My impressions of the SCAR Ride, from a Mainlanders perspective
During my 'time out' on the Makiro Track, I had time to ponder a few things like the meaning of life and what the hell was I, a 52 yr old unfit git, was doing hanging in a tree!! Actually all I could do was laugh, even though I knew there was a big drop below me. But I digress.
Because I left my vehicle & trailer at Linkwater, my trip started & finished with a fang (as much as my knobblies would let me) along the awesome Queen Charlotte Drive. Both ferry crossings were uneventful but on the return sailing the DT230 sure was the grubbiest bike on board, which I was most proud of.
After work meetings in Upper Hutt that took up most of last week, I duly rocked up to Aslan's place for the Friday night pre ride BBQ. And what a convivial host Stephen is - I ended up staying there that night and Sunday night. Thanks again Mr & Mrs Aslan.
There are already pics & reports of the ride, both on here & on Adv Rider. But here are a few of my highlights:
- Thanks to the organisers marks & Paladin, it's the best "work" trip I have done yet. And Motoxnut for sharing the cabin at Carterton, farting & snoring aside.
- Thanks to the comraderie of all the riders. You North Islanders aren't such a bad bunch of blokes after all.
- You guys have awesome tracks & roads to enjoy in the Wairarapa (or creating them where necessary)
- Having three NZ new DT230's on the same ride. Not a bad effort when you consider only 14 were sold here.
- The rocky lunar landscape of the Orongorongo & building bridges / manhandling bikes. What a great team effort.
- Dodging pig hunters & fording streams on the fast Sutherlands Hut track.
- I did a quick loop of the Tui yard but no sign of the girls. Good excuse to go back though.
- Using the cylinders of BMW's to flatten ruts on the Makiro that had been deepened by a certain KTM (Jezza the plow).
- And of course, thanks to junkmanjoe & Eddieb for helping me up that bank, even though I had to wait while you took the bloody pics.
I could go on but it's all been said. However I must add that like the Dusty Butt, this ride justifies being an annual event. Well done.
So I arrived home tonight still fizzing from the ride, with a bike that I'm sure would be grinning too if it could. I reckon NZ is adventure riding paradise and if slow old farts like me can do it, then anyone can. So now I'm trying to organise some work stuff down south that by pure coincidence, might coincide with the Adventure Bike Rally in Fiordland. Anyway the Freewind needs a blow out so here's hoping........
An aside:
In one town where we stopped for refreshments, I took shelter from the sun under the veranda of a shop that just happened to have an "Adult" theme. The owner came out to see why there was a motorbike in her doorway so I took the opportunity to undertake a survey of her products (for a statistical analysis report of market trends of course). Please note that I stayed on the bike and interviewed her outside of her premises. Here are some interesting facts:
The most popular male product is herbal viagra pills.
The most popular female product are 'horny goat pills', for "getting them in the mood" (her words)
Her biggest client base are men who (discreetly) drive up from the Wellington region. I'm sure that could apply to a few blokes who were on the ride...???
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Cheers, John.
Originally Posted by xf650
Kind of wish I'd had time for the whole weekend now, next time maybe. Mighty impressed with the DT230s, in hindsight I'd have had just as much fun on the XT250 I've got in the shed. By the way, less of the 52 years old my friend, you did remarkablly well. I'm heading towards 50 myself (at what seems like a rapidly increasing rate of knots). Trouble is I somehow think I can still manage what I could as an 16 year old. :slap:
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