So, the route was revealed at 7.00pm last night. It is, as the organisers said, very windy and technical. That can also mean slow which might be a problem in the latter stages.

It takes in a lot of the North Island taking a tortuous route through the lower part of the Wanganui/Hunterville region. This is the one place that I’m likely to get lost on. Lot’s of navigation, so much so that my phone GPS can’t handle it. I’ve had to resort to making notes on my phone with turns etc. Hopefully this won’t hold me back. Actually, I’ve just bought a map – going old school – further pressure on time if I need to stop and check locations all the time.

There are 12 checkpoints on the route – around 5 of these are manned checkpoints, the others are photo stops where we need to capture us, or our motorbikes, in the prescribed location (in front of a memorial, on a roundabout, near a sign or bridge etc). It’s also an opportunity to stretch the legs and recover, marginally, until the next leg.

As well we need to time fuel stops. In the early hours of the morning we’ll need to rely on 24 hour petrol stations, or card pumps. Some of these are off the prescribed route so detours may have to be taken. My bike will do around 320kms on a full tank with reserve, so in the scheme of things it has a reasonable range. That still means that over 1,600 km I’ll need to stop for gas around 8 times. Best to time these with checkpoints so I’m killing two birds with one stone.

Here’s the link to my Spotwalla track: (It will be actively tracking from 1pm this afternoon 10 October 2015)