Grumpy Yamahas and lost sidecovers

From Broken Yamahas

From Broken Yamahas

From Broken Yamahas

The nothwesterly wind wasn't blowing to hard and after two months of inclement weather it looked like an opportunity to go for a spin. Six of us gathered at Manawatu Motorcycles and Sparkies RZ250 decided to throw a tantrum and create a rather long list of electrical misdemeanors. Sparkie got very grumpy with RZ and took it straight home and banished him to the back of the garage! Then we were down to five. After photographing the remaining lads leaving, I made it no further than the second set of lights before the XJ decided it didn't want to go any further and cut out completely. Pushing it to side of the road and checking out the battery connections didn't seem to help much, but jiggling a few wires in the batteries general vicinity did. Not wishing to press my luck I decded to head for home as well and luckily my KH250 was waiting in the garage. A quick text to the lads had me back on the road and heading for a rendezvous at Tui Central in Mangatainoka. Having filled up with petrol in Ashurst the Northwesterly tailwind had me through the Manawatu Gorge in no time. It is a great motorcycle road when you have no cars in front of you! The cups of tea and coffee at Tui Central went down well so we decided to head towards Woodville and over the Saddle Road. Dion on his KH400 and myself were not looking forward to the hard slog into the northwesterly. Paul on his Suzuki GT750 and Sir Al on his H2 had no such concerns! Can't beat cubes. The run down the Saddle Road was worth the hard slog as the little KHs loved the tight sweeping corners and with no traffic, we had a ball. Our stop in Ashurst had Dion raving about the run.
It was an eventfull ride right from the start. It was a nice reminder that when you run old bikes shit happens! What makes it all worthwhile are the magic moments when these old bikes sing with a sound and feel all of there own.
PS. Alans piece of 'shit happens' occurred somewhere between Ashurst and Aokautere after our stop as he was heading home. If anybody finds a gold sidecover, he has a rather large bottle of whiskey as a reward upon its return.