Planning an Epic Adventure - Will trade beer for use of couches

[Phurrball]

Hondah to the rescue!

Good onya lads for the epic awesomeness of the journey thus far - episodes better than any soap opera!

Sooooooo....












Rusty Nuts Grand Challenge anyone?!

[Danae]

Woohoo, thanks Cloggy! Man, Brown Fury looks like a beast!

Looking forward to the daily update

[Cloggy]

Brown Fury is a beast
I had trouble getting away from it on my Daytona
And then there was the sound of that two-stroke,
Incredible...

[junkmanjoe]

caught with the lads just out side of welly.

followed them over the tuckers.

back at my pad safe and sound.

[motorbyclist]

We started wednesday with a fresh 27 metres of duct tape.... we're down to about 3....

[motorbyclist]

We snuggled up for the night, with jafa locking himself into the room with the heater and me using two sleeping bags to keep warm. we awoke to stunning views, but wishing we'd had more sleep we pretty quickly got ready to go - we had to get to repco for a gas can and oil, and get to picton in time for the 10:30 ferry.

We geared up and made some noise, but The Beast died and wouldnt start again. Jafa got half way down the hill before realising he didn't turn the fuel back on:slap:

Off we went down the hill, gt to the bottom, jafa turned left where we were meant to go right, so i waved him down and pointed out that I had left my pack back in the garage. We climb back up the hill to find Jill waiting patiently on the footpath for us, and begin the day again. It is about 8:30 by now....

After some communting we manage to find repco and buy oil, tank, and Beast plugs. All goes well until I find I didn't bring a 14mm socket with which to remove the seat to easily fill the oil. I go in, buy one, go back in to get the tag out of it, then find I cocked up and need a 12mm so go in and get it swapped (not a big deal now as all my 12mm ones are rooted anyway). Brown Fury gets some racing stripes and We leave repco at 9:30.... this is not going well for the 10:30 ferry....

[motorbyclist]

We hit the streets and head for the coast, and end up asking some old people with a caravan how to get to the motorway - they were old bikers and very keen on our story so far, but we had a ferry to catch so off we went. At this point, Brown Fury is absolutely awesome, and The Beast has a high idle, so we decide to see how it goes. A few km later we pull over, as we forgot to fill up on gas, and The Beast is topping out at 65. We headback and I find that if I totally rev out Brown Fury in fourth, fith will sit nicely at 110kph in the power, also, The Beast is making more smoke than usual. At the shell station in the city we gas up, then decide to check why the The Beast is feeling ill - high idle may well mean lean mix, especially after removing the carb last night perhaps it isn't seated properly? We get out the tools to have a look rather than sieze the motor.

Some time later we have a loose carby (and a big puddle of petrol) in the forecourt and examine the way it bolts on - without going into detail, if the carby isn't entirely slipped on, it will leak air at the join due to the design of the thing. there are a lot of vice/hammer marks on the carby, so we pull out the hammer and screwdriver (lever/chisel) and gently tap it back into place. We give Dr Paul a call to see if he can recover The Beast if we have to ditch it.

Reassemble, pump tyres and go. 1km later we pull over - The Beast is sick. We swap bikes to ride back to Paul's palce and I get a true appreciation of how bad this is; she wont rev out, spluttering and cutting right as the power hits. The more I ride the worse it gets until i'm doing 40kph along the expressway. Every now and then The Beast gives a push to 50kph, but this is just the death throws. This motor had seized long before we got to the station, the damage has been done and I'm only making it worse.

Realising that IF it makes it to Paul's, it'll be totally fucked and/or DOA, we leave it at the local suzuki dealer for Paul to collect. Cheers mate - we'll be back for her soon

[motorbyclist]

So, it is now 10:30am and the next ferry is at 1:30pm, we gun it out of nelson and into the hills, travelling as fast as is possible 2up on a 100cc monster up a step windy hill with ice and grit. On the descent we amuse the road workers again and get up to whopping 115kph before the speedo has a spaz. We stop again in Havelock for lunch which included the most delicious mussel pie I've ever had and then swap seats for Charlotte Drive to picton.

After some worrying corners, several wheelies, breathtaking panoramas and dodgy surfaces, we finally arrive in Picton. The time is 2:35. Fuck. 3pm we rock up to the interislander check in and sort out our tickets - the online booking for The Beast is non-refundable, and we can't send The Beast across on it's own on a later date, so we postpone that ticket a month and buy a reasonably priced fare for Jafa.

