A weary sigh of relief has been breathed. Yesterday I completed my first Distance Ride since doing the TT2000 at the end of Feb and I opted by starting with the 2020 1KC (Sth) ride. I mentioned ‘starting’ because I also need to ride the 2020 NI1600, as well as the 2020 NI800 ….but …since JulianB did them back-to-back on the event weekend, that got me thinking to try the same!!?? Yes, well 2400+km (and 2660Km if I start/finish out of Wgtn) in one shot will need a bit of conditioning and I haven’t had any, so then the plan stretched to include the 2017 1KC and 2017 NI1600, since I DNF’d on both those rides. (More on that here: https://longjohnbiker.weebly.com/blog/2017-ni1600-failed & here: https://longjohnbiker.weebly.com/blog/1kc-failed-2-for-2 ) So, I did the 2020 1KC and that went quite well. When I did the TT I had issues with the GPS and Sena, so, after finding my Sena unit had a bit of corrosion on the helmet contacts, I stole Ann’s off her helmet! Well technically not stolen as I swapped the units in their entirety, then mas sure I updated the operating system etc. Then same with the GPS. Firmware and map updates done and that all seemed to work OK. Spotwalla on the other hand is a work-in-progress and I need to review my phone settings etc to see what didn’t happen there!? It was a pretty loose plan, with no programmed fuel stops, and I was rolling out of the driveway at 0610, which had me rolling past the official start point of Caltex Rimutaka, 33.6Km down the road at 0631. For what appeared to be a brilliant day, it was only 11º and the heated grips were on low. The first leg was straight up SH2, bypassing Masterton, then Woodville and the main street of Dannevirke, to get to the Tikokino Pub on SH50 and since I was more attired for a brilliant day, by the time I got there, (260Km) the cold squeeze had well and truly kicked in, but the pub was shut at 0847, so the bushes in the carpark were visited and the normal 45sec photostop took closer to 5mins. (*Sigh* …poor old bastard!) On on and the next stop was The Springvale Suspension Bridge on the Gentle Annie ….or it should have been, but 40Km later, as I approached Fernhill, I thought I should probably stop for gas ….and another pee!! FFS!! And Double Sigh, because that 4 minute fuel stop turned into 8 mins between queues and smile of relief!! …not to mention having to do 9 extra Km on the route. (so we’re now on 308Km and its 0930) Right, time for the Gentle Annie! That was quite good as there was very little traffic at that time of day and the surface, although having the usual bits of grit scattered about …and some tar that appeared to be glistening (although I didn’t test that), 98Km later I was stopping at the old bridge having averaged 89kph (which had pulled the OA down from 97 at Omahu, to 92 here). I would have to say that I was feeling a little rusty at times though and opted for a bit of ‘almost straight-lining’ at times. That stop was just over a minute so now it was 406Km done and I was pulling out at 1038. The next leg was more easy going with very little traffic on SH1, then up the Western Lake Rd, so 203Km later at 1236 (at an Avg of 103) I was pulling into the 3rd CP at GAS Whakamaru, and since I had to stop anyway, I thought, “Oh dear, I seem to have that urge again …so I might as well stop for fuel!” Yes, well, it said ‘Pre-Pay on the pump so I had check, “No” Ok, I top-up, then as I’m pay I ask if they have a dunny and I’m not sure if he was saying, “no, it didn’t work” or “no it’s so disgusting I wouldn’t use it!?” ….but there’s one just down the road. So after my 5min fuel stop, I went 285mtrs down the road and had a 10 min break, in a queue, then got in and decided I should sit rather than stand, then figured when I got out to take a layer off as the temp was now up between 16-18º …..so tumbled the OA from 95 to 93 to 91. So I departed Whakamaru at 1252, 610Km into the ride. Next up was a scoot across SH30 to Bennydale, then across Waimiha Rd to SH4, with a CP at that junction. SH30 is sweet (as always) and I haven’t been on Waimiha Rd since the 2015 NI1600, when I was around dawn and I was rather weary, but I seem to recall that it was narrow and unmarked in places, but it was pretty good so perhaps in my delirious state in 2015, I confused it with the Ohura Loop, that followed? Anyway, that was OK and 86Km later, at an avg of 91, I was pausing at SH4, taking a casual 1.5mins to take a photo, then get back on the road at 1350.
