; we were setting a brisk but fairly relaxed pace through the Whatawhata twistes; we turned off at the right road to head over to Huntly, and we got to Huntly in good time. We stopped at KFC for a bite to eat, and discussed our different cornering methods. I like to lean off the bike more than Jamie does, and so I tend to need a less acute lean angle and thus don't scrape my boot like he does. Also my tires are stock Dunlop tourers and...well, they kinda suck for aggressive leaning.

Then it was back on the road, taking the back way to Ngaruawahia. I followed Jamie and he turned off right, and we were back into rural twisties. All was good for a while; I was thinking that this was a great route, although it would be a bit terrifying come dusk. There were some nice straights followed by good series of turns, varying from WOT to NTB (nail the brakes). We encountered a couple of cars, but not many, and we were able to pass them soon enough in a couple of the short clear straights.

Then we turned a bend and WOAH, WTF! The tar seal disappears abruptly into a metal road with fist-sized jagged stones sticking out of it. Jamie just keeps on going (he learned to ride a bike on the farm), so I circumspectly follow him, taking it a bit slower than he is, having never ridden off-road much, and hating my time on gravel. After a couple of hair-raising kilometres the road clears up and returns to the normal crappy tar seal, about the quality of which I am now nonetheless grumbling a lot less. At this stage, I'm thinking in my naive mind that I'm going to have to ask those Kiwi Biker folks what the big idea is with gravel, coz that shit ain't no fun in the dark. But we keep on going, and get to a turn-off, which Jamie takes, and I trustingly follow.

About 50 km down another road which shows no sign of ending, I'm starting to wonder whether we're going on exactly the route we had planned. Eventually, we get to a long down-hill straight, followed by another up-hill one, with a gas station (closed) and a school sitting in the dip. Pukekawa School, the sign says. Jamie pulls off into the gas station parking lot.

So about that time I'm thinking to myself, "Wait a minute..." I pull up next to Jamie and yell through my visor, "Where the fuck are we?!" He just shrugs and laughs a bit nervously. "I have no idea," he admits.

Well, obviously we're in Pukekawa. But where the hell is that? I have some signal on my phone, thankfully, so I try calling my wife to get her to look it up on zoomin or motowhere. No answer. K, what about my parents? My sister answers and says she can't find it on the map. She's looking on the Hamilton map. No, that is not going to work! She has no other map, so she says she'll look online and I must call her back in five minutes (they're on dialup).

A couple of minutes pass, and she calls me back (obviously impatient or something). She's like, the only reference to Pukekawa I can find is related to Mercer. She's a bit vague; I don't think she knows how to use a map (like most women, eh). But that gives us something. We decide to keep going; we still have a half tank of gas each, and the road has to go somewhere! I ask her to call my wife and let her know we're going to be late, and I apologize to my parents as well because we're due at their place for dinner at 6, which I doubt we'll make.

A couple of kays further on, Jamie pulls over and says he saw a turn-off that said Mercer 9 km. So we turn around and take the turn-off, and soon enough we find ourselves in Mercer. We cross the bridge, but instead of turning right onto the motorway (sign-posted and all!) Jamie keeps going, thinking the road sweeps around left onto an on-ramp. No Jamie, no it doesn't. It sweeps around left onto a gravel incline! We kinda skid and grind to a shaky stop and carefully turn around and get onto the on-ramp...and let me say, why is there gravel on the on-ramp?! It's a sweeping curve, and you're opening the throttle to get up to motorway speed, and there's gravel on it? So as you're leaning into the curve with the acceleration going down, yay, gravel! That's a wonderful idea! Sweep the damn ramp, people!

