DB1k 2009

[_Shrek_]

great to see you all made it home & smiling even after the knocks & bangs well done guys/gals :

[Transalper]

.......

Meanwhile, can anyone enlighten me as to the exact location of the famous corner? ..............
Is there a good description, Lat/Long, or Grid Ref?

Thanks,
Dave B

In my opinion there are 2 other sneaky off camber corners earlier in the trip going north but the one that seems to be claiming riders i this one (I was there for cooneyr's crash and believe this to be right but do check back for cooneyrs waypoint when he's logged it)
Plug this in to your GPS or favourite map program and I reckon it will be the spot...
S42 02.106 E172 54.057

Pictures from google maps corrected for the slight misalignment of the satellite imagery for the landing area attached.

[helenoftroy]

If anyone wants to remain anonymous about their crashes remember - we have photos of almost all of them

Someones gotta be the star!!

Will post more tomorrow...
that was an absolutely fantastic adventure and a huge personal challenge for me

Cannot thank you lot enough for helping me to make it happen

[reofix]

a "catcher " corner on the rainbow??? i thought there were about 40 of them... well thats how many times i reached for some divine assistance!!

[Aslan]

hope safe and satisfied in Wellywood.

You folks fortunate to live in the top of the South certainly have some great Adventure riding country.

With the exception of Molesworth, Rainbow and Maruia - the rest of the tracks were new to me.

Was pleased to have to have ridden from Pelorus to Nelson via the Maungatapu on Friday as a warm up.

Great bunch of people - those I was privileged to ride with on the 2 day including Shane and Alison (Mrs Jatz) in the Surf sag wagon and those I got to chat with at the BBQ Friday night - thanks.

Those of you who did the one day event - I salute you - especially Balrog and JavaHead on the 1150GS's (mine stayed home)

Thanks to Mr and Mrs Werewolf for hosting the BBQ at your place and CooneyR for developing the route / event.

For those of you who partook of Mrs Jatz's Pasta dish on the Sat night at Lake Rotoroa isn't that lady a great chef?

Thanks Shane and Alison (MrsJatz) for riding Shotgun with us.

Will try to post some pics later in the week as time permits.

[LISTERJAG]

Keep those tales coming...

Meanwhile, can anyone enlighten me as to the exact location of the famous corner? As you prolly know, this coming weekend is the Yamaha Safari, based in Hanmer Springs, and the third day (Monday) heads off up the Rainbow. If we would pre-warn the 140 riders of possible impending doom it might lessen the carnage.

Is there a good description, Lat/Long, or Grid Ref?

Thanks,
Dave B

Hi Dave, the advice we got at the riders briefing was pretty helpful for those on your ride that don't have GPS, "when you see the blue shed ahead of you up the valley watch the next left hander". It's very close to the toll gate and the nasty thing about it, apart from being a little deceiving (it tightens) and off camber is that there is a little bank that is at right angles to the road that would stop your front wheel should you run wide. Hope this helps.
Regards
Ali G

[JATZ]

Wellll.........Had a day off today to rest the knee and ankle a bit, and to do a bit of cleaning, tidying away of gear.
Another top w/end's riding with a top bunch of blokes and blokeses through some of this country best gravel highways.
Good to put a few faces to names aswell
Thanks to Mr and Mrs Werewolf for the barbie and venue on the friday:
Thanks to CooneyR for puting the whole thing together:
Thanks to Nordie and Jenni for the bed on Friday night:
Thanks to Padmei for sorting accom on the Saturday night:
Good on ya Shane for your bit too:

Highlites for me:
Managing to stay upright after getting a bit ambitious on some of the corners(topo and padmei, you know the ones)
Seeing others confidence grow, including my own
Watching TuckerBag trying to get his knee down coming down Altimarloch(wondered about those sliders on your pants, now I see what they're for.BTW your mad you know)
Mtr Arthur on the DRz400, that was fun.

Lowlites:
Trying to get the BIG airborn on top of Jacobs ladder(must check landing zone first)

another couple of pics(the rest are pretty crappy)( must get a faster camera)


Isolated flat

Onamalutu,after the first ford


Well done one dayers you guys are seriously mad

[LISTERJAG]