Two legs to go, so now it was down SH4 to the pub at Upokongaro, which was pretty much same ol’, same ol’ stuff, but SH4 is general quite nice sweepy stuff, plus the Para’s, which had a couple of light controlled stop-go’s. so 173Km, followed by a 1.5min photo-stop, I was pulling out again at 1538, having done 869Km. …and now I was onto the tedious crawl back down SH1. There’s not much worth mentioning about that, except there was a big queue into Otaki, then again before MacKays Crossing and pretty thick all the way to J’ville. I finally got home at 1758 having done 1067Km, arse feeling like it had done a thou and a little weary, but that’s one down and hopefully number two will be next week.
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Saturday saw the running of the 13th 1KC, formally the C1KC (Capital 1,000 Km Cruise), but that name was dropped after the NZ Distance Riders included the event on their calendar and commenced a separate route out of Hamilton. The ride started in 2007 when my riding buddy Steve and I were discussing whether or not to travel to Christchurch to participate in the ‘Longest Day’ ride, which is a 1,000Km ride run by the Chch Ulysses, however, being a bit of a tight-arse, in the end it was decided that we could run a 1,000Km ride and save the cost of a ferry ride!! And so it came to be. 2007 saw 19 riders embark out of Caltex Rimutaka, 2008 saw the numbers escalate to 50, an entry fee charged for badges which were introduced and the ride became a fundraiser for the Wgtn Ulysses Muscular Dystrophy Ride, whereby Christmas presents are purchased for children afflicted with the disorder in the Central and Lower Nth Island. That seemed like a good idea at the time because I had been going on MDA rides since 2005 and I found it disappointing that the presents up until that time were ‘very average’! In 2007, I was awed that the Rusty Nuts had been running their Grand Challenge 1,000 miler for 21 years and never considered we would still be doing this, especially after Grub Collins died on the Forgotten Highway on the 2008 C1KC, when riding in a group with Steve and myself. That wasn’t very pleasant and could well have been seen the demise of the ride, but for encouragement from his partner Kari and the fact that we were raising funds for the MDA kids….and for some years now, the 1KC has been fronting with $1,000 per year for the 25-30 presents needed. It’s been hard coming up with routes, but thusfar we have still managed to include new roads to the event each year and the punters seem to be enjoying it. Fortunately I don’t have to worry about the 1KC (Nth) out of Hamilton as Topher attends to that and we just focus on the 1KC (Sth), which this year, the route included a bit of farting around in the Wairarapa before a scoot around Mt Taranaki (since the Northern route went around East Cape). I’d packed the bike and checked the tyres the night before and my plan was to get there by 0600 to get the bike ribbons, disclosures, certs and badges to Brett, then get an early start in order to get back early to help him at the finish, but I didn’t get there until 0607 to find that there were already about a dozen eager-beavers ready to get on with the day’s event. After handing over the stuff, I had a quick chat with Steve and we decided to ride together, getting away just after 0615. It was steady as she goes stuff over the hill and we caught a group, that didn’t seem to be interested in passing a car or two, near the bottom of the hill, so we scooted past them, then found they hooked on the back as we went up to Masterton, took the bypass, went out to Te Ore Ore, losing them temporarily on Route 52, but they arrived at the first CP just before we departed (84Km – 0712). It was surprisingly warm (20º) and I had left home with the thermal liner in my jacket and winter gloves on, so the gloves came off here and got swapped for the summer jobbies. We continued on our steady pace to the 2nd CP at Alfredton (109Km – 0730) and more of the same over Pa Valley Rd, through Tane and across to CP2 at the junction of Mangaramarama Rd and Pahiatua-Pongaroa Rd (141Km – 0751). The Masterton starters were loitering there when we arrived and were still loitering when we embarked on leg 4 to Pongaroa. That was quite nice with more steady-as-she-goes stuff, but by the time we got to Pongaroa, (190Km – 0825 overall average at 88kph) the thermal liner definitely had to come out and we actually took