Anyway, we ride uneventfully to the Gordonton turn-off, the route to which even we can't cock up, and Jamie takes the turn-off. Fair enough, since there is a lot of traffic on SH1 and it's going slower than a dog with bricks tied to its head. We take the Gordonton road until eventually Jamie takes a turn-off marked Cambridge. Now, you'd think I'd have lost all faith in the guy at this point; he knows I have to be home soon, and my fuel gauge shows one bar left. But I follow him. We get to another turn-off to Cambridge, and I pull up and yell "what the hell!?" at him, but he just makes some unintelligible reply which is muffled by my earplugs, and takes off at a ridiculous pace. I assume he knows the road and the amount of enforcement it sees, so I follow him briskly, and we trundle along at 140 or so for a few kays (the cars are keeping up too!) Eventually we get to a sign marked to Hamilton, which he takes (thank heaven!) I'm not sure if the route he chose was really any quicker than just following Gordonton Road, but it probably wasn't much different.

I recognize this road, at least; it's the back way in/out of Morrinsville, through Silverdale. He lives in Silverdale, so I wave him off at Carrington Ave and keep going to Glenview, breaking a few speed limits in the process (my back hurts, I'm in a hurry, and I've been driving at high speed for several hours, so I'm not really inclined toward the idea of city speeds). I pick up my wife, bundle her onto the back of the bike, and head back to Silverdale/Hillcrest where my parents live, getting there at 5.45 and with 4.2 km showing on the reserve tripmeter. I am very tired!

But, today all is well. No lasting pain or bruises or stiffness, which is good. The FZ6 is very comfortable to ride long distance, all told. I was curious this morning to see where the hell we actually went, as compared to where we should have gone, so I created a map on motowhere.com. This is the route we were meant to take, and this is the route we did take (at least, as close as I can remember given that I wasn't paying very good attention to the road signs). It says 216 km, but my odomoter tells me that between filling up in Hillcrest, and filling up again in Hillcrest (Caltex and Mobil by New World respectively), I did 280 km. As opposed to the 99 km + city travel we had intended.

So, I still don't know the route we're taking on Wednesday—but I can definitely tell you all what route we should not take!

**ZeroIndex** · 10th April 2007, 14:04

Originally Posted by Bnonn

So I thought to myself, "Self," I thought, "today is a beautiful day, and since I am planning to go riding on Wednesday with a bunch of people whose riding styles and route I don't know, why not prepare by taking that route in advance?"

Marvelous. I contacted my friend Jamie, with whom I often ride (and who will be coming on Wednesday as well), and off we went. We started out at about 1.45 pm yesterday (Easter Monday). All was good; we were setting a brisk but fairly relaxed pace through the Whatawhata twistes; we turned off at the right road to head over to Huntly, and we got to Huntly in good time. We stopped at KFC for a bite to eat, and discussed our different cornering methods. I like to lean off the bike more than Jamie does, and so I tend to need a less acute lean angle and thus don't scrape my boot like he does. Also my tires are stock Dunlop tourers and...well, they kinda suck for aggressive leaning.

Then it was back on the road, taking the back way to Ngaruawahia. I followed Jamie and he turned off right, and we were back into rural twisties. All was good for a while; I was thinking that this was a great route, although it would be a bit terrifying come dusk. There were some nice straights followed by good series of turns, varying from WOT to NTB (nail the brakes). We encountered a couple of cars, but not many, and we were able to pass them soon enough in a couple of the short clear straights.

Then we turned a bend and WOAH, WTF! The tar seal disappears abruptly into a metal road with fist-sized jagged stones sticking out of it. Jamie just keeps on going (he learned to ride a bike on the farm), so I circumspectly follow him, taking it a bit slower than he is, having never ridden off-road much, and hating my time on gravel. After a couple of hair-raising kilometres the road clears up and returns to the normal crappy tar seal, about the quality of which I am now nonetheless grumbling a lot less. At this stage, I'm thinking in my naive mind that I'm going to have to ask those Kiwi Biker folks what the big idea is with gravel, coz that shit ain't no fun in the dark. But we keep on going, and get to a turn-off, which Jamie takes, and I trustingly follow.

About 50 km down another road which shows no sign of ending, I'm starting to wonder whether we're going on exactly the route we had planned. Eventually, we get to a long down-hill straight, followed by another up-hill one, with a gas station (closed) and a school sitting in the dip. Pukekawa School, the sign says. Jamie pulls off into the gas station parking lot.

