Motorcycling in Rarotonga - In praise of the humble GN

[CrazyFrog]

The ATGATT police would have a field day in Raro!
Most peeps don't wear helmets due being too hot most of the time, and standard attire is t-shirt, shorts and jandals. This doesn't bother me going helmetless, I've been to Raro 6 times now, and will happily cruise around there on a scooter (hell, the island is only 30km around), but I prefer to wear sneakers at least, I trust my riding enough and have learnt to watch for the normal potential hazzards, dogs, pigs chickens and muppet tourists pulling out onto the road without paying too much attention.
Every time I've been there, I've seen some noob wearing Honda Rash as the locals also fondly call it, just too many inexperienced riders hire scoots and come a gutsa on surface gravel, or hit wandering livestock.
When in Rome as they say, do what the locals do, but don't leave your road sense at home.
Love it.

[Swoop]

I take it that you didn't bump into "the road crew" that looks after the tarseal? The dotted white line is hand-painted by a bloke with a paintbrush and a large stencil.
What a job!

[STJim]

I take it that you didn't bump into "the road crew" that looks after the tarseal? The dotted white line is hand-painted by a bloke with a paintbrush and a large stencil.
What a job!

Why am I not surprised. I did see the road patching crew at work. Doing the job with shovels. They did have a truck.

[Crim]

I enjoyed reading the report. This section is for The ride/Tour report, and it is motorcycle related. Personally I almost never read blogs, but I do look in here for tour reports.

Me 3 or 4 or whatever it is up to now

[skippa1]

Ahhh sweet memories of warm breeze in the face, the smell of tropical flowers......great place for a break.

[vifferman]

Ahhh sweet memories of warm breeze in the face, the smell of tropical flowers......great place for a break.

Kewl.
I'll be off there this Friday for a few days then.

[Bass]

Went to Raro (8 of us) and then out to Aitutake for 5 days. Glorious spot.
All hired a bike each (125 stepthru's). Immediately became the island's largest bikie gang and got to be quite well known.
Brother in law and I took our bikes up the walking track to the trig station on the top of the island. The track is all loose pea sized pummice, 50 mm deep in places.
Getting up was interesting.
Getting back down was terrifying - don't think the back wheel did a single rotation in the first 100 meters.

[vifferman]

Whelp, I went, I scrotered, and I'm now a convert to NOTGATT (NoneOfTheGear, AllOfThe Time). It was rather liberating, actual. Especially riding along in the rain.
I must confess here that I wasn't really wearing no safety gear - I had a pair of Bolle sunnies on, to keep the rain'n'bugs'n'locals outta my eyes. The rest of the gear was IslandStyles: shorts, shirt, sandals.
Rarotonga rocks!
And the locals are awesome: the friendliest people in the world, I reckons.
Scrotering? Hmmm...
While it made tons of sense, in a place where the longest road is 30km, and you just go around in a somewhat left-hand (or right-hand) circle (or if on the bus, clockwise or anticlockwise), and is the second most efficient transport next to a treadlycyle when you're paying $3.66/litre for dinosaurjuice, I didn't really reckon the scroter I had. I thought it was just riding it two-up, with the cameralady/pilionist/porcupine/accountant on the back, but when I had a ride by meself, it still handled just as crappy. Nothing like a real bike, y'know. My vague aspirations of buying one for communtering on have kinda been peed on by my one day jaunt.
Ah weeelll....

I had a bit of trouble adapting to IslandTime too; too long living in D'Auckland made it hard for me to just chillax and cruise at 40km/h or thereabouts. The fastest I got to see on the speedo was 140km/h, but that was just the speedo needle whizzing hopefully up the stop every time the key was turned on. I dunno how fast the Yamahaha could be wrung out to, but due to the aforementioned handling, I had no real desire to find out.

[spacemonkey]

lol Yeah awesome place I loved it.... could almost see myself retiring there, not yet though as I think at this stage of my life I'd find it just a bit tooo quiet for more than a week or so.

when the speed limit is 50 for the whole island (40 if you don't have a helmet) does it really matter how the bike handles?

[vifferman]

does it really matter how the bike handles?

Well, no; I guess not. It was just kinda unnerving, especially on gravel. I guess iffen I'd ridden it more than a few hours I wouldn't even notice. I thought maybe it was underinflated tyres, but I think it's just the whole scroter dynamic, plus really crappy suspension.

[skippa1]

Booked again for this year....yee haa

[spacemonkey]

Lucky bugger!
If ya go out game fishing I recommend "sea hunter", it's one of the few boats that let you keep your catch... Man nuthin beats fresh fresh uber fresh Tuna!
After heading out with sea hunter I can see why the Japs go nuts over the stuff.... 0% resemblance to the shit we get in a can here in NZ!
The skipper/part owner is an ex Christchurch surf lifeguard.

[skippa1]

I might, I used to skipper tuna boats so I am a bit "take it or leave it" about tuna. Just looking forward to doing 5/8s of fuck all...