Check in for the ferry is at 5pm, so we spend the next two hours chatting with passing bikers/cyclists, getting the front brakes working, checking the plug, topping up oil and moving fuel from the red container to the main tank - we used nearly 5L to get from nelson to picton.

At 5pm we're off with a rip and a snort and pop a mean mono off down the carpark after using the choke to generate a small blue cloud. While we wait for check in we have some more wheelie practice, and then wait in the queue to board the ferry. Interislander, tell your crew to tell us WTF we are meant to be doing - the guy just took out ticket and walked off, as some people drove forward and others sat there wondering wtf is going on.

[motorbyclist]

Now on the ferry, writing up this post in advance on notepad, and reviewing the 4.3GB of footage we've gotten with the camera (teaser to come later tonight). Nearly lost my speights to the boat rocking and sending it sliding off my armrest, nice acoustic band playing, jafa is playing CIV2, and we're considering paying the exorbitant $3.50 for some chips.

When we arrive in wellington at 9:30 (ish) we're to head for the Rimutakas to meet up with Joe on his KTM. Jafa will hop onto the pillion seat and we'll head up to his place in masterton to arrive around 11pm with any luck.

Losing The Beast has been a loss, and it did have us down for a while, but to be fair we've found riding 2up is actually more enjoyable. We've also realised that Brown Fury riding along behind at The Beast's pace - while easy for the honda motor - was going to be excruciating at times. Also, it took us five hours to get to picton on Brown Fury. The Beast would have taken much longer, and may have had us riding by moonlight again, so, when it comes down to it, by leaving The Beast behind we're going to be able to make better times that could actually meet our ambitions and get home before we go broke

So we'll have to have another shot at this to retrieve The Beast. Maybe we'll fly down with a new top end and ride her back, even if only to load it into a van at the wellington end. Maybe we'll come back down on Brown Fury to rereive our fallen comrade, perhaps someone will buy it up at a price that isn't too big a loss: we'll just finish the trip and worry about that then, for we still have 1600Km ahead of us and I think that Brown Fury might be running a touch lean, and it would appear we don't have an even flame, but that can be looked at later tonight or in the morning.

[motorbyclist]

Here's something jafa banged up while on the ferry - didn't have time to deal to the sound but just start up a chainsaw and that's pretty much it

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-vzz8Cc5xs[/youtube]

[motorbyclist]

So after filling the ferry hold with blue smoke and wheelieing off the ramp, we followed out sprotsbike rider friend down the motorway, where I came to realise that either all wellingtonions speed, or our speedo is out.

We cracked on up the rimutakas 2up on Brown Fury until we met Joe on his DR, which we thought was going to be a KTM for some reason, and unloaded jafa onto joe and took off.

The rimutakas, at night, with a headlight that dies when the brakes are applied, is AWESOME! Brown Fury was lapping it up with ease! I was so stoked I completely lost my voice to whatever has been harrassing my throat since yesterday. We cruised one through the straight roads, impressed the cops at a checkpoint, and finally got to Joe's safe and sound, under what has to be the biggest sky we've seen (having been in valleys all week).

So, after that awesome blat through the rimutakas (traffic free), I've decided the ONLY viable option is to fly/ride back down to nelson with a new top end for The Beast and ride it back through the rimutakas, although if it threatens to die again we'd better have a van waiting for us on the other side... our ferry ticket is good until august.

[PirateJafa]

Surely you can't expect anyone to read that many pixels worth of text? :gobsmacked:

Long story short:

We've lost one Suzuki.
The South Island has lost two fools.
Andrew's lost his voice.
And we've lost the plot!

[motorbyclist]

And by the time I finished the Rimutakas the speedo was having a jitter right out at 140:

Surely you can't expect anyone to read that many pixels worth of text?

It was a long boat ride

And a very long day.

[Danae]

You guys are fukken legends as well as fukken insane!

Put some pics up too

@Jafa: I did!

[motorbyclist]

pics will come tomorrow - now is time for sleep.

we're told it isn't too long a ride to napier so we're likely de-abandoning our detour through castle hill, further encouraged by Joe suggesting it would be a Bad Idea.

Just have to check the plug in the morning and decide from there