So about that time I'm thinking to myself, "Wait a minute..." I pull up next to Jamie and yell through my visor, "Where the fuck are we?!" He just shrugs and laughs a bit nervously. "I have no idea," he admits.

Well, obviously we're in Pukekawa. But where the hell is that? I have some signal on my phone, thankfully, so I try calling my wife to get her to look it up on zoomin or motowhere. No answer. K, what about my parents? My sister answers and says she can't find it on the map. She's looking on the Hamilton map. No, that is not going to work! She has no other map, so she says she'll look online and I must call her back in five minutes (they're on dialup).

A couple of minutes pass, and she calls me back (obviously impatient or something). She's like, the only reference to Pukekawa I can find is related to Mercer. She's a bit vague; I don't think she knows how to use a map (like most women, eh). But that gives us something. We decide to keep going; we still have a half tank of gas each, and the road has to go somewhere! I ask her to call my wife and let her know we're going to be late, and I apologize to my parents as well because we're due at their place for dinner at 6, which I doubt we'll make.

A couple of kays further on, Jamie pulls over and says he saw a turn-off that said Mercer 9 km. So we turn around and take the turn-off, and soon enough we find ourselves in Mercer. We cross the bridge, but instead of turning right onto the motorway (sign-posted and all!) Jamie keeps going, thinking the road sweeps around left onto an on-ramp. No Jamie, no it doesn't. It sweeps around left onto a gravel incline! We kinda skid and grind to a shaky stop and carefully turn around and get onto the on-ramp...and let me say, why is there gravel on the on-ramp?! It's a sweeping curve, and you're opening the throttle to get up to motorway speed, and there's gravel on it? So as you're leaning into the curve with the acceleration going down, yay, gravel! That's a wonderful idea! Sweep the damn ramp, people!

Anyway, we ride uneventfully to the Gordonton turn-off, the route to which even we can't cock up, and Jamie takes the turn-off. Fair enough, since there is a lot of traffic on SH1 and it's going slower than a dog with bricks tied to its head. We take the Gordonton road until eventually Jamie takes a turn-off marked Cambridge. Now, you'd think I'd have lost all faith in the guy at this point; he knows I have to be home soon, and my fuel gauge shows one bar left. But I follow him. We get to another turn-off to Cambridge, and I pull up and yell "what the hell!?" at him, but he just makes some unintelligible reply which is muffled by my earplugs, and takes off at a ridiculous pace. I assume he knows the road and the amount of enforcement it sees, so I follow him briskly, and we trundle along at 140 or so for a few kays (the cars are keeping up too!) Eventually we get to a sign marked to Hamilton, which he takes (thank heaven!) I'm not sure if the route he chose was really any quicker than just following Gordonton Road, but it probably wasn't much different.

I recognize this road, at least; it's the back way in/out of Morrinsville, through Silverdale. He lives in Silverdale, so I wave him off at Carrington Ave and keep going to Glenview, breaking a few speed limits in the process (my back hurts, I'm in a hurry, and I've been driving at high speed for several hours, so I'm not really inclined toward the idea of city speeds). I pick up my wife, bundle her onto the back of the bike, and head back to Silverdale/Hillcrest where my parents live, getting there at 5.45 and with 4.2 km showing on the reserve tripmeter. I am very tired!

But, today all is well. No lasting pain or bruises or stiffness, which is good. The FZ6 is very comfortable to ride long distance, all told. I was curious this morning to see where the hell we actually went, as compared to where we should have gone, so I created a map on motowhere.com. This is the route we were meant to take, and this is the route we did take (at least, as close as I can remember given that I wasn't paying very good attention to the road signs). It says 216 km, but my odomoter tells me that between filling up in Hillcrest, and filling up again in Hillcrest (Caltex and Mobil by New World respectively), I did 280 km. As opposed to the 99 km + city travel we had intended.

So, I still don't know the route we're taking on Wednesday—but I can definitely tell you all what route we should not take!

haha, legendry effort dude... we actually did the ride yesterday... but yeah, we'll be out again in force tomorrow as far as i'm aware...