Friday, August 26, 2011

The Pie Connoisseur

I have loved the humble meat pie for as long as i can remember, when i was a wee little fella i remember buying a pie at the school tuck shop.

What has this to do with riding motorcycles. Well i'll tell you. Everything and absolutely nothing.
I grew up in a small country town(Forbes, NSW) with a great bakery that had really great pies.  Just about every other place i have ridden to or through i have tried a pie at. What i have noticed is most country towns have great pie's. Since moving to Sydney most bakerys i have seen are all run by asians. Sorry to say they do not know how to make a great pie.

A couple of years ago whilst i was working in the city i had a pie at the place i was working that was one of the best pie's i have had anywhere. That was about 4 years ago. I finally discovered where those pies came from.

I now know where Sydneys best pie is to be had. Hot Relish on Enmore Rd, Newton.
Take a look. It tastes way better than it looks and damn it looks pretty good.

This pie is one that we got and took home and put in the fridge.
Surprisingly the maker of these great pies is an old asian lady that hand makes the pastry and every pie,each meat pie has chunks of beef that melt in your mouth when you eat it. That is why they are so frickin good. She even told me the best way to reheat them.
1 minute in the microwave to heat the insides and 10 minutes in the oven. Just as good as from the shop.

Just had to put up another pic.


Sunday, August 21, 2011

Out with the old, in with the new

It was finally time to go and get some new boots and gloves. I bought new boots and gloves just after i got the R1 11 years ago. The boots are a set of alpinestar smx's which have needed changing for about 12 months now after the 2009 not the snowy ride the soles started to come apart in the heat. I had them re-glued which lasted about 5 months and then they come unglued again. The last few rides i have been riding with the soles taped up. Not a very good or safe solution. And i just noticed that the thumb on my left hand glove the leather started to rip in a couple of places. Still, 11 years out of a set of gloves and boots was exceptional.

I found a nice pair of alpinestars gloves to replace my old pair of agv ones. The old gloves were only $69, boy gloves are a lot more expensive now some of them are $250+.

Here are the old boots, you can see from these pics that they are well worn out after 11 years.


These boots had served me well, they fitted very well and were pretty comfortable when walking in. But this was the second pair of alpinestars that the soles had fallen off, as well as some friends that theirs did the same thing. Thats the only thing that makes me a little reluctant to buy alpinestars again, other than that i think they are a fantastic boot.

I tried on some of the new alpinestars and also some sidi's. The new alpinestar smx boot has some stupid lace up thing inside the boot with something that looks like a tongue. It fitted nicely just like my last boot but i'll be stuffed if i'm going to be frigging around inside the boot with this lacing up bullshit.
So i tried on the sidi range of boots, and it fitted much like the alpinestar did. Which one to get, the alpinestar was cheaper but the sidi didn't have the lace up crap. Mmmmm. Well it was decision time so here's what i went with.











I thought i'd take some pic's of them whilst they are still new and clean, because they'll never be like this again.
Now i just hope they are as good as my old pair of alpinestars. Only time will tell. I'll get back to you after a few rides and let you know what i think of them.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Motorcycling a Religion?

Its funny that sometimes we like to think that because you go for a ride every sunday that motorcycling is a religious experience. I've heard this many times in motorcycle magazines but i've been unsure whether or not this can be claimed as being serious. I mean how do i know, sometimes it can feel like a religious experience but  who really knows.

I have finally found out after much toiling that riding motorcycles is religious. How do i know this you say? Did it come to me in a dream or did i have a vision or out of body experience? No, none of this. It came from somewhere much more earthly than this. Read the below rego renewal from the NRMA and there you have the proof. Its now official.




Monday, August 15, 2011

The Isle of Putty

My Rego had run out on Friday, and guess who rang and said that they are doing a Putty Rd ride on Monday. My RDO luckily was on monday as well. So it was a quick dash to drop my daughter at the outlaws then back home again. Jump on the bike and down to team moto on Sunnyholt Rd for a pink slip then back home again. Enough time for a quick coffee then on with the leathers just in time for Bushpig and 2 mates to show up, all ready for a quick blat up to the Isle of putty.

It started out a pretty cool morning being around 10°C but it soon toppped out at around 20°C. Just perfect for a ride and being a Monday there was much less traffic around and less police presence.

First stop was at Colo River for a quick break and so Geoff could mount his camera.


After this it was time to climb up the mountain to Colo Heights. The road through here was still wet as the sun hardly touches some of the road here. I was thinking that the top end of the Putty would also be covered with damper, moss ridden surface and wouldn't be that much fun today.

This Colo Heights section of road has some very nice sweepers over hill tops but man it seems to get rougher every time i come here. Or is it the fact i have a very light race bike with an undersprung rear shock that is well past its used by date. I Really should get it rebuilt.

A quick stop off at the old halfway house for a toilet break and rest then onto the top 16km's of motorcycling heaven.

If i haven't said it before then i'll say i now. The 16km section of this road that runs along the river here is absolutely brillant. Lets just hope that Geoffs vid turned out alright so i can post it up here.
Its quite a technical piece of road, with a couple of decreasing radius downhill turns to catch out the unweary with lots of hairpin bends and switchback bends. Plenty of 45,55,65 bends. It was great to see that none of the bends had any water or moss on them so it was all smooth sailing.

We stopped at Bulga but the pub was closed on mondays, so we headed of to Broke and refueled both bikes and hungry bikers. The low Hunter has some interesting looking hills and rock formations