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A Land Down Under

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woohoo a Ride! (yes, that's with a capital R)

Once again, work had sent me to Canberra and once again it works out a lot more convenient for me to get myself there... and that means a ride. And once again, the weather was doing its crazy thing. Summer here was complete washout, but Autumn had been pretty nice. Warm, not hot, not much rain... perfect. But of course the weather changed as the ride drew closer. I left on Tuesday. On Monday they were warning us about flash flooding and downpours for the next few days. If it rained, whilst I co
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Winter is over

The weather has been really mild this winter, but the Mrs has been putting in a lot of shifts over the weekends, so no opportunity to ride. However today was different and she took the kids to the gym, whilst I went off for a ride. I wasn't actually sure where I wanted to go. I didn't feel like an all day one, so the Putty/Wiseman's was out. I was torn between riding somewhere new, or picking somewhere close and staking out a photo spot to catch whoever might come past. I decided to head to som
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Warm enough for ya

A couple of hot ones here with more on the way, and summer is still officially two weeks away. 42C on the way home. Equal hottest I have ever ridden in. Luckily the dramas from last week seem to have gone away (see here) and made it home safe & sound. Been an interesting couple of days on the commute. Traffic blocked up on the way in with a truck parked at an angle across two lanes. Driver digging through his toolkit beside it. Hit the onramp to change freeways as normal, only to have to av
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Starting out....

A big part of my life is motorbikes. When I first got my licence I hadn't actually planned to get a bike. I had gone for the learners test on a whim, booked only the day before. Once I had the licence I basically decided that I may as well use it. I quickly decided that I wanted a new bike with full fairings, my choices appeared limited to Kawasaki GPX250, ZZR250 and the Honda NSR150. There may have been others but a bit of research didn't really uncover any. I eliminated the NSR immediately: a
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Spring Is Here

Oh dear, it's September and I haven't posted for months. Yes I have been riding, I am back to commuting everyday due to some child care changes :) And we've had this crazy warmish, sunny August (and really Winter was pretty tame even for here). The VFR gets ridden most days, but I make sure the Daytona gets out once a week. That new bike has been kind of a pain as it's had several factory recalls - great they're proactive about fixing things, annoying as its been in the shop several times. Wh
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Somethings Wrong...

The VFR spent most of the last few weeks in the shop waiting for a water pump. It started the afternoon after getting home, I popped back into the garage and noticed a small puddle of coolant on the floor. Not a good sign. I rang the local bike shop, a new one as I'm in Canberra now. The guy on the phone said something about "Don't worry, they'll do that when its hot and the overflow tank fills. No need to bring it in." I sat back after hanging up. I've had this bike for ten years and 140,000k
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Something New Arrives.

Well the big reveal has finally taken place at work (on a week when it seems most of the other riders are away, lol) so I'll reveal it here too. I have a new bike, after suggestions from the Mrs that my VFR was too old. As silly a statement as that is, I wasn't one to argue. One condition is that I put the VFR up for sale, which I dutifully have, but have had no interest, no surprise there. I had been considering the GSXR750 for several years and it was top of the list, having ridden it and th
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Six Figures

Well a small event in the bikes history took place as I rode to work last week. As you can see from the picture I've hit the 6 figure mark. 100,000km. I can't say they've been trouble free, but its been pretty close to that. So here's some pictures of the event from my phone. one km to go There it is 100000km The location! Will it be around for another 100000, who knows.
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Should have bought a boat...

Well January is almost finished and since the work ride I haven't had a chance to go for a ride. Sure I've done my normal commutes, but no recreational rides. Christmas Holidays wasn't really a good time, my Mrs worked most of it, so I was looking after the kids... they are several years from being old enough to be left on their own. Secondly, the police runs a double demerit point system in most holiday periods so whilst the chance of a ticket is small the way I ride the repercussions are seve
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Seventh Gen

I was in a local dealer a couple of weeks back and they mentioned they would have a couple about now, so with an early release from work (due to Easter coming up) I accidently found myself riding past the dealers, not really sure how that happened. Parked there, got off the bike. Left my helmet on promising that it wasn't there I wouldn't stop. It was parked in the doorway. It looks a lot nicer in the flesh. That pipe doesn't seem to stand out as much, and it is a lot smaller than I thought. A
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Service time, with a surprise.

I put the VFR in for its service today to the usual shop. I had also booked the loaner, a old, but smooth running CB250, that is a bit of fun. 124,000km - a minor service as I got out of sync a bit by doing my last major about 3000 early. The loaner was still out with one of the other mechanics and not due back. They were apologetic but the service manager set off to find another bike. He came back with... "How are you with larger bikes" - the VFR is pretty much the biggest bike I've ridden, w
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Riding To Rylstone

My wife has made a couple of new friends over the last couple of months through her gym. Turns out that one of the girls husbands also rides (he has an 03 CBR1100XX). Last week he invited me on a ride this Saturday. The plan was to ride up the Putty to Singleton, then the rough idea was to head west, before coming back over the Blue Mountains to Sydney. Wife had no objections but I did have a couple of concerns. First up is that the proposed route looked pretty long, like more than 8-10 hours
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Riding Solo

