Fronting up to our meeting spot at Memorial Park at the end of July one was greeted with a very cosmopolitan selection of bikers. But my attention was immediately grabbed by a sight not seen very often these days. A 'Slabby' was amongst this mixture and it certainly stood out with its distinctive blue and white paint scheme and the double headlight arrangement. It is very much the 'uncle' of the Suzuki GSR750 I had arrived on and it certainly didn't look too elderly amongst the other bikes in the line up. It was good to be able to contrast it with the previous generation of performance bike equivalents with Sir Al and Kim bringing along there Kawasaki H2's who 10 years or so previous to the arrival of the GSXR 1100 on the the scene were cleaning up on the racetrack alongside the Z1. The amount of technical progress between these bikes is quite stunning looking back. The slabby was not only more powerful, better handling, frugal but an easier bike to live with on a day to day basis. Great to see it out and about Warren.
After a brief discussion the destination for our run was to be the Woolshed Cafe and with another lucky day weather wise we headed out Napier Road on our well worn route over to our first stop at Stanway for a bit of a chat. It is a lovely spot up on a plateau where on a good day you have lovely views north to the mountains. It was then off to our final destination via Pryces Line and Wilson Rd to the Ohakea turnoff (where the home for the Air Forces new Boeing Poseidons seems to be nearing completion) and on to Sanson and then our final destination, the Woolshed cafe. A great yarn and some great food finished off a great winter ride!
