Passes ride daily updates and photos...

**cooneyr** · 17th February 2007, 10:02

Originally Posted by fleethaul

It's just facts from my perspective. I'm new to this forum and still learning the rules so it would help me if you would please highlight
the areas of supposition or opinion in what I wrote.

I forgot to pack a tape measure.

It's looks brand spankers to me.

Thick- some sections have no tyre tracks at all.

My issue is one of safety not finger pointing.

The AA incident is my way of saying my first approach at
dealing with issue resulted in the suggestion that I write to transit.
Today is Friday, If I post a letter today they will get it Monday.
What happens to the weekend riders.
One if my first actions on getting home was to attempt through contacts
to this forum to get something done about it quickly.
Me getting stuck on some govt quangos talking computer trying to learn
the ins and outs of the system is not the quick result I'm looking for.

It's worked there is a phone number within your missive.
I'm on it as we speak, dealing with the Transit phone system roundabout, The quality of the music is good, quite a pleasant tune too.

John Jarvis is on line before the song even finishes............

Sorry I mussta been a bit sensative yesterday. I whole heartly aggree regarding you concerns. Only thing is I've worked in a chip sealing gang and I've work on secondment with Transit for 6 months. I know that going in with guns blazing is a good way to get these peoples back up. Well done on the approach taken. AA route would have been a complete waste of time.

I was expecting the responce you got hence trying to get you to clarify in your own mind what was there so you were ready for the responce. Having worked for Fultys in a chip sealing gang I know that most of them are very concious of making sure things are swept and signed as best possible. A bike went down on one of our sites immediatly after sweeping back in 98. It is a harsh reminder to most of the guys of the realities of their work.

No wind up intended with the original post.

Cheers R

P.S. I no longer work for Transit or a contractor.

**fleethaul** · 17th February 2007, 12:24

Thanks Cooneyr
Al took my Dakar over the Danseys on the last night.
After work tonight I'm going to do the pass myself and
will check if they have swept it yet as go round the block.

Back to the trip.
MT and Alan spent yesterday on Thompsons Gorge then to Mt Cook. Al tried to ride the Dakar up the steps to see the Tasman but found the going too tough.
They then rode to Black Forest via Pukaki/Iron bridge road and did the Black Forest / Te Aka road. They saw a big wallaby just past the Te Aka gate, Oldrider and I saw it at the same place 2 weeks ago.
They left for home (Shannon) this morning via Rakaia Gore and Oxford.
We are looking to ride the Rainbow and sounds roads and tracks with these guys in March/April before MT heads of for 4 months in Oz on the Tiger.So will be looking for some road suggestions and some riders to tag along/show us the way.

Posting pics on this website.

[IMG] is turned off. which makes it more challenging. Would someone
who is prepared to give me a quick tutorial on getting up the thumbnails please PM me. Have heaps of pics to go up but attempts todate upsuccessful.... help...Stu?...

Thanks for an amazing week guys.

**fleethaul** · 17th February 2007, 15:52

The riders on this tour are into gadgets.
MT has one of these mounted on his mirror.
It's a small VGA camera that records 40 mins of video
on a 1G SD card.

They sell for $199 including a free $79 1G card.
I'm not saying where they come from until after I buy mine.
Hate them to run out first.

A number of vids were shot on the ride.
Will put some of the vids on youtube when I get back to ChCH..

Jeff

More gadgets to follow.

ps This is a test of whether I've got the thumbnail thing cracked.

**NordieBoy** · 17th February 2007, 17:19

Now that looks interestink...

**Transalper** · 17th February 2007, 18:12

theres a whole thread already dedicated to those cameras here somewhere

**Jantar** · 18th February 2007, 09:26

Originally Posted by NordieBoy

I took a photo and have annotated it for the hard of comprehension.

A colour version of the photo.

**NordieBoy** · 18th February 2007, 09:36

A correctly rotated version of the colour version of that photo.

Just to show everyone how steep it really was.

**miSTa** · 18th February 2007, 09:44

Originally Posted by NordieBoy

A correctly rotated version of the colour version of that photo.

Just to show everyone how steep it really was.

Bloody hell

**fleethaul** · 18th February 2007, 11:14

Posting pics on KB is configured for the dialup age. Putting up pics with accompanying text is difficult. So here is a link to the first days pics.
Significant pics will have some text attached to them.

Day 2 Pics Jeff

The are the pics on just one of many cameras.
So far I have only obtained permission to put up all of SlipperyOZ pics.

So Jantar, Ruralman, Duck01, Al please PM me if you are happy for me
to post your pics too.

SlipperyOz Pics day 3

HTML Code:

<embed style="width:400px; height:326px;" id="VideoPlayback" align="middle" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=1269443597280747053&hl=en" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" scale="noScale" salign="TL"  FlashVars="playerMode=embedded"> </embed>

Jeff

**fleethaul** · 18th February 2007, 13:02

Just as well it was a hot day.
SlipperyOz took these resting on the tank of the big r1200gs, no screen to get in the way.

Take my hat off to SlipperyOz, in pain and still taking the time to shoot vids

Or you can see it here
See vid and pics here

**fleethaul** · 18th February 2007, 14:45

Seemed where ever we went the grader got there just before us.

Well we finally caught and passed it on Taylor Pass
You can see it in the background looking down from the summit.

Passed the grader

Taylors pass was challenging to find. Jantars GPS was trying to send us through/over a hill with no road on it. But by reverting to the original GPS
(Grandad positioning system) we found out gardening in front of his house we
we able to find the route. With Malcolm Taylor and Mike Taylor in the team
we found a good reason to rib them.

**fleethaul** · 18th February 2007, 14:55

Suggest you click the caption button for info
Pics from day 3 as seen from Jeffs camera

**Ruralman** · 18th February 2007, 19:28

Originally Posted by Transalper

theres a whole thread already dedicated to those cameras here somewhere

It was interesting on the final night when Jeff was able to get movies of exactly the same scene on the computer screen side by side of about 10 minutes riding. Mark had shot these on the Tiger - on one handlebar he had the little self contained model Fleethaul has shown above, and on the other side we duct taped my small tripod to the mirror (layer of tape round the mirror first to help reduce vibes) and then attached his sony digital camera to that and had it in movie mode (it had a 1GB card and this model also has the technology that helps reduce/take out shake - I think it was a 6MP camera)

The movies from the digital camera were signicantly better, but the one from the cheap movie camera were still pretty good and as a unit it looks pretty robust and ideal for mounting on a bike. I did highlight though that with the right digital camera you can still get some great footage with a bit of cheap innovation.

**timg** · 18th February 2007, 20:28

Welcome home folks. Looks like its been an awesome adventure. It's been an interesting read catching up on your last few days. It was great meeting and doing part of day 1 with you. I like the idea of doing it again the other way around - I'd be in (and a bit more experienced by then) :-). Cheers, Tim.