Although I’m really a dyed-in-the-wool dirt-tracker, having started my motorcycling days on a trailbike in my late teens, now that I rate as a geriatric I’m too scared to go there for fear that I’ll still think I’m 20 and end up doing myself irreparable damage ….so I content myself with sticking to the road.
Along the way I did have a sojourn away from bikes for nearly 20 years, re-entering the fray in 2005 on a cruiser, after my children had left home and deciding that the fuel prices were too high and I needed to save money. Within 6 months I found I was spending 4 times more on fuel, not to mention tyres etc, I had joined the Ulysses Motorcycle club and my riding preference gravitated to Long Distance or Endurance Riding and my weapon of choice changed to a Honda ST1300. I also became a ‘Conehead’, (ie slow riding around cones in a carpark as fast as one can) but my preference is on the big sports-tourer doing the enclosed American Police Rodeo style, rather than the faster open Japanese style Gymkhana.
After going on the holiday of a lifetime in 2005 with my wife Ann and emailing reports back to the family and myself, I happened to be reading these 6 months afterwards and couldn’t believe, despite having about 1400 photos, how much of the details I had forgotten, so in 2007 I decided to start blogging my rides and I guess now I’m in the habit.
I joined the KiwiBiker forum in 2006 as KoroJ, because koro is a Maori term for ‘Old Man’ or Grandad and I was one. Along the way though, my Ulysses mates started calling me Long John because of the Distance Riding and my preference to take the long way to get anywhere, then that expanded to Long John Silver thanks to my hair colour. It also sort of fits because although I don’t profess to be a pirate, I don’t regard myself as ‘squeeky-clean’ either and although I generally try to ride within the tolerated limits, I do enjoy a jolly good fang along any curly piece of macadam.
I was always quite sporty playing rugby, cricket, athletics and swimming at school as well as becoming a glider pilot, then continued to play as much sport as possible when I was in the RNZAF (Air Force) as well as discovering drinking, but these days, apart from riding, I just go to the gym, enjoy spurts of reading, watching movies and I always listen to my eclectic collection of music via the GPS when I’m riding.
My favourite quotes are:
I just ask for the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy. (Spike Milligan)
Some people find fault like there was a reward for it. (Zig Ziglar)
How a man wins shows much of his character, how he loses shows all of it. (Knute Rockne via Zig Ziglar)
Along the way I did have a sojourn away from bikes for nearly 20 years, re-entering the fray in 2005 on a cruiser, after my children had left home and deciding that the fuel prices were too high and I needed to save money. Within 6 months I found I was spending 4 times more on fuel, not to mention tyres etc, I had joined the Ulysses Motorcycle club and my riding preference gravitated to Long Distance or Endurance Riding and my weapon of choice changed to a Honda ST1300. I also became a ‘Conehead’, (ie slow riding around cones in a carpark as fast as one can) but my preference is on the big sports-tourer doing the enclosed American Police Rodeo style, rather than the faster open Japanese style Gymkhana.
After going on the holiday of a lifetime in 2005 with my wife Ann and emailing reports back to the family and myself, I happened to be reading these 6 months afterwards and couldn’t believe, despite having about 1400 photos, how much of the details I had forgotten, so in 2007 I decided to start blogging my rides and I guess now I’m in the habit.
I joined the KiwiBiker forum in 2006 as KoroJ, because koro is a Maori term for ‘Old Man’ or Grandad and I was one. Along the way though, my Ulysses mates started calling me Long John because of the Distance Riding and my preference to take the long way to get anywhere, then that expanded to Long John Silver thanks to my hair colour. It also sort of fits because although I don’t profess to be a pirate, I don’t regard myself as ‘squeeky-clean’ either and although I generally try to ride within the tolerated limits, I do enjoy a jolly good fang along any curly piece of macadam.
I was always quite sporty playing rugby, cricket, athletics and swimming at school as well as becoming a glider pilot, then continued to play as much sport as possible when I was in the RNZAF (Air Force) as well as discovering drinking, but these days, apart from riding, I just go to the gym, enjoy spurts of reading, watching movies and I always listen to my eclectic collection of music via the GPS when I’m riding.
My favourite quotes are:
I just ask for the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy. (Spike Milligan)
Some people find fault like there was a reward for it. (Zig Ziglar)
How a man wins shows much of his character, how he loses shows all of it. (Knute Rockne via Zig Ziglar)
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