Dusk til Dawn - Photos and Report

**mangell6** · 4th December 2004, 20:05

The report is we started at Shell Mana, left about 7:15, push started a Honda at Paraparaumu travelled until a bike ran out of gas.

Here are the photos that were taken, Hitcher will have many more words with cor wrecked annunciation and stuff. (He;s just better at words)

Off to bed after this as I am being picked up at 6am to be a flaggie at Manfeild - I volunteered.

**mangell6** · 4th December 2004, 20:09

Racey Rider didn't want his image put up but I could not resist.

**mangell6** · 4th December 2004, 20:14

Hitcher and I travelled to Martinborough to meet our understanding other halves, Matthewt headed directly home to fulfill his family requirements and the Honda rider filled up at Taupo and headed straight home stopping at stations to put air in his rear tyre. He got home safely.

**mangell6** · 4th December 2004, 20:16

I need to PM Toads about the next nutty ride, Friday night, early Saturday morning, another option, travel back Sunday, who else, far and wide ? ? ? ? ?

**merv** · 4th December 2004, 20:19

... and all the while I was enjoying my bed.

I was up sort of early this morning getting a WOF for my VFR. After losing two of my local garages in the last few years I'm now using the one at Plimmerton. So Motu I'm still doing my best to support the local bloke. He's got an old RD400 of his own that he's still riding - cool huh.

**sels1** · 4th December 2004, 20:35

Good to see you back. The lad at Shell Mana takes a good photo......

**Hitcher** · 5th December 2004, 15:31

Friday boys’ night out took on a different twist this week.

Mangell6 (Yamaha FZ1), MathewT (MV Agusta Brutale), Steve (Honda ST1100) and Hitcher (Kawasaki ZRX1200R) embarked on a “round the block” ride from Wellington in an effort to get the requisite number of kilometres on MathewT’s Brutale so that he could have it serviced in readiness for the Rusty Nuts “Big 5 0” in early January 2005.

MathewT had also recently upgraded the Brutale’s engine management chip and was keen to see an improvement in fuel economy. The plan was to ride it to a standstill, with a 5 litre can of petrol in readiness.

Shortly after 7:00pm on Friday evening, Mangell6, MathewT and Hitcher, accompanied for the run to Otaki by Sels1 on his BMW650 departed Shell Mana. The evening was fine, cloudy and windy from the north.

Friday night commuter traffic was still around for the first part of this journey. Tailback from an earlier nose-to-tail at McKays Crossing meant progress from Fishermans Table to the crossing was more or less at a fast walking pace.

Steve joined the group at Mobil Paraparaumu. His big Honda was a bit sad on the battery front and required a push start – a problem that would dog him for the remainder of this excursion.

And then we were away.

The traffic lightened noticeably after we waved our farewells to Sels1 at Otaki. The wind however was largely head on – a relief for the run up the Foxton straights. Twilight was falling from Wanganui and darkness finally embraced us from Patea. Immediately north of Patea we spotted two sets of red-and-blue flashing lights on a stretch of roadworks. Some clown had spun his Mitsubishi Galant and stuck it impressively into the roadside bank. The HPs were supervising the towie’s efforts to extract said Galant.

Immediately after the roadworks, at Kakaramea, the Brutale gasped its last drop of petrol. At nearly 240km this was a marked improvement on its previous chip’s range and a delighted MathewT emptied most of his fuel can into the tank, but adding about 1.5 litres to Hitcher’s Kawasaki, as he was on reserve and worried about completing the 20-odd km left to run to the 24-hour Shell station at Hawera.

Shell Hawera was reached with no problems. However Hitcher added 16.84 litres to his 17.00 litre tank and was well pleased for the top-up back down the road!

After crash starting Steve’s Honda, the rest of the group mounted up for the ride to New Plymouth.

By now the wind had dropped appreciably. About the only other traffic on the road were Fonterra tankers.

Leaving Opunake, a few spits of rain started to fall. At Oaonui this had changed to a heavy shower. Hitcher stopped at Rahotu to put the rain cover on this tank bag and noted that Steve and Mangell6 had dropped off to don their rain gear. By Okato the stars were back out again and the road was dry for the run through the first nice series of corners encountered since leaving Wellington.

MathewT and Hitcher did a “scenic tour” of New Plymouth looking for the “BP station on the one-way system”, arriving in time to find Mangell6 and Steve deep in conversation with Racey Rider who had dropped by to say hello. The time was now about 12:15am.

