Coast to Coast - Photos and ride reports

[Storm]

More photos

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Some more photos

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But wait, theres more

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and lucky last

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I particularly liked the colour changing paint on the GSX and the contrast between the flame painted hog and the all style CT I reckon there'd have been a couple million worth of bikes rolling around the roads.

[Storm]

Other style moment included the guy who had too much speed into a corner after Pongaroa, skidded into the drain, managed to juddder his way upright, ride over a drain hump and get it back to the road and carry on as though nothing had happened. Full marks to that man !

[Grumpy]

I heard about the coast to coast a while ago and always wanted to give it a go but living in Auckland it was always a little impractical. Now we're in Napier I finally got a chance to do the ride and I wasn't dissapointed. I had a ball on the Z1000.
The only down point was about 500m from home I ran over a metal file. A BASTARD file I think they call it. It went right thru the side of my tyre.
Along with fucking my tyre it cut up the chainguard as well. What a shit way to finish up an excellent day
I spotted this awesome TL on the ride. I thought it might interest those TL owners out there. This guy had put some effort into this bike. What an excellent job. The underseat pipe is a nice finishing touch.
If the owner is a KB'er....awesome job!

[Hitcher]

Mrs H and I managed to get ourselves hooked up in part of the Coast to Coast yesterday.

Our day started late-ish and we headed off for some lunch at the Flying Fish in Martinborough, surprise surprise. The ride over the Rimutakas was near perfect. The road was clean (no sign of Jim2's diesel or assorted TRX fragments) and the traffic well behaved.

After lunch we headed off through Gladstone to Masterton, where we refuelled and decided to toddle off through Alfredton and points northish.

A big black cloud at this stage appeared out of nowhere and there were a few heavy spits. Mrs H donned her wets. I would have donned mine too but I'd left them on the spare bed at home... Sigh. It took a while to emerge out from underneath said cloud which continued to spit intermittently. No harm done though.

The road from Masterton to Alfredton was, as always, great fun. However the local district council has recently resealed a few corners which still have loose seal chip on top but no signposts advising of said.

From Alfredton we decided to see some new countryside and headed off up Route 52 to Pongaroa. The road through here is still decidedly worse for wear after the torrential rains and floods of earlier this year.

Our last appearance at Pongaroa had been during this year's Grand Challenge. As the day was sunny we stopped and took the obligatory "us and the bikes in front of the" photo. As we were loitering, bikes started arriving in ones, twos and even threes, hanging a right into the Makuri Gorge road to Pahiatua. After this had happened a few times, it finally dawned on me that this was the Coast to Coast crowd heading home.

Heading off again, this time towards Weber and Dannevirke, we would have seen nearly 50 bikes heading t'other way. Soon after Weber we caught up a couple of old dungas and were soon caught up ourselves by a stream of about a dozen bikes.

At the BP station in Dannevirke it was deja vu all over again -- memories of the Grand Challenge as the forecourt was littered with bikes and riders. More goatees than you could shake a stick at!

Obviously few Coast to Coasters took the opportunity to overnight at Akitio.

We then headed south to Palmerston North via the Manawatu Gorge. We had an early dinner at the Cuba Cafe in Palmerston North before riding home down the back road past Massey University (the real one) and through Shannon.

This was a great ride. There was hardly any traffic out and we had SH1 pretty much to ourselves all the way from Otaki back to home.

I think we clocked up about 500km for the day. Great fun!

[Sparky Bills]

Just got home now!
Stayed in Akitio last night, And had a great time!
Was down at the fire most of the night. (man that was a good fire!)
Had a good ride too, The R1 was loaded to the max, so was not too much wait on the front wheel. Which mad for some interesting corners.
A VERY GOOD WEEKEND!
The bike felt better on the way home, as there was no beer bottles on the back, so was lots lighter!
Will have pics up asap!