longer than a minute at that stop, which was enough time for Big Col to rock in and rock out, the Masterton Gp to turn up and the Napier starters to come in from the North. On-on and on this leg we started discussing fuel options because, for the first time in a long time, I hadn’t planned anything as originally I was planning to ride solo and it wouldn’t be an issue on this route, but now we had to think about Steve’s range. In the end we got to CP5 just before the Dannevirke town limits (249Km – 0903 – Avg 89kph) and he had plenty so decided we would divert for a fill in Feilding. We took Makirikiri Rd to SH2, turned left for Woodville taking Pinfolds and Oxford Rds to bypass the town and take the Saddle over to Ashhurst, then out via Colyton to Feilding. It was now 310Km into the ride at 89kph average, but the 7½ minute fuel stop had our overall average back to 85kph as we started the short scoot via Cheltenham and Kimbolton to the next CP at Pemberton Corner. More steady as she goes and we re-caught ChrisA, MarkI and CliveB at Cheltenham, …or at least, nearly caught them because they had paused at Cheltenham to meet up with more mateys, but Chris passed us just out of there and they did a runner, then their mateys passed us with a hiss and a roar through the curly section north of Kimbolton. I was riding a bit cautiously through there as I found it difficult to read the road surface, which looked like it had grit on it, although it didn’t really feel like it did, so I was ‘riding the rut’ in the car tracks. We soon pulled into the junction of Rangiwahia Rd and Mangamako Rd to find that group still there at 358Km – 1022 and avg back to 87kph, but our leisurely 1min 20 sec photo stop was too casual to get us out in front of them …and this last piece of nice curly road for the day saw them do a real runner as they had soon gapped-it out of sight. Once we emerged at Ohingaiti, we took SH1 South and diverted though Marton and onto the tedious slog up SH3 from Whanganui to Hawera, where we diverted via Meremere to bypass the town and head on to Stratford. At that point it was looking really dirty ahead and Steve’s Sena had gone flat, so we stopped to puts the wets on and for him to hook up a power pack. Halfway for the ride was just before Patea and we were now at 577Km – 1243 and back to 89kph, but an 8minute stop saw that back to an 87 average. The worst thing was that less than 15 minutes down the road at Inglewood, the roads were dry again!! *Sigh* The Sentry Hill CP7 was reached at 614Km – 1316 and back to 88 avg. Bandit rider turned up while we were there, then gapped-it, it was getting hotter but I kept the wets on as it was hard to tell what it was like on the coast and we set out for our next fuel stop in Oakura as that would see Steve get back to Wellington. That was at 640Km – 1340 and now we just had to get the last CP at Rahotu before the crappy State Highway slog back to Wellington (The route planner deserves a bullet!!) We were literally on a down wind run through here though and even though we upped the pace a little, the economy was up over 18 Km per Ltr. It was really smooth riding too …until every now and then the road would hook left and you would feel the full affects of the wind and how strong it was. The BanditRider caught us at Rahotu again and gapped-it again, but we on a bit of a bungy cord and every now and then we would reel him in …especially once he caught the Revenue Collector and followed him from Opunake to Manaia. If we had been dialed in on the comms, I would have been encouraging him to pass the prick when he slowed to 98, but Andrew obviously didn’t want to push his luck! Consequently we followed Andrew off and on down to Sanson, where he continued straight on for home in Palmy and we turned for Wellington. This leg was tough with all the bum-numbing SH riding taking it’s toll and I seemed to be constantly dropping my right leg, or both, or standing on the pegs though the towns, or shuffling onto the back seat! Anything to relieve the stiffness that was afflicting the bum and legs and we finally pulled up outside the backbencher in Thorndon at 1,011Km – 1738 for 11 hours 22minutes and overall average of 89kph. Colin had been there for a bit and we went in to join him, Ann and Brett, for a coffee and a snack …and now I think about it, that must have been the first ride I’ve ever been on with Steve that didn’t involve caffeine and a sticky-bun somewhere along the route!!
