Sunday, December 23, 2012

On holiday...


Riding round the South Island with Malcom (Auckland), Max (London), and Hardy (Sydney)...

Monday, December 3, 2012

Norton Commando on the road again!


It's been a loooong bloody time coming, but here it is, my Norton is back on the road! Jimi and I got her running pretty sweet in the weekend after I went out and bought a timing light (no more trying to borrow one all the time!). Got a warrant easily enough after Bad Evil came round and helped me sort out an electrical gremlin. Got the warrant at Rocky Point with Joe Grose. That's Joe up there behind my van. I'm pointing this out mainly because Joe's gonna be in the next issue of HFoS. Anyway have been for a few rides now, each a little further than the last. Went over Gebbies Pass lastnight and all is seeming pretty good so far (touch wood, cross fingers, etc). I'm pretty confident about the work Jimi and I have done, but because we found so much wrong I'm worried about what my head and bottom end might look like inside? I wish I hadn't got that cowboy in Auckland to rebuild my head! Ah well, hopefully I can put some miles on it this summer. It's real good to be out on it again, and I definitely have a new sort of relationship with this thing now. Big thanks to James 'Jimi' Woodhams for all his help with this.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Burt Munro ride day 5 (Monday)


It's always depressing riding home after a good trip away and this was no exception. The weather had finally gotten bad, we had a bit of rain, my back was killing me, and I just didn't want to face the reality of work. We stopped off in Oamaru and went to the auto museum, a bit of a rip off at $10 I reckon - $5 woulda been better. Went to Timaru for lunch. Then about half an hour out of Timaru, passing a bunch of traffic, I noticed Grant wasn't behind me anymore. Went back and found him broken down on side of road, bike make some horrific noises when running, which it didn't really wanna do. So I hooned back to Christchurch, swapped my bike for my van and rove back down to pick up the NV and Grant! Strange way to end the trip, in the van, but good this didn't happen further away eh!

Burt Munro ride day 4 (Sunday)



Sunday. Breakfast at the Zookeeper, saw Pete and Lois from the Volcano (Lyttelton), then off to the Wyndham Street races. I love street racing, heaps of old bikes, some that weren't at teretonga previous day. We then rode up to Dunedin via the Catlin Coast – this was totally amazing and we were blessed with brilliant weather again. That road up there totally rules and I'm dead keen to go do it again with Malcolm and Max next week if the weather looks even vaguely decent. Oh yeah and Grant's back tyre ate his bungee cord and back pack! Hamish left us in Balclutha...