Today was flagged as a ‘Dawn Ride’ whereby we were off to Riversdale to see the sunrise…Yeah Right! Good idea??!! ….but to see the sunrise one has to be there by 7’ish! (at present)....and have an uninhibited view of the horizon and sky! No problem, we pick Riversdale, we set a date and start early… and if God doesn’t want us to see a magnificent sunrise as Maui’s orb rises from the sea….who gives a toss!....we already had a great ride and we’re booked for breakfast so still have more good riding to do….Yeah Baby!! After the Apiti Scamper yesterday, I loaded up the bike in readiness for a departure from home by 0415hrs. Loading up the bike entailed leaving the wets, extra tops, hat, hi-viz gear and camera on board, squeezing a Bar-b-que into the top box and having an empty pannier for the bread, pre-cooked sausages, Olivio, sausages a knife and meths. I digress here to explain that, “Yes, I have a bar-b-que that I can transport in my topbox”. As a child on our many family visits to rivers etc, my dad had an alloy dish (approx 40cm dia) with alloy lid and detachable legs that packed down into its own little suitcase. Now when my dad died a couple of years back I was in a position to claim this object as my inheritance because a few years earlier he had already let me steal it. One places Meth’s soaked sawdust or sand in the bottom and, voila, a precooked sausage is soon hot enough to eat. Anyway, the rides committee decided that downing a siz’d (not a full sizzle) sausage would be a worthy accompaniment to an upping sun and if the sunrise couldn’t be seen, a siz’d sausage was as good an excuse for a ride as anything. I might note here also that we often only get 5 to 8 on our Uly rides so a dozen sausages would be plenty…..so I got 2 dozen. That was lucky because after rising early (0330) getting to Caltex Rimutaka and filling-up, I was joined by 19 bikes with 25 riders and pillions, so fortunately Steve had a heap of sausys as well. We departed Rimutaka at 0500 with me at TEC and had a pleasant pootle in the dark, over the hill, regrouped briefly in Featherston and continued to the Nth End Mobil in Masterton in case anyone needed gas. From here it was deemed to have a ‘free-ride’ out to the beach so Ken took over TEC as I led out to get there and set-up the bar-b. I haven’t done this ride in the dark but it’s quite a good road and managed to maintain a pace between 110 – 120 for most of the way, arriving at the beach before 0645 and soon had the eats cooking. (I might also mention here that I had a wee moment as I crossed some unexpectedly deep sand on my way onto the grass…..fortunately no one else was around to see it….so it didn’t happen!!) By this time there was plenty of light to see that there was cloud all the way to the horizon, so who knows when the dawn actually happened, but who cared…we counted down, took a photo, enjoyed a sausage over a chat, then headed back to breakfast at the Wild Oats in Carterton. Once again I took up position as TEC and pootled to a Beef Stroganoff pie and a Bowl Latte, then enjoyed a final fang over the hill with a terrier on a Harley on my heels for most of the way, getting home before 1030, when we would normally be just embarking on our Sunday rides.
It was bloody marvelous! We had a great turnout for a most pleasant ride and I wondered to myself why we don’t do more rides on that road. I managed 315Kms for the day, pushing the bie out to 86,087Kms all up.
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These blogs were posted on the KiwiBiker forum but I decided it was time for a change. Archives
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