Just got home from the 1 day ride and wanted to thank Ryan, Collin and the other competitors that made this a "Grand Day Out"!
I rode with my friend Wayne (G650XChalenge), we rode a Chatto Crk 1000 miler a few years ago and have similar skill levels.
While my bike will hold 43 litres and has a range of 650km's, Wayne's bike, even with an additional 7 litre saddle tank and a 5 litre container on a little tray out back should have been good for a little over 400km's, so we planned on refueling at Hanmer Springs on the way down and Murchison on the way back to Nelson.
Things were a little rushed prior to the start, my wife and I had a wedding in Taupo on new years eve and Wayne was camping on his boat in Havlock, I flew down to CHCH on new years day to pick bikes and trailered them through to Havlock for the night. We got into Nelson in time for a shake down run over the Maungatapu track and a quick shower before the lovely BBQ and riders briefing.
Woke before the alarm went off and headed away at 4.25am, reasoning it would be just as dark at 5.00am. First cock up was my gps started up in simulator mode which due to me being gps green I didn't realise until daylight, never mind was only using it for average speed.
Second cock up was poor old Wayne hit the "big hole" 15mins out, and was off the bike complaining about a compressed spine, what ever that is. He was obviously in a lot of pain, all doubled over and having a fair old winge, still no time for sympathy, so on we went. The force of the seat compressing his spine was going to cause problems later as it ripped out 1 of the saddle-tank mts on the rr sub frame.
No prob's for the first 3 hours, 205 km's and looking good, then it started to go a little pear shaped, couldn,t find the Black Birch track, headed up another track about 5 km's up the road, realised it wasn't the right 1, doubled back, found the right gate and rode to the top where things got even more pear shaped! At 1 point within metres of the top, there was a very exposed ridge line, I got blown into the water table, hade both feet flat on the ground but still got blown over, Wayne stopped, same thing happened to him, he crawled on all 4's up to where I was, we still couldn't lift the bike against the wind. We swung it round on the left rocker cover so it was facing into the wind got it upright but had to start it to move it into the wind. Couldn't talk, all done with hand signals. We buggered about getting off the exposed bit, dropping the bikes again in the process, thought I was going to have to leave mine there due to the resulting damage (cracked lh mirror). Rode down passing, Pete, Matt and Ian whom we were going to see a lot of during the day. Stopped and warned James.
Wayne' saddle tank needed emergency repairs by the time we got off the Black Birch track, we just ratchet tied it on and hoped for the best.
Matt, Ian and Pete caught up with us in the Molsworth, was following Ian for a while thinking, "great lines, now we are going quicker", when I came over a rise into a left hander which tightened, all crossed up trying to kill enough speed to stay on top of the bank, I was in the exact same predicament on the Omarama ride but carrying more speed which meant straightening up and riding off the edge was the only option then. Luckily this time I managed to stay on top of the bank, left some scary marks though, (on the side of the road as well as in my shorts)!
Because of the stuff up we made navigating earlier, Wayne's bike run out of fuel running down the hill into Hanmer, we transferred some from my bike, refueled and headed up the Rainbow, no real dramma's, there is a deceiving approach into a ford that caused some excitement for Wayne, that might have been where he lost his 5 litre container.
Wayne was following a 4wd into a big ford not far b4 the tarmac when he may have hit a rock dug up by the 4wd, he dropped his bike to the left and I dropped mine to the right. On we went with boots full of water, through St Arnauts where Ian Matt and Pete had stopped for fuel and a pie.
No real drama's apart from getting lost again on the way to Spring's jct, Ian had to calm an irate cow farmer who objected to us riding through his farm!
Down to Spring's jct and more drama, I was helping Wayne refuel (hurry up, hurry up!) I never secured his main fuel cap properly which meant he was loosing fuel, the reserve light come on coming out of Palmer's road, I was ahead and unaware of his prob's. He stopped at the garage again and managed to find a rocker cover cap off a Mitsy, which helped a little, still only had a 60km fuel range, bugger. We made it back to Murchison, Ian, Matt and Pete where there, they had a little fuel prob as well.
We tanked up Wayne's bike bought another 5 litre container, strapped it onto my bike and headed for Nelson. Further delays when Wayne stopped for removing 1 of his driving lights which had come loose. We stopped at Tapawera when he ran out of fuel again, put the 5 litre in, discussed which way we turned off the bridge, I said left, Wayne took this to mean left onto the bridge? I was pressing on to make it back in 17 hr's, rode about 5 km's up the road realised Wayne wasn't following, waited then road back thinking he might have other probs, could not find him, thought he may have gone right off bridge, realised he cocked up and had doubled back when I was looking for him by the forestry camp. I rode on to complete the course without seeing him again, tried calling him when I got back onto main road. Then rode to finish 17hrs 5 mins after leaving the start.
What a great ride and amazing roads and tracks, we had a ball, thanks again to Ryan for putting it together, Collin for his hospitality and the other riders for their company.
Alistair G.