So that’s another 100Km done, another $1,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy kids and another really lucky day (weather wise) for this ride …even if it did end up feeling more like a conditioning ride than a jolly good fang!! I took the bike for a WoF on Thursday, went for a coffee while I waited and got back to find it was leaking fluid from the right fork ….bugger! No worries though, the guys at Boyles ordered new seals (overnight), gave me scooter to get back to work and all was good …well almost. I haven’t ridden a scooter before so I hopped on, started it up, gave it a bit of juice ….and nothing happened! I looked down and, as expected, there was no gear shift, so I gave it a bit of juice ….and nothing. Repeat, repeat, turned it off and went to ask. “Give it some juice” the man said, so went back, gave it some more juice and it finally started to move when it seemed to be nearly red-lining! Fifteen metres later I was coming to the giveway sign so I grabbed the clutch and found it was a bit ‘grabby’! … ie a handful of rear brake suddenly applied causes the back wheel to skip a bit sideways. Next thing I’m pootling along Karo Dve …which leads to the motorway and I thought, ‘oh shit, I shouldn’t be taking this thing on the motorway’, then figured, oh bugger it, I’m straight off again and continued. It was raining so I dropped it home and took the car back to work. Next day I took the scooter to work and had to brave the even worse elements to pick up the ST. Scooters don’t do it for me!! I let Steve know my plan for the day to see if he wanted to join me, then once I eventually got home, I did the usual stuff, tyres, packed, got the gear ready etc. I got up just after 0500, scrubbed, kitted (fully with wets), farted around trying to get the new rear tyre pressure sensor to work, but couldn’t and was late getting away, so I didn’t arrive at Caltex Rimutaka until about 0605 and was surprised to see about 20 bikes there already, I filled, signed the disclaimer to say I wouldn’t blame myself if anything went wrong, took a few photos, then Steve and I were first away at 0617. It was still wet with the occasional drizzle so we embarked at a semi-brisk pace and as we descended into the Wai’rapa there was no improvement, however, as we skipped along the Masterton bypass at 0700 some of the road was dry and I spotted the tiniest hint of blue off towards Woodville ….and now the fun began. We still needed to leave plenty of margin for error, but these roads are pretty good so we slipped into GC mode, adopted a pace at the top end of the allowable limits and averaged 102kph through to the first checkpoint at Mauriceville, grabbed the pic and continued via Dreyers Rock Rd, through Alfredton and onto Pa Valley Rd to the next CP, being the road sign at the junction with Estcourt Rd. It was still wet with the occasional drizzle so we embarked at a semi-brisk pace and as we descended into the Wai’rapa there was no improvement, however, as we skipped along the Masterton bypass at 0700 some of the road was dry and I spotted the tiniest hint of blue off towards Woodville ….and now the fun began. We still needed to leave plenty of margin for error, but these roads are pretty good so we slipped into GC mode, adopted a pace at the top end of the allowable limits and averaged 102kph through to the first checkpoint at Mauriceville, grabbed the pic and continued via Dreyers Rock Rd, through Alfredton and onto Pa Valley Rd to the next CP, being the road sign at the junction with Estcourt Rd. We were now back onto main roads up to Ashhurst, across via Colyton to Cheltenham, over Vinegar Hill to SH1 and up to Turangi for our first fuel stop. We were operating at the top end of the allowable limits and were making good time, but once we passed Waiouru, for some unknown reason, the pace lifted another notch, but our average through here wasn’t that great as there were queues of traffic to negotiate over roadworks. We did catch two of the Masterton boys through here and got caught by the third, but they all left Z Turangin before us and we never really saw them again. The roadworks were crappy too because they were wet, but where that usually offers a bit ‘sticktion’ between the bits of gravelly pieces, this stuff was sort of slushy, with cement mixed in (and my poor baby still hasn’t had a clean up). We pulled into Z Turangi for fuel at 1013, having done 370km at a moving average of 96kph and we’d only paused for 4 minutes on the 3 CP’s, so we were doing OK and had a relaxed 13 minute fill, snack, drink, clean-the-visor (for Steve) and Colin arrived while we were there. Back on the road we passed Phil at Tokaanu (who, it transpired, had paused to remove a bee from his helmet) and had Colin in tow as we crept (yeah right …at an avg of 104) over the saddles to Kuratau and up