I have always made a habit of buying the best gear I can possibly afford. The old Summit shirt byline “No-one ever regretted buying quality” is a maxim I try to live by, but quality is expensive. In the case of wet weather motorcycle gear, it’s worth every penny. I soon discovered how much it […]
I survived. You will have seen the map from Part 3, and also the weather forecast which predicted rain. Both of these things were accurate. I followed the track (with some slight GPS variations), and it rained like a bastard for 20 something hours. Long John had planned an interesting ride – a series of […]
So the route has been revealed. This happened last night at 7pm. Bit of a weird one this time. Seems Turangi is the ‘hub’ from which four rides emanate, each around 300-400kms long. And as expected I’ve woken to a miserable drizzly day. Thankfully there’s no wind, yet. And the rain is set to intensify. […]
Well, the weather bomb looks like it’s on its way. I left Wellington this morning having packed my gear at a leisurely pace. I needed to be in Turangi around 4.00pm at the latest for scrutineering. I stopped at the BP in Paremata to fill up with 98. Five minutes is all it took. The […]
This weekend it’s the forth NI1600 event – a ‘rally’ where motorcyclists attempt to ride at least 1,600 km in less than 24 hours. As normal the ride starts from the Turangi campground with riders departing in groups of ten from 1pm onwards. The aim is to collect checkpoints and return to Turangi within the […]
Winter is coming. I live in Wellington and soon it’ll be a miserable ride anywhere near the Desert Road / National Park / Napier-Taupo road because of extreme cold, and potential snow and ice. I decided to plan a sneaky 1,600 km in on the first weekend of May – the last big ride before […]