A Ride in the Country

One of the joys of getting out and about on our bikes is you get to experience our wonderful country in all its glory. When you are in your tintop your senses are somewhat limited. But not on a bike. You feel the wind, the rain, you smell those lovely country smells and because you stop more often on a bike your senses get another workout. And so it was today. A small band of us set off from Manawatu Motorcycles just after 10 and made our way up to the top of the Pahiatua Track. Kim on his RZ250, Shorty on his SV1000, Richard on the mighty Titan, Dion on his RG400 and myself on the XJ. After a brief stop we headed off through Mangamaire to our next stop at the Rongomai turnoff. We were greeted with some of the most colourful country sounds any of us had heard in a long time. The farming couple mustn't have heard us arrive because the language they were using was of a 'colour' none of us had heard for a very long time; maybe never. It took them a while to realise that we were within earshot and after we expressed our commiserations to the poor sheep crammed into a stock trailer on there way to the works we headed off for our run through to Rongomai. It is a great run and one of our favourites and there is nothing quite like bend swinging to the sound of an RG 400, SV1000, RZ, or Titan in front of you. Great to see some other bikes out enjoying the run as well. We had to take a bit of care as the roads had quite a few sections of 'farm debris' on the road along with some damp sections that don't see much sun at this time of the year. All to soon its over and you arrive into the back of Pahiatua and then back towards home over the track. This is a good road with a good mix of bends but with a lot more traffic. The run back over the track had some of us bouncing our way around some of the bends. The closure of the Manawatu Gorge road is really taking its toll on these 'alternative' routes. After crawling along behind lines of traffic we eventually made our way to the Mao bar and had a great coffee and muffin. Another great wander around the countryside!