Bruce's all day breakfast (was his breakfast, morning tea and lunch combined)
With a 50/50 chance of rain for the Palmy weather forecast the night before I thought what's the worst could happen.
So I texted the group about a Sunday ride thinking might get a couple of
keen mad buggers put their hands up. Al was keen as usual, and so was Bruce S. I heard that Dion was a possible starter too, but maybe he slept in ;)
I turned up to find Stephen
(sorry if not the correct spelling mate) on his beaut TX650 already there.
It's the type of bike I was keen on in my early twenties, that or the later model
XS650. I couldn't find one back then at the right price, so I bought a rough but sound
Yamaha XS750 Special triple shaft drive which I refreshed a bit and enjoyed riding to work at Coca-Cola and around the place. I guess I was a bit of a bogan back then, as I didn't want it obvious that it was a Jappa so debadged the engine, seat and tank of anything saying Yamaha. Plus being into hotrods, had to have flames painted on the tank :)
Anyway, back to today, next to turn up was Al on his Aprilia and then Bruce S on his TZR 250. I was on my GS450S. With a quick chat and a look at the dark clouds all round, we thought the ranges would be in full flood so thought heading North can't be any worse so decided on a trip to Hunterville.
With the rain starting to come down, we headed out Rangitikei Line and then the turn off to Bunnythorpe, Colyton through the backend of Fielding onto Makino Road and then along the great State Highway 54.
The light showers came and went without notice as it was warm enough and quite enjoyable getting out in the country. Some nice corners later and a short ride South on State Highway 1 had us parked up outside the usual cafe in Hunterville for something hot.
Three of us had decided to park our bikes under the shop eaves so after several good showers we came out to dry seats. Not that it mattered much as we were all a bit damp already and with the rain still falling we headed off again along Rangatira Road.
My brand new rear tyre held to the road very well, and real glad I had replaced the bald tyre on Thursday as that would have been interesting with the wet roads.
With a stop at Bulls petrol station and us all dripping wet, but big smiles all round reminded us that we don't only need to wait for dry days to get out. We thought a good idea would be to bring the rainsuits next time :)
Looking for the bigger puddles to zoom through all the way home to Palmy was like being a kid again. We split up once getting to town to head for home. No doubt everyone keen to remove the wet gear, and for me a nice warm shower and some dry clothes.
What a great day, keen to do it all again.
Here's a couple of old photos I dug up today of my XS750. The photo of me was by selftimer and I was waiting for it to take the photo, and was just about to get off bike thinking it hadn't worked, when I heard the click. Hence the frustrated look. Didn't have digital cameras back in the day to double check how it came out :)
This was taken at a later date as I had the mufflers cut down.
