Triumph National Rally 29Feb--2Mar. Lake Okataina.

[tri boy]

Twas a great ride through your neck of woods mate. Thanks for the Porika track encouragement. Was one of the highlights of the trip.
This weekend I'll clean up the Scrambler, change its tyres and get ready for the rally.
Theres always space at chez tri boy when you head this way.

[Paul in NZ]

Hope to get there, if anyone is going to be going thru Levin about 3.30ish, maybe I could tag along? Pref a cruiser, I'm riding an 04 America.

I'm planning on being well shot of Levin buy lunch time but my old clunker runs a bit slower so you might catch up ;-)

Erm - bit of a shadow over this at the moment - small injury niggling.. drat..

[Paul in NZ]

Well I'm a day behind sorting out all the little 'issues' and packing but - should be all go in the morning... I wonder if a 38 year old bike is up to it? Probably more so than the 51 year old owner I suspect.....

Wave out if you see me on da road!

[tri boy]

Hope to see you there Paul. (look for a Scrambler and Volty together).
We are heading across tomorrow late arvo. Weather is a bit unsettled on Sat/Sun, but thats life. I'll PM my Mob# just in case.
Enjoy the ride up.

[Paul in NZ]

A bit 'unsettled' looks to be an understatement....


Rotorua 10 day Regional Forecast

Fri 29 Morning cloud clearing, then mostly fine. Cloud returns by evening, bringing drizzle patches after dark. Northeasterlies freshening.

Sat 1 Patchy drizzle, turning to widespread rain by evening,with possible heavy falls. Northerlies becoming strong.

Sun 2 Rain easing to a few showers. Winds changing westerly.

Oh well - I've been wet before ;-)

See you there

Paul N

[Nasty]

you guys will have fun up there .... we love Lake Okataina ...hired the venue there for a family reunion .. and it was wonderful!

[tri boy]

Me and Kanny are home safe.
Great to finally meet PaulinNZ.
Hope you had a enjoyable trip home, and well done Waikato TOMCC for putting on a good rally in very frustrating weather.
Couple of teaser pic's follow.

[tri boy]

A few more.

Pic 1. Another rare German manufactured Triumph. (I have no details to pass on).

Pic 2. Bemused rally folk. It may have rained buckets, but every one took it in their stride.

Pic 3. Kudos to this young fella. He made a small fortune, taking, and delivering alcohol orders to rally goers who couldn't be fagged going to the bar to get a drink.$$$$$$

Pic 4. Some of the "Show n Shine" entries. (I thought Kanny would win "Best Other" with the "Scramblerised" Suzuki Volty. But a mint BSA Spitfire pipped her at the post. Next time I will try stand over tactics with the judges, rather than dropping gentle/supple hints.

[tri boy]

When all else fails to slow the rain, why not get
SpongeBob SquarePants to try and soak it all up.
The band put on a good long set into the witching hours, and quite a few mildly intoxicated party goers brushed the down pours aside, and got down to tunes.
Roll on next year.

[Paul in NZ]

Home safe n sound here - yeah - it was a good un all right but feck did it rain or what!

Still - gear dries and mud brushes off eh? Nice to meet you both as well - had a grand old time as there were a few familiar faces from the classic club, the old days in chch and met a few new mates as well. Lotsa fun!

Reasonably dry ride up on friday. Maybe an hours sleep?

Hosed down saturday - did 1/2 the 'ride' before I got peopled out and wandered off on my own in the rain and managed to find every road works there was to find ;-).. Stayed up real late - had a GREAT sleep.

Up and at em sunday - left 8:30 or so? Rained most of the way to Taupo but was only heavy around Rotorua. Fine to patchy over the plateau and hit a deluge at Waikanae again just to get all the wind dried gear wet again - Do'h! Home just before 4pm, took lots of time for lunch, coffee, fuel and a few detours - had a bloody good ride really.

[tri boy]

Damn, your bike is sweet.

1. From reasonable weather.....

2. To this. Mother Nature sure is fickle.

3. I nearly had "moment" when I popped over to see Paul and his friends bikes.
Those are VERY cool motorcycles.

4. The Volty will need a special stage2 modification session if it is ever going to win Best Other.

[Paul in NZ]

Yes - there were some nice bikes there but as member number 4 (I was actually #5 but 4th to pay dues so..) it was interesting to note the change in focus completely away from the Meriden bikes to the Hinckley models. Many more members of course but astonishingly few Meriden twins n triples compared to what we used to get... SAD - very very sad. Sadder still - people bringing bikes on utes and trailers and entering in the show n shine and winning prizes.... Nope - that aint right for a bike rally. Its 100% fine for a bike show but not a rally IMHO - by all means bring it along and join in the fun but rallies are for riding to and the awards surely should got to the dirty bikes ridden to the rally? Still - the majority of the awards were for the later bikes to contest which is fair enough as the club exists for the members. Which leads me to my point...

Its become very obvious to me lately that I'm now so far up the classic creek I don't think I can find my way back to the mainstream even if I was given a map. Its often getting lonely up here in KB classic land though!

But NOT this weekend though - in our little corner of the hut we outnumbered Johny Foreigner and the plastic hordes, we yarned, sank piss, rolled things and talked shit about back in the day, points vs electronic, oil weights and breathers, people we knew and roads to ride, building choppers and the perils of no front guard in the rain - bloody marvelous, might have to go to another one one day..

All up it was around 1150km for the round trip for me which is a pretty good couple of days riding for a 40 year old bike. Put about 200cc of oil in it and thats it.

Cool fun!

[shadyfarmer]

bloody good weekend, dont forget our run on the 15th march check out eynon13 profile for details

[RentaTriumph]

bloody good weekend, dont forget our run on the 15th march check out eynon13 profile for details

Hi ShadyFarmer

Blair Corkran TOMCC Canterbury. I have just updated the www.tomcc.co.nz website on a new Server and need information on who is the Northland and Auckland Area Coordinators should joe public want to join your local chapter. Could you or Paul please email me and I can send you the details I am after.