the western lake road. For some odd reason we seemed to carry our pace (and some) from the Desert Road over to this leg, so the average pace was a little higher than the allowable limits, but hey, the sun was shining, the roads were dry and the dogs had been couped-up for ages!! Steve had to pause to fix something at Whakamaru, so I dropped to ‘putter’ mode and Colin gapped it (probably because he didn’t want the slow-pokes in front of him through the good bits), Steve caught up again and we embarked upon the choicy bits for the day by the Waipapa Dam. Once again, I wasn’t totally comfy through here but still managed to make quite good progress through to Ngaroma Hall, arriving as the Masterton boys departed, then leaving a minute later with Phil pulling in. (but that was all we saw of that lot for the rest of the day) PS. We’d ended up averaging 105kph for the 128km from Turangi. Next stop was the Otohina farm and we had to negotiate 53km of sweet tighty-witey stuff to get there ….primo Waikato roads that were built when the gents driving the graders knew how to do it and when the Ministry of Works boys weren’t leaning on their shovels, they laid a good base. Bloody sweet and the best part was that having a GPS that knew where it was going, I could just focus on the ride …..and we arrived as Nathan was leaving. (I guessed it was Nathan since the tail of his bike looked very ST’ish!) Once again, the stop was barely more than 35 secs before we were moving again and with the next CP only being about 10km away at the Rangitoto Hall, we were there in 7 minutes, stopped for 50 secs this time and I was surprised that we didn’t see Nathan again, but we did catch him on the run into Te Kuiti and he pulled aside to let us pass. (Go figure?) That was a waste of time on his part though as I was day-dreaming on the way into the town limits and nearly missed the turn, but Steve must have been up my date and all I heard was, “I’ll take the next one!”, but when I got to the rail crossing on main road there was no Steve and I had to wait, so Nathan slipped back on past. We followed him out of town and he gradually pulled away (because we are good little law-abiding characters!?), but as happens, depending on traffic and corners, we would sometimes catch him, then passed him and led to our next fuel stop at BP Taumarunui. Once again, we had a fairly relaxed stop here, taking 11 minutes, in which time Ken (from Masterton) and Nathan left and we were surprised to see Colin roll in a) because he was on a GSA and had fuelled in Turangi; and b) he’d bolted on Waipapa Rd and we expected him to be closer to National Park than Taumarunui at this point, but it transpired that he had missed a turn and enjoyed more of those Waikato / King Country backroads than he was supposed to. Anyway, by the time we got back on the road, we were 660km into the ride and had a moving average of 96.7kph with a stopped time of 31 minutes …and now we had one more CP to get at Upok and were homeward bound on a favourite road ….so we gave it some juice!! ….but not too much ….and we did get slowed down following some dude in a red car with blue and yellow patches on it as we approached National Park. So anyway (again) we scooted along and managed to average 108kph to Raetihi ….and then our last bit of fun began. Nth to Sth on the Para’s is a downhill run and the ST is a bike that doesn’t have a lot of engine braking so it tends to carry speed into corners when you’re on a roll-on – roll-off run, which is how Steve and I tend to ride. By this time in the day (700+ km) and with the finish looming, I was feeling in the groove and felt like we were making really good progress. On top of that, there was a bit of traffic, but we seemed to be catching it all at the right time, whereby we just flowed past them, rarely getting held up. The GPS told a different story but! I have found in the past that even when ‘pushing the pace’, one is lucky to pick-up just a few minutes over the Para’s, but on this occasion, we were well along and I happened to check the GPS and commented to Steve, “Bloody hell mate, I thought we’ve been going well through here, but we’ve lost three minutes on our ETA!!” Steve agreed that it felt like a nice pace and that we were in the groove …and sure enough, when I checked the Track Log on Sunday, we’d averaged 103kph! It was a bloody nice ride! , Last checkpoint was another 30 second job at 1508 and we were now down to the last 200km to Sanson, then down SH1. The traffic was moving pretty well and we were riding ‘assertively’, maintaining an average just under 100kph to Levin, but between the lights and traffic we started to lose time from there on in. We were passing shitloads of traffic though and as we approached the new expressway, I spotted another bike in the traffic ahead …it had to be Nathan.