[Groins_NZ]

Coast to Coast was the first group ride myself and Mrs Groins have done and we loved it!
A pretty uneventful ride for us apart from Fielding – we were in the rear guard and some guy ahead decided to take a detour via home. Although there were no marshals pointing the way, we and around 10 others decided to follow him thinking it was the route to be taken. Didn’t even get a cuppa tea for our troubles. The locals must have thought we were bonkas.

We didn’t have much of a sleep bunked up in the Akitio Community Hall unfortunately (great facilities in there by the way). I don’t know what time it was, probably 1-2am when the Harley riders came back to roost and parked their bikes outside the window (must have been about 8 of them) – and then again at 6-6:30am when they got up – crickey! (Mrs G. is having a catch up nap now).

$2 for a handle – wicked!
$2.30 for a glass of wine – bonus (especially since I’d knocked over Mrs Groin’s glass before she’d taken a sip)!
$5 for a smorgasbord of home roast (rolled mutton, lamb, beef), spuds, salads, fish, crayfish, ham and pastries – simply marvellous!
$10 for a bunk, mattress, hot showers and a view of the beach.
For a few dollars more we had a continental breakfast and coffee at the camp store – great stuff.

We meet this rider from Fielding who had a few yarns to tell. 74yrs old – just had both his knees replaced, osteoarthritis in his pelvis, hands and god knows where else. Takes him about half an hour to get into his riding suit, 10min to lift his leg over the back of his new Honda. He ate 1 and a ½ calamari rings for his dinner because he can’t eat properly and took a bottle of wine to bed with him - inspirational man!

We decided to take the coast road out of Akitio to Pongaroa. Took us about an hour to get through the metal section – the strong side winds didn’t help mind. Through to Alfredton, Dryers Rock and on to Masterton. Pretty gnarly in parts at the beginning from Pongaroa to Alfredton due to storm damage but the road starts to straighten out and is quite an enjoyable ride.

We stopped at Awaiti Gardens near Carterton for some lunch and a stretch. The owner’s cat took a fancy to the bike’s sheepskin just as we were getting ready to leave – bloody crack up, just jumped straight up and starting pawing away at it.

The Hornet went well, riding two-up was fine. Mrs G. had a bit of a problem with sliding around on the sheepskin though.

A great big thanks to the Woodville Lions Club and the friendly locals along the way.

Anyway I’ll leave it there… hope everyone got home safe and sound.

Here’s a few pic’s – check out that puddy-cat.

[Groins_NZ]

The rest of the selected pics...

[Motu]

Bloody hell - there's that Triumph single again,and from the left side as well! Don't you lot realise you can tell everything about a Britsh bike just from the timing cover? Will someone please show me a photo of the righthand side?

[merv]

Love the cat Groins. Glad you enjoyed the ride and your detour at Feilding sounds interesting. Did that bugger up your bearings because the view South at Akitio looks a little bit North to me? If you are interested in further group rides look out for more on this site. I presume you bought your bike at Sawyers so did they sign you up for e-riders as well?

[Groins_NZ]

Yip your right 'merv', it was the North view.

Yes, brought the bike from Sawyers - didn't hear anything about e-riders. Is that some kind of club?

I think I'm meant to be getting something in the mail from Honda in a couple of weeks. Other than that no mention of e-riders.

Definitely keen on long haul rides. I did 680k in one day 2 weeks back. In fact I went to Wanganui for my 1000k service (that's how it started). Decided to carry on and ended up going around the mountain via Raetihi, National Park, Rangipo, Waiouru (big feed and coffee stop), turned right just before Mangaweka toward Rangiwahia (this road used to be metal but they’ve recently sealed it and is quite a good detour), Kimbolton, Fielding, Palmerston, Shannon...... Pauatahanui. Enjoyed that one immensely, although bloody tired at the end of it.

G.

[Ms Piggy]

Sounds like you all had a blast. I just got back from Taupo at about 9 tonight - will post about it soon.

I loved those Windmills just before Woodville! Amazing!!!! Very surreal.