[cooneyr]

In my opinion there are 2 other sneaky off camber corners earlier in the trip going north but the one that seems to be claiming riders i this one (I was there for cooneyr's crash and believe this to be right but do check back for cooneyrs waypoint when he's logged it)
Plug this in to your GPS or favourite map program and I reckon it will be the spot...
S42 02.106 E172 54.057

Pictures from google maps corrected for the slight misalignment of the satellite imagery for the landing area attached.

I got S42 02.099 E172 54.062 as an average of 100 recordings with a 5.2m accuracy. Close enough to yours I recon. I've sent Racing Dave a PM.

Hi Dave, the advice we got at the riders briefing was pretty helpful for those on your ride that don't have GPS, "when you see the blue shed ahead of you up the valley watch the next left hander". It's very close to the toll gate and the nasty thing about it, apart from being a little deceiving (it tightens) and off camber is that there is a little bank that is at right angles to the road that would stop your front wheel should you run wide. Hope this helps.
Regards
Ali G

This is good advice.

I spoke to the station manager today about options for making the corner more obvious. He is going to check out the corner again later this week and I'll have another chat with him later on. At this stage he is not keen on a sign as it creates issues with why wasn't some other corner sign posted as well. I've suggested some "manipulation" of vegetation to make the corner more obvious i.e. cutting down some bushes on the inside and planing more on the outside. Currently the bushes on the inside (about 10m to the left of the corner) obscure the road past the corner and the bushes on the outside give the impression that the corner is more open that it really is.

Cheers R

[javahead]

If we're counting crashes then I can't avoid admitting to briefly losing sight of the GS. Thanks to all involved in hauling it back up the bank onto the Porika Track. Next year I should be riding something at least 120kg lighter, and I hope I won't have lost my kit of ropes etc within the 1st 30 mins.

I can vouch for TKC80s. Thankfully both mine survived with no punctures. Both were new, tubeless and fully inflated.

Congrats to CooneyR and the others involved in organising everything to run so smoothly despite all the unexpected events. It was a great weekend.

[ducatijim]

[QUOTE=
I spoke to the station manager today about options for making the corner more obvious. He is going to check out the corner again later this week and I'll have another chat with him later on. At this stage he is not keen on a sign as it creates issues with why wasn't some other corner sign posted as well.
Cheers R[/QUOTE]

Surely this is just a speed issue, not a 'roading' one?

As a 'scenic' public acess thru private land, not a closed racetrack, would it not be prudent to ride on the conservative side of 9/10th?

Would be a shame to see it 'splattered' with garish paint/signs for the benefit of a small few now wouldn't it?

Comon guys, if you want 10/10ths, pay yer money and do 'race to the sky'.

[cooneyr]

Surely this is just a speed issue, not a 'roading' one?

As a 'scenic' public acess thru private land, not a closed racetrack, would it not be prudent to ride on the conservative side of 9/10th?

Would be a shame to see it 'splattered' with garish paint/signs for the benefit of a small few now wouldn't it?

Comon guys, if you want 10/10ths, pay yer money and do 'race to the sky'.

I hear you and I agree that we really dont want signs all around the place hence the lack of action till now. The problem is that the corner has a significantly slower negotiating speed that those around it (1st bad point), the bush line goes straightish ahead giving the impression the corner is no where near as tight as it is (2nd bad point), you cannot see the road downstream from the corner due to bushes (3rd bad point) it is significantly off camber (4th bad point), and lastly there is a ditch about 1m deep immediatly on the side of the outside where everybody ends up (5th bad point).

Yes if people went slower it would not be such an issue however there are no indicators (unless you know the corner) to promt you to slow down. End result is that there has been many bikes, I'm talking 10's of bikes (first hand knowledge and anicdotal info), end up in the ditch along with a number of cars. I would like to see something done but I dont really want to see a sign. I think the bush manipulation is the way to go. The other option is to relocate the ditch or provide some camber but these are both significant earthworks issues and would need resource consent - not going to happen.

Cheers R

[NordieBoy]

That corner just needs someone to staple a few red arrows, cross country style, to a handy tree/bush.

[clint640]

Good to hear everyone is still walking at least, even if some are walking wounded!

I know 'that corner' on the Rainbow too, the first time we did the track northbound was on a 4x4 safari, it took us by surprise a bit but we made it around, then looked back to see the jeep in our team flying straight off it into the swamp! It really is a deceptive bastard of a corner & a simple LH corner sign would prevent quite a few incidents & could even save a life one day.

The consequences for the farm manager from doing nothing about a well known hazard could be quite severe from an OSH perspective.

Cheers
Clint

[ducatijim]

That corner just needs someone to staple a few red arrows, cross country style, to a handy tree/bush.

Funny thing is; I remember seeing the blue haybarn, but nothing about the corner! I guess its because I ride like a Nana!!!

.......now theres a solution.......................................... .....