We were reeling him in through the traffic, but once he got to the expressway he took off and we dropped behind again, but once he got back into the traffic after Mackays Crossing, he sat where he was while we continued to pick up a car here and another there, closing to within a dozen cars of him before we got to the WRB along the coast, then half a doz cars as we came out of Pukerua Bay …and then the bastard hit the double lanes and took off again! He was probably half a km ahead by the time he pulled up behind several cars at the roundabout …and he’d pulled up very close to a car in the centre of the right lane ….so he wasn’t going anywhere! But I on the other hand was in full ‘assertive’ mode (read that as aggressive or arsehole if you wish, 'cos I had a big grin), hitting the queue as the front cars started to move and I just cruised down the channel, powered out of the roundabout, then hit the lights as they turned orange …and caught all the lights through to the Paremata roundabout, as well as the Police College ones …so I was now out of range of Steve’s Sena (ie more than 2 km ahead) …so I slotted behind a car at 80-90kph for the next few km until the boys caught up. We finished by taking the Murphy St exit, went down to Kate Sheppard Pl, then accidently turned up the one way to get to the Backbencher, to find that Ken had just pulled in too. I grabbed the camera, went inside and was a bit surprised to find that the four of us were first home, because we were expecting the other Masterton boys to be ahead of us and probably others, but apparently we had passed them at Te Kuiti. It was a pretty damn good ride with us completing the last leg in the Saturday traffic at 92kph and the 1,013km at a moving average of 96.5kph in 11:03 with 33mins of stopped time. We had a coffee, a beer and a snack and I settled down with Graeme to see the rest of the riders in and listen to some of the stories and it was good to hear that all seemed to enjoy the day as much as Steve and I had. I was a bit worse for wear when I had to work on Sunday, but it was bloody marvellous to have had such a fine time whilst raising over $1,000 for the kiddies with Muscular Dystrophy. Below are the routes out of Wellington & Hamilton (Click for full view) After my failure to complete the NI1600, there was a comment made, "Never regret failing - just regret not starting", to which I made a facetious comment about kaftan wearers. Well I just failed again so now I'm thinking I better pop out and buy myself a kaftan!! It's not that often that I really look forward to riding a route, especially if it's one I've come up with, but last year I was eager to ride the 1KC and this year it was the same for the NI1600 and the 1KC, so maybe I better come up with something dreary for next year. I had the bike prepped and packed on Friday night, got to bed at 10pm to arise at 0500, scrub, kit up and get on the road by 0545 and having learned my lesson on the NI1600, the very gloomy looking weather over the Hutt and Rimutakas prompted me to fill at the Hutt Road BP and don my wets. I arrived at Caltex Rimutaka before 0615 and was surprised to find almost 20 bikes already there, so I checked in with Brett, took a few pix and slipped off the forecourt at 0617. I had decided to ride by myself, maintaining a good pace with short stops and I wasn't too concerned about the wet roads on the Rimutaka Hill because it looked like we should get good weather for most of the ride and although there was no rain, I was surprised to find the wet roads persisted until almost up to Waipuk'. I caught the Masterton starters before Eketahuna and Ken was maintaining a good pace so I just slotted in behind them, taking the bypass around Woodville and heading for Dannevirke. A bit north of there some flashing red & blue lights appeared up ahead as we came on to a passing lane and Nik eased off a bit, so I passed him, and a bit further on passed Tony & Michelle to slot in behind Ken. About 5-8 Km before Dannevirke, Ken opted not to pass a truck, so I took them both, thinking I would rather be in front of the big cruiser on the tight roads and I was soon taking Makirikiri Rd to get to the Weber road. It was soon very apparent that a wet Mangahei Rd was not going to be a walk in the park and even with much care being taken, I found myself twitching once or twice, especially if I found myself on the