“One Tank To Go Please?”

Bloody marvellous! I went for my first conditioning ride this morning. I decided that about 500km would be good and worked out a route up by Wangas, then across and back through the Wai’rapa, which ended up at 530km, would be just what the doctor ordered. The straight and boring ride up ‘1’ & ‘3’ to Wangas would be arse numbing and on an early (0700) start I wouldn’t have to worry about cold, damp patches, then I could enjoy a few nice roads on the way home. And when it worked out at 530km, I thought, ‘all good, I’ll try to do it on one tank’. It would have been easy on the old Red, but this bike just isn’t as economical so it would require some ‘smooth’.

I went up to Fordell, then heading through Kauangaroa and hello, my bike felt funny!

I hop off, kick the rear tyre, very spongy….ahhhh FFS! Put bike on centre stand, give rear a spin and nothing…..ahhh FFS!

Get out compressor, start huffing and hello, there’s a largish hole and inch or so off centre and right in the side of one of the tread grooves.

Pull out kit from under the seat, dog turds old but nice and soft, two tubes of vulcanising goo, one had been opened and was shot, other is unused and good.

Put reamer through tyre, slightly difficult but goes through. Thread dog turd into other end, coat with goo, try to work through the tyre. Tyre just flexes so figure a bit of air might help, turn on compressor…..nothing……ahhhh FFS!!!

Check connection at lighter socket in top-box and the plug on the compressor is disintegrating …….you guessed it……ahhhh FFS!

Nice man in truck had just pulled up, “I’ve got some air”, he says, “but not sure how we’ll get it in there?” I show him elbow attachment, fit it and do the deeds on the doggy-doo-plug.

He blows some air in, I check, “5psi, have another go”, more air goes in, “15psi, I need 40” has another go and gets it to 33psi. “She’ll be right I say, that’ll get me into Wangas”

Thanks are given and we are both on our way back to Fordell. There’s quite a bit of crap through there from the flooding and obviously a sharp stone had done the deed on what I would have called ‘very good tyres’. 8,000km done of 12-15,000km usually, so between ½ & ⅔ worn but with very good looking deep tread and life.

Get to Wangas, “Hello, Honda shop has disappeared”, have a look around, need a piss and air in the tyre, so stop at Z Dublin, come out of shop and looking for someone to ask and hello, there’s a chap with two M/Cs on a trailer,
“Any bike shops around?”
“I’m a bike shop” says he, “Well a bike mechanic” he qualifies.
“Had a puncture and want to get it plugged.”   
“Oh bugger” he says, “I’m just delivering these and can’t help you….and the bloody shops around here are rough on your rims”. He has a look, “That’s bloody good, it’s sealed well, they reckon ya shouldn’t ride far on ‘em, but they’ll last 6 months those things.
‘Yeah right’ I thinks, but says, “She’s right, I’ll go to Palmy.”
….so more air goes in …..but not until after I realise that my valve cap and elbow attachment are still on the ground at Kauangaroa!!!.......you got it……..ahhh FFS!! and off I go.

Gets to Sanson and just comes home. Oddly enough, the economy was better on the way home!

Now I needs to fix the compressor or get one of those natty little ones off Andrew at TSS, plus the Wof-able plug kit that comes with a small back-up bike type pump….and a new tyre at this point (start of my conditioning rides) will be most inconvenient.

What a bloody bummer!

My day turned to shit because I only got to do the boring, shit part of the ride….upside I guess is, that the 400+km I did would have to be rated highly for butt-hardening, but I was really looking forward to the scoot across to the Wai’rapa where I was going to venture over to Route 52 from Pahiatua and it’s nice flowy stuff through there….and call in to visit my mum.

My whole conditioning programme has been shot to shit because I was looking to do somewhere between 3-5,000km over the next month, then put a brand new set of Z8’s on for the NI1600. I wouldn’t normally do that much conditioning, but the state of the tyres meant I needed to use them up, plus I’ve been working 7-day weeks for all of the last 3 months,…..except for two Sundays I took off to have a ride….I deserve some nice Km’s!!! Also, this bike only has 68,000km on it. At the same age, the old Red had over 120,000km!

There’s not much change from $750 after fitting a set of tyres to the ST. A few more km would have been nice and I have to have it fixed by Friday because I’m booked to take the bike up to KSS to get the new rear shock fitted after a recall on them.

Upside….better it happened now rather than in the pissing rain, at 0200 in the morning in the back of beyond on the NI1600, because now I know I need to upgrade my tyre repair kit and I guess I better check the 1st aid kit at the same time.