Total new guy here, thought I'd make good use of the Xmas break to go for my first decent ride. Sorry for the essay, it started off as a small post for BuckBuck's Xmas thread and kinda grew into it's own monster.
I got my L plate and my bike in the first week of December and have so far only been using it for commuting to work, plus a blat out to Huia one sunday afternoon. The rest of the family was meeting up in Whangarei for the holiday and I wasn't particularly looking forward to being trapped in a cage along with the rest of the State Highway 1 traffic for the trip there, so it was time to give the Zeal a good workout.
Departing on Xmas Eve, this would be my first time riding on the Motorway AND my first time riding at open road speeds, so I had to get used to both pretty quickly. Needless to say I was fairly terrified, flying down the Northwestern (at only 90kph) for the first time. I chose a route that I was familiar with for the ride up; From the top of the Northwestern I followed Upper Harbour Drive then decided to use East Coast rd instead of the Northern Motorway (wasn't too keen on Motorways after my earlier encounter). From Orewa I then followed SH1 for the rest of the trip. Thankfully I got the hang of things fairly quickly, it took me about another half hour after leaving Orewa before I was totally relaxed with my riding. There was a fair bit of traffic, and I wasn't yet comfortable with high speed passing manouevers, so I would pull over at a rest stop every so often and have a breather.
All up, the trip North took me around 3 hours. Including a stop at Te Hana for a drink and another just before the Brenderwyns after my right hand wing mirror worked itself loose. Best part of the ride would definitely be the Brenderwyn twisties; I had a Toyota Echo up my backside on the straight leading into the first corner, had lost them entirely by the second corner and didnt see them again until they finally caught up along the Waipu straights (that's what I get for sticking to the speed limit).
Weather was good on Xmas day, so I rode out to the family bach at Whangarei Heads. Nothing particularly exciting happened on this leg, although on the way back I had some great fun with sun-strike, almost veering into oncoming traffic as the sun blinded me at exactly the wrong moment.
And so for Boxing Day I decided to get an early start for my return to Aucktown, and get going before most of the traffic. Mum on the other hand, had different ideas, and my journey was delayed until 10 so we could all have breakfast together. This time I wanted to avoid SH1 as much as possible, mainly because I had a lot more fun on roads with corners and I found I got quite sore just tearing along straight roads at 110 kph for the whole trip. I turned off the highway at Waipu and followed the road out through Waipu Cove and Laings Beach, up through the hills then down into Mangawhai. Now these roads were definitely more my pace; the weather was beautiful, the roads were windy and varied and there was hardly a car to be seen. I re-joined State Highway 'Fun' at Kaiwaka and continued on to Wellsford where I switched to SH16.
Having gone this way back to Auckland a few times in a car, I was never previously a fan. It had always been too windy and too narrow for my liking. But on the trusty Zeal, it was a different story altogether! While there was a fair amount of traffic head north, including quite a few Bikers, I practically had the entire south-bound lane to myself. I did find one long, sweeping, decreasing radius left-hand corner that gave me a bit of a fright, but other than that I was grinning like a crazy person for the majority of the ride. I reached Westgate around midday and turned onto the Motorway with a fair amount of trepidation, only to find that what had only 2 days previously been a seriously disconcerting experience, was now fairly enjoyable. I cruised comfortably with the flow of traffic, made a particular effort to stay out of people's blind spots, and made it to my offramp with no troubles whatsoever.
Over the three days I managed to travel over 400 kilometers, which isn't too much compared to some more experience riders, but I'm fairly happy with my progress so far. I learnt a great deal about riding outside the city, and also about my strengths and weaknesses on the bike. For some reason I can tear around a right-hand bend with no worries, but left-handers scare the bejesus out of me. Will be practicing a lot more over the months to come.
A big shout out to all the bikers who gave me a wave or a nod as they passed, good to see everyone out there having a great time. Maybe next time some of the dudes on Cruisers will wave back too.
Or maybe not
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Originally Posted by Disco Dan
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