Winter Warriors?

Winter is always a challenging time for riding motorcycles and the older you get the more inclined you become to finding excuses not to ride. To be fair many are excellent excuses around cold, dampness and precipitation that if not 'managed' properly can lead to some rather nasty health outcomes. Some amongst us are able to spend time in warmer climes riding, and good on them, but it is great to see people make the effort to get out and about at this time of the year. The last month has seen has seen just such happen with some heading off to the Caribbean, and some of us wrapping up heading out into the countryside for a ride.  For these runs we tend to not wander too far as the weather seems to encourage a closer proximity to home should the need arise to make a hasty retreat home. It means we get to frequent some of the wonderful roads and cafes that are 20 to 30 minutes away and the last couple of weekends have seen us visiting some of these places.

Foxton is within easy commuting distance of Palmerston North and the last few years have seen a revival of the township with a new cultural centre being built next to the windmill. The Dutch and Maori heritage presented alongside each other is certainly a point of difference compared to other tourist destinations. The National Museum of Audio Visual Arts & Sciences is also located nearby and well worth a visit at the same time. Our run took us down through Tokomaru and then across to Foxton where we ended up at the Dutch Oven, another one of our favourite cafes in the region. This time around Ian and Rich enjoyed a delicious kahawai fish pie whilst Sir Al and I went for the scotch egg sausage roll. Great tucker.

The following weekend a group of six of us fronted up to Manawatu Motorcycles for what promised to be at least a cool ride and maybe a damp one as well. It was nice to meet Terry for the first time on his 'small block' Moto Guzzi Breva 750. Ian turned up on his ever faithful Kawasaki W650 and Gary brought out his little Yamaha Scorpio for another play. Sir Al thought it was time to try out a Harley Davidson Street Rod and Dave brought out his Honda CB750 for a run. Yours truly was on my ever faithful Yamaha XJ750. Our destination was to be Sanson and Vivs Kitchen to see what the latest cream horn tally was. Ian led the way out through Bunnythorpe and onto Colyton, Makino Road and a stop at Stanway Hall. We had the usual striding around we do with any new bike that shows up on a ride and critiqued the Streetrod to the point that Sir Al might trade his H2 in on it! Dave and I swapped bikes for the ride to Sanson and I had my first ride on a single cam Honda CB750. For a motorcycle that first came out in 1969 (that's fifty years ago!) it was remarkable how capable it is by today's standards. It certainly deserves the title of a grand classic.
After warming ourselves up next to some heaters and consuming pies, cream horns and coffee we had thawed out enough to make the final run home for the warmth of our living rooms and slippers! Mission accomplished for the Winter Warriors.