Hi Guys, thought I would tell my story in here, went for a pretty big ride (by my standards anyways) on the weekend....
I sold my bike on trademe to a guy in gisborne and said I would deliver it for 200$ so on friday night after work, loaded it on the back of my ute at two smokers place and headed for cambridge.
Rolled it off in the morning and got ready to start on the journey with my father in law on his CB1300 and me on the RGV. Left cambridge just before 9. Stopped in rotorua, the continued through to opotiki around the rotorua lakes, was some pretty cool scenery here, got in to a bit of a gorge and it was soaking wet on the roads so I took it fairly easy but lost the CB behind me and after a minute or so of waiting got saw the terrified father in law roll along saying that the wet stuff gave him the shits as he is up to 8000kms on his first tyre and I think its getting a bit worn.
Stopped in opoitiki for gas the headed through the gorge to gisborne, FUCK THIS GORGE IS AWESOME!! it was absolutely full of 45kph and 55kph corners and had the awesome views of the river and stuff, this is where the RGV really came into its own (even though I was off the bike every 50kms for the whole trip needing to walk around a bit to get feeling back in my legs and ass) but I was absolutely caning the CB through here even though he would reel me in on the straight bits.
Arrived in gisborne around 2pm, pretty cool coming down out of the gorge and having all of those vinyards around. Dropped the bike off, with cash in hand I jumped on the back of the CB and I realised why my father in law had been doing so well and not feeling any pain, the seat was like a fucken lazy boy. Fuelled up at the shell and bumped in to a slightly pommy chap riding an anniversary VFR, said he used to work at red barons or something, said they had been caning it through the gorge but one of the guys he was riding with on a ZZR had to make a donation the government when they got closer to gisborne.
On the way home we headed through opotiki where we saw a wedding on the beach and had some young maori guys try to run us off the road in their excitement of waving to us but we made it through to gisbore then went up the coast to tauranga then back through to cambridge.
Arrived at about 730pm, fell on the ground and lay there for a while, I might just be a soft cunt but I had hardly ridden for two months and we did 730kms in one day, half of that on that great touring bike the RGV.
All in all it was a great day....
Kms: 731
Donations: $0
Stops to ease pain of touring on rgv: about 10
Scary slides: 2 (in the wet gorge, not fun)
Smiles: thousands, it was a great day, love bikes, even some harley riders waved, I'm going to miss having a bike for a few months but all going to plan I am going to be on a VTR1000 by spring so hopefully some more big rides next summer.
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We have done most of that country and it rocks. You did it hard on the pain front. You need more riding to thicken the skin. Lucky it was not 40 deg as MSTRS said. It is not fun when the road is running down the hill ahead of you but on a 25 deg dry day it is the best in the country. Only thing you have to watch are rocks falling on to the road but other than that go for it. 
Originally Posted by ktulu
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