The weather has been a bit wet over the past week so the group decided that a run down Kangaroo Valley and Macquarie Pass was probably not a great idea unless it had had a couple of days to dry out. Both of those have a lot of overhanging bush keeping the raods slippery and wet long after any rain. They also mean there is a lot of fallen leaves, again making the road treacherous. I still had Saturday off though and decided to head in that general direction. I left earlier than I would have with
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Report Card Time

This week I took my VFR in for a major service. I've been after a "second opinion" for a while. It's not that I'm not happy with the place I normally take it, but I've never heard anything good about the place, though no one can give me specifics. A mate offered to pick me up and drop me off so I booked her into a smaller workshop that has a very high reputation. The bike has 116,000km on it and it has been a fair while (time wise) since it's last major service. Late afternoon the shop called.
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Progress? Well maybe

My previous post talked about how confused I was when I stepped off the Ducati. I am now thinking that it wasn't the kind of bike I was looking for. This afternoon I stepped off another test ride, this time something a little less exotic - a Suzuki GSXR-600. This was a 2012 version, I have also ridden a 2006 version a few years ago (that wasn't a test ride, it was a loaner bike), and the feeling I had on that was sort of the feeling I expected on the Ducati, but didn't. The 2012 bike gave me
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Post Crash Update

Its been three frustrating weeks now. I hobble about the house finding it uncomfortable to sit, stand or walk for too long. I count my lucky stars though and know it could have been much much worse. My decision to wear all the gear saved a LOT of heart ache. Here is the bike. Insurance has today told me that it's a total loss. I'm really sad about that, but not surprised when you see the damage. I won't have enough to buy a replacement new VFR, though I coul
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Over The Mountains

A cool but sunny late autumn day dawned on the Friday for my trip back to my family in Sydney. It seemed like a great opportunity to try a alternate route that had been recommended to me. The main reason that I hadn't yet tried this way is that I estimated it would take around 6 hours - that's double my normal time, door to door, and being a new route, I would be taking it easy. I also had been warned that snow and ice were real possibilities on this route so weather was also a big concern. Bu
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Off The Road

Took the bike in for a service today and rolled out with bad news. The water pump and the fork seals need replacing and they didn't have the part to complete that today. So I've ridden home, with one eye on the temperature, to put the VFR in the garage and walked away for a while. So for a couple of weeks I'm going to be driving to work. The part is in stock locally, but the shop is having some staff issues as well as I have a busy calendar making it hard to drop off. I'm thinking about what I
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O Canada

Down under is currently hosting Pat, otherwise known on this forum as dunn2007. He's been here a week and already clocked up 2000km on the 2000 VFR that he procured for his time here. Go Pat! I spent the week trying to pick a day to take off and go for a ride with him, but work commitments made it impossible. I suggested we catch up on Saturday for a short ride up the Putty to the Grey Gums. While the weather initially was forecast as showers, I was convinced it would be clear by Saturday. I i
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Nowhere In Particular

Here i am, 95km to Goulburn on the side of the Hume Highway. And here's why. Onwards to another 150,000. Though I did drop by the local Honda dealer and checked out the new VFR800. I quite like the look of it in the flesh. I asked about a test ride and the guy almost begged me to take it for a ride - I think he wanted the opinion of a 6th gen owner so he could use it to sell them. I will take it for a ride, sitting on it - it felt very similar. I'll see how it rides...
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Not the best idea I've had.

Hey, another meeting in Canberra. And hey once again, riding there seems the most convenient option (and again, the most fun!). And the weather is looking perfect, no rain predicted, well for ages. Awesome. Looking at the weather though, my lesson from last time (you know, where I didn't read the temperatures) I almost didn't learn. Hmm Canberra is going to be -3 at about the time I'm arriving. That's going to be cold. At 120kmh that's going to be downright frigid! The plan was a straight run d
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Muddy Waters

Another Sunday means another ride to Canberra. The weather was warm with some scattered clouds. A pleasant, if dull ride ahead. I was about forty five minutes from home when I noticed all the cars headed the other way had their lights on. At five in the evening, that wasn't a good sign. About five or so minutes later the road ahead seemed to disappear into a cloud. I quickly pulled over... rain ahead. As I pulled my rain pants from the top box it started to rain a little. Big drops, but not mu
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Meeting Ajourned

Work insisted that I attend a meeting in Canberra. The nation's Capital, about 2.5 hours away on the Hume Highway (or Doom Boreway). Unfortunately as I was attending a different meeting away from work for the two days before that it was going to be really awkward to organise a car from work, the normal way to head to Canberra. With a grin, I decided that the most convenient solution was to ride down. Watching the forecasts from about a week prior, they steadily improved from predicting solid ra
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Listening to the Wiseman again

This time we planned Wiseman's Ferry in reverse, with the ferry being the last leg. We had started this route a couple of weeks back but it was rained out. After several beautiful spring days during the week, the morning dawned cool and heavily overcast. Not promising. I headed off to the usual meet point to find the regulars gathering. Only 8 bikes this time, and the newcomer was a Wee Strom (650 VStrom). Headed up towards McGrath's Hill to get started on the route. Initially we turned up the
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If you're going to break down somewhere

So if you're going to break down somewhere, where could be better than at the mechanics.... My VFR is due for rego this coming week which in NSW requires an inspection. These are done at basically almost any car related place. Most mechanics (car, bike, truck) and tyre shops are accredited inspectors. They plug some details into a website and the 1 of three parts of your renewal is complete. Been raining almost non stop since tuesday with much the same last week and more of the same expected n
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