It’s only four weeks until the 2017 North Island 1600 and I figured some conditioning was in order, especially after checking the riding stats to discover that I’ve only done 5,500Km since 19/12/16 …and nearly 2K of that was between Christmas and New Year. …How dismal! We (Steve & I) normally do 3 or 4 rides as a build-up, maybe starting at as little as 300-400Km then graduating to 1,000+Km and including at least one night ride, so with only a month to go and a serious lack of riding, I really needed to make a start. Since I had planned nothing I just decided to go, checked the tyres, packed a few things and since I had heard there was some sort of kite thing happening in Whanganui, I thought that might be a good place to start and hit the road at about 1040 (I had to go to the gym prior). From Whanganui, I would cross through Halcombe to the Wai’rapa and visit mum on the way back and that should result in around 500Km. The weather looked uncertain, it was a cool 10°, rain was sort of threatening but it did look clearer to north, I was on three bars for fuel so figured I might fill in Levin, but after soon dropping to two bars, I ended up filling at Mana …and then I really was on the road. Riding up SH’s 1 & 3 is always a good way to start hardening up the butt because with few corners, one does not tend to shift their weight on the seat and that will more quickly result in a numb-bum. All the same, I did instinctively switch into GC mode and made good progress at the allowable limits. I diverted over Speedy & Faulkner Rds to avoid Sanson, then had to stop in Bulls thanks to the cold squeeze and having a coffee prior to starting, and before you knew it I was parked up at Springvale Park. I’m not exactly into kites, even though I was rather proficient at constructing basic jobbies and flying them as a lad, so I didn’t linger long and started back towards Turakina. The temp had climbed to 14° so it wasn’t too uncomfortable and I was making good progress through the traffic, but about this time the GPS started to play up. Not a biggy as I wasn’t using it for Nav, but it is looking more and more that I won’t have any music for the NI1600 because I’m too miserable to by a replacement right now. It’s always a nice scoot through Halcombe, then I opted to go via Colyton rather than Bunnythorpe, then ended up behind a cop over the Saddle and what a bloody pain that was with 30, 50 & 80kph sections, then I was heading South from Woodville and the temp was suddenly down to 7° …so the hot-grips went on.
I visited mum then embarked on the last 100km in a mix of drizzly and cool conditions and although it was wet on the hill, I still managed to keep the progress up, finally getting home around 1730 having done about 520Km for the day. ….and my butt wasn’t really sore, so it was quite a good start to the conditioning. And it’s about time I had something to blog about. I am really looking forward to the big ride this year.
1 Comment
4/9/2017 17:09:15
Nice one John. I've got precisely zero practice in lately...
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