Racey Rider photographed the by now ritual “crash starting of the Honda” and also of the happy band’s departure into the night.

There was now no wind at all. The road was dry and almost completely devoid of other traffic apart from pairs of large truck-and-trailer units heading in the opposite direction, resplendently festooned with orange lights.

The ride north out of Taranaki is a great motorcycling experience during the daytime and is also good fun in perfect riding conditions in the middle of the night. The huge sweeping corners through the Mimi valley set the scene for the twisty ascent and descent of Mt Messenger, the run up the coast from Tongaporutu to Awakino and then the delights of the Awakino gorge.

Hitcher stopped in Piopio so that everybody could catch up and get instructions for how to find the 24-hour Shell station in Te Kuiti. Steve had fallen well back, his bike’s handling compromised by a very soft rear tyre.

Te Kuiti was much more pleasant than it was on the early morning of the Grand Challenge. Steve’s rear tyre was inflated, his bike crash-started once more and we were off in search of the dawn. It was now about 4:00am.

The temperature dropped markedly from Benneydale and the many corners on the stretch of road through the Pareora forest were extremely dark. The headlight on MathewT’s Brutale struggled under these conditions.

By the time we left Whakamaru the day was starting to lighten. And it lightened quickly through the overcast cloud cover and the delightful scenery could be enjoyed for the chilly and fast run through to Taupo.

At this stage Steve was worried about his rear tyre – which was deflating at a rate of about 20 psi per 200km – and his battery. Given that there was no air to be had between Taupo and Napier he decided to head off home down Highway 1 and make arrangements for tyre repairs and a new battery. It was now about 6:00am.

The rest of us decided to go with Plan A and set sail for Napier. It was extremely chilly through Taupo and for most of the run down Highway 5 to Bay View.

Tiredness was now starting to become a factor and short recovery stops at about 40km intervals became the norm.

Highway 5 is a joy. The long straights from Taupo give way to some great stretches of downhill and uphill twisties. The road was dry and in good repair for our motorcycling pleasure.

We stopped in Napier for a decent breakfast at Ujazi café in the centre of town. By the time we had refuelled the bikes as well as ourselves it was about 9:00am before we headed away out of Napier.

Our route from there was down Highway 50 through Tikokino – one of the better stretches of fast biking road in the North Island. The overcast cloud burned off at about Fernhill and we had absolutely perfect riding conditions until the return of the wind and the traffic at about Dannevirke.

MathewT left Mangell6 and Hitcher at Carterton to head home to the Hutt. Mangell6 and Hitcher set off for the Flying Fish café at Martinborough to meet Mrs M and Mrs H. We arrived there at about 12:15pm and were well ready for excellent coffees, pizza and a debrief of the riding events of the past 17 hours.

Eventually all returned safely to their respective homes and some well-earned Zs.

Thanks to Mangell6 for the photos...

**2_SL0** · 5th December 2004, 16:02

Sounds like it was fun, bummer about the slowly deflating tyre and battery.

**Ghost Lemur** · 5th December 2004, 17:42

Sounds like it was a lot of fun. Glad everyone got home safely.

You must be up some serious k's on that bike of your H.

Love the write ups as always.

**Her_C4** · 5th December 2004, 17:44

ANother excellent write up Hitcher - thank you

Sounds like fun was had by all, and I had better do some night riding practice methinks in preparation .....

MD · 5th December 2004, 18:42

Let me get this straight. At the end of a working week when the rest of us are kicking back with - I'm stuffed, need beer and sleep, you STARTED a continuous 20+ something hr ride. I'm feeling tired thinking about it. Must have been dangerous though trying to stay awake? And the sore bums.
So when I waved out to Mr & Mrs H (Hutt M/w Sat. afternoon) you were heading home to bed Hitcher - I hope. Pleased there was a medium barrier between us. Well done Guys, incredible effort. Now purge those no-dooze drugs from you bods.

**Hitcher** · 5th December 2004, 19:17

Originally Posted by Ghost Lemur

You must be up some serious k's on that bike of your H.

33,500km in its first 12 months under my care...

**Blackbird** · 5th December 2004, 19:38

See you on the Southern Cross for a bit of low flying

. You guys should be battle-hardened by then. My bum aches on the Coromandel trip at present!!

Have a wonderful and safe Xmas, especially on the big ride.

Cheers

Geoff