Day off work today so out for a ride !

Day off today so thought it would be good to get some more use out of the FJ .
Ended up talking to my mate Steve in the UK for an hour on the phone. He is coming to stay with us in a couple of weeks time so doing some planning.
We are taking both my FJ and XJ to the South Island for a couple of weeks. I have only been to Nelson and my wife Pauline who is a kiwi has seen very little of the South Island also. Everyone tells us how wonderful it is down there for motorcycling so getting very excited.
Had planned to go to Wanganui up the Para's round the mountain and home but getting a late start made me rethink a bit.




FJ at lunch stop on Wanganui River Road

Had thought about going up the river road as I have not done that road before but decided to leave it for a day with less time constraints.



Beautiful Scenery even on a cloudy day
 

Made my way back through Fordell to come out at Hunterville. About 50 km's I think, I didn't see one other vehicle just half a dozen cattle that managed to find their way onto the road .

Any 365kms and bit of a sweaty bum Im told sheepskin covers are the way to go ?


View Larger Map

Roadsafe Training Day

Our local Kapiti branch of the Ulysses M/C club organised a training day last Sunday for members.
The training was subsidised by our local council and ACC.  The cost to us was a mere $20 per person, outstanding value.
The course was run by Andrew and Lynne Templeton who run a company called Roadsafe .
We had a morning classroom session that included some great videos demonstrating the importance of looking where you want to go when things get challenging.
We were told to come to the day with an open mind that I did but it was certainly full by the end of the day.

After lunch we headed just up the road to Southwards Car Museum who very kindly let us use part of their car park, they even arranged to have the area swept just for us.

Here we were given the opportunity to emergency brake and find the limits of our brakes in a controlled environment. Managed to lock up my front wheel on the FJ but my human ABS came into action swiftly enough !!

We also did various exercises using body weight to turn very tightly at low speeds etc etc.
A great day and I personally learnt heaps.

Pay It Forward: Rider Blog

I am sure we have all been thankful of some help from fellow motorcyclists at some time at the side of the road..     Great article follow link



Pay It Forward: Rider Blog

Paekakariki Hill Alarm call out ride.

So its Sunday Morning and Pauline and I decided to et some work done in our garden before it got too hot, been getting up towards 30 degree,s C here !
Get a call from my work alarm company telling me that the cleaners have not reset the alarm so work not being monitored. Phoned cleaners office to get a message telling me they were still closed for the holidays, dont you just love that !!
Told alarm company to give it 30 mins if still no alarm reset I would go and set it.
Got the call so decided it would be better to take the FJ in case of holiday traffic !!
My work is in Porirua about 30 mins away but decided to take the longer way home along Paekakariki Hill Road. This is a great road but has had quiet a few deaths on it and the local council have lowerered the speed limit to 60kph recently which does seem quite pedestrian in places. Great view from the lookout though, always takes my breath away.



Kapiti Island from the lookout
 

Kapiti Coast Where we live

You always meet some great bikers at the lookout and this day was no exception.
Met a guy who had just been doing a few days around the East Cape on a very nice Laverda Jota.

I remember as a teenager riding my Fizzy Moped and back then a Laverda Jota was right up there with the very best of motorcycling exotica you could get.

This guy had owned it for quiet a few years but was saying how expensive everything is now to keep her up to scratch.

The Jota had the 180 degree crank and when he pulled away giving it a handfull of the throttle the sound was pure music to my ears.

Lovely Laverda Jota , What a great sound :)
 

So anyway my alarm call out ended quite well I thought :)