RemoteMoto.com West Coast NZ

I've stolen this image straight from HERE. Malcolm sent me the link and it's been a real good reminder that there's some amazing rides to be done in NZ, especially if you can head out off road. When we were in the States last year I remember thinking it was cool to be somewhere new because I'd ridden just about every road in NZ. This post here on RemoteMoto.com highlights the fact that that's not true! And kinda makes me wanna get a decent on-road/off-road kinda bike again... I guess like the DRs we rode in America. Which is probably why Malcolm sent this to me. Well played sir, well played...

$100 bike!

Scored this old XL185 for $100 a couple of weeks back. I had my other one out at the vmx racing and this older guy, Willy, came up and mentioned he had one at home that he was keen to get rid of. I wasn't that keen until he said it went ok and he'd give it to me for $100! Sweet. So yeah went and grabbed it. Willy's a good guy, I must go back for a cuppa' sometime. Anyway here she is... pretty rough – obviously! But it actually runs really bloody well. I'm gonna do it up a bit, I've already got a new seat (from KG for $40!) and new handlebars and levers etc. There's a bunch of nuts and bolts missing – not hard to replace. And I'll tidy the tank up and paint it. The tank looks bad but inside it has no rust at all! I need to get a muffler sorted. At the moment the header runs into that box on the side you can see in the bottom picture there, and Willy's stuffed it full of steel wool or something. Keen to get a muffler like what's on my other XL cause it sounds fuckin awesome. Anyway all going well – and my biggest problem at the moment is being totally swamped at work – I may have this ready for the next race day? Which would be good as I think I've killed the gearbox on my other one at the last race!?

HFoS vs VMX Chch

Wow it's been a while. I've been busy as hell since returning to work and I've also been trying to aclimatize to the winter here! Anyway I've been squeezing a bit of motorcycle related activity in...
A week or so ago now me and some of the lads went vintage motocross racing. We'd met a guy out at the rained-out Day in the Dirt event and he'd told us about these motocross meets that happen. They're organized by some local club who's name I can't quite remember right now? But yeah Bad Evil got the info for us, we all got up real early, dragged our shitty dirt bikes out of the sheds and headed for this field somewhere out off West Coast Road...

And what a day! The weather was great for start. That helped. The four of us who went had a great time even though none of us have ever done anything like this before. In fact we're all fairly new to dirt bikes at all! So I guess it was all kinda freaky at times, especially since we were the slowest there by miles, and we had what looked like 10 year old kids flying past us on 400ccKTMs and stuff like that!? We were supposed to be in classes, but they didn't seem to be too anal about that. It was kinda a free-for-all it seemed? Although we definitely avoided the modern big-cc races. Shit were they faaaaassssst. Anyway I made this stupid movie... I always use the go pro and then can't be fucked editing it together!? Mainly I just made this for the boys to see, but thought I might as well chuck it up here. It's kinda embarrassing I guess, but there you have it, our first day out VMXing... have I mentioned the week worth of all-over-body-pain that came afterwards?

Day in The Dirt 2015

Went to the annual Day in The Dirt at Ellesmere Speedway yesterday but it got rained out. We went last year and raced our bikes, but this year I didn't wanna risk getting hurt and not being able to go ride around the USA in 3 weeks! So I decided I'd go and film Joe and Bad racing instead. We got up early, drove all the way there, fucked about for a while, and then drive home. Pretty uneventful, but I wanted to try and do something with the footage because I'm still trying to suss out this Go Pro thang!? Filmed in glorious Shake-O-Vision... of course. (Soundtrack borrowed from the one and only Andre Williams – 'Bacon Fat', 1956)

Our American Steeds (DR 650s... two down, one to go)

This USA/Baja trip is getting close and we have recently purchased two DR 650s via an agent of sorts in LA. A Mr James Tucker is our man on the ground over there, and he's been a real blessing in terms of getting our shit together for this trip. Funnily enough some guy I was emailing via Craigslist about buying his bike put me onto James, who I found through the ADVRider forum. It was kinda nerve-wrecking sending all our money to some guy we'd never met, but we'd checked his credentials (as much as you can from the other side of the world!) and he seemed legit! Actually he's more than legit, he's a god-send! He knows his DRs inside and out as him and his missus have a couple that they rode down to Argentina.

So yeah these are our first two bikes. The stock-standard white one will be getting a bigger 5.3 gallon desert tank, and we're looking at other bits and pieces now like luggage racks. I was keen to chuck an aftermarket muffler on mine, but just discovered the one I was looking at would have to be repacked fairly often given the type of riding we'll be doing, so fuck that!

Anyway the search is on for the third and final bike. All going well James Tucker will have our paperwork in hand when we get off the plane in LA! So excited I'm having trouble sleeping, it's like being a little kid again...

USA and Mexico trip (part 1)

Started to make some loose plans last week for our upcoming ride around the West Coast of the USA, down into Baja and across to Mexico. Planning to document this trip and people we meet etc for the next issue of Head Full of Snakes. It may even end up being an 'American' issue (although haven't really talked to Stewy about that yet!)?

We're leaving in April, and while I'm planning to be away for 3 months the other lads (Malcolm, Joe, Darren) are doing a bit more than a month with me. We've been speculating about bikes for ages now. Originally I was thinking I'd buy something old, ride it round and bring it back. Then when these guys came on board we ended up thinking about getting newer more reliable bikes and riding a lot further. At that point we were thinking about newer Harley's, or even Hinckley Triumphs.  However we also started thinking about going to more and more remote places, and especially into deserts. This combined with my lack of funds (due to the fucking house sucking me dry!) has meant that lately we've been looking at 'big' dirt bikes.

The more we've been looking the more excited I'm getting about the prospects these bikes offer, even though it's obviously quite a shift from my original ideas for the trip. All my research seems to point to one bike – the Suzuki DR 650. Been checking heaps of forums etc, and where we'd been thinking about Honda XR650s originally, it sounds like the DRs are better for what we'll be doing in terms of on-road/off-road activity...



Something like this. There's a few already kitted out on CraigsList/Ebay, including this fucking awesome one here (below) with it's 8 gallon tank! ...


But it's a bit pricey for us at over $7k NZD! We'll picking up bikes in either LA or San Fran I guess so we're focusing our attention there in terms of buying. I've heard there can be problems for foreigners buying motor vehicles in the States, but apparently California has more lenient rules???

If there's anyone out there reading this who has any info at all that might help us on our way it'd be bloody awesome to hear from ya!? Info about buying bikes in Cali would be awesome, as would any info about great spots to ride on the West Coast, Baja, or Mexico. Again we're pretty keen to get off the beaten track where possible...

Will keep updates coming and will be documenting the trip to some extent on this blog I guess!

3rd Annual Smash Palace Shearers Run

Smash Palace Shearers Run 2014... in pictures.