paint. I still managed to maintain a reasonably good pace though and had taken my pic at about 0820 and was departing as Ken arrived at the CP. From here the road widened and dried, so about 30 mins later I had enjoyed a jolly good fang to Waipuk' and travelled more sedately to the next CP in Waipawa and was departing for the anticipated fang up Argyll and Whakapirau Rds, because although I have known of this stretch for years, this was to be the first time I had ridden it. With CP3 at Argyll East School taken at about 0900. and feeling in the groove, I was thumping up Argyll Rd when it all turned to shit as I entered a corner and realised it didn't quite shape out as expected so all of a sudden I found myself scrambling to get back on line, scrubbed off a shitload of speed, but drifted onto the gravel verge, kept it upright and about when I should of been back on the power, the rear wheel slipped off the bank! Bugger! What a dickhead! I was fine and the bike was unscathed but after a quick try, it was obvious that I wouldn't get it out by myself and at that time a young local arrived in his ute, confirmed it would take more than the two of us so he rang his dad to come down with a quad. After 10 mins the Masterton team arrived, followed shortly by dad, No 2 son and the quad and within minutes the 300Kg ST Brute was back on the hard. It was stuck in gear, but we got it moving, it came right and the pic at CP 4, only a few Km up from CP3 was taken at about 0940, but I was back on track, negotiated the rest of Whakapirau Rd and pulled out onto SH50. There was ute approaching so I crossed onto SH50 and accelerated away, only to find I couldn't exceed 80kph! so I tried changing gears etc, pulled over to let the ute past, then puttered up toward turnoff to Fernhill as it got worse, finally giving up at the junction. Double Bugger!!
My day was done, so I sent a text to Brett and James. The Masterton team and Steve arrived, I advised I was out and sent them on their way, called Ann then called the Roadside Assist to arrange a pick-up. About two hours later we got the bike to Hastings Honda, (who were a bit confused as to the cause of my problems), I got it sorted, texted Steve to pick me up at Omahu Marae and started walking over there (as it didn't look that far on the map!! What a joke! I hadn't realised how hot it had got... or how far it was, because I had probably walked about a Km, when a car pulled over and the two occupants offered me a lift and the driver advised, "aw shit, the marae is further from town than my place and it takes me about two hours to walk from there!" (I think I've already advised that I'm a dickhead) Anyway, they dropped me at the marae and I settled down on the Our-Lady-of-the-Holy-Crossroads reserve to drink my water, eat my bananas and nut bars and have a snooze until Steve arrived at about 1530. We scooted down to Dannevirke for a fill, where I put a skivvy and wet jacket on to stave off the cold, then made for the Backbencher, arriving just before 1900 after a rough ride over the Rimutakas. I'd been conscious that I'm a fat prick and I needed to try and be 'neutral' to make things easier for Steve and once we got to the hill, the wind was up so I tried to hunker down and get a bit closer in order to reduce the windage, but even then Steve got shunted right across the right hand lane as we turned a corner and the car in front had slowed down too much, so Steve passed him and the extra speed certainly helped. I was a bit concerned that things would get worse once we had gone over the summit, but Steve's bike control and positioning were superb and we seemed to get through there without any further issues. Steve was 5th back in and the rest of the night until a bit after 2200 was spent welcoming in the other riders and by that time we had heard that the hill was now treacherous and riders were turning back. So it was another good event, but once again I find me being a bit grumpy with myself for my own stupidity. I had been cranking along, shedding minutes off my ETA, which at the time of my off, was down to 1645, but a moment's inattention could have proved fatal and I'm actually feeling a bit lucky to be just inconvenienced to not have the bike for a week or two. I guess it's time to review what I'm up to and make some changes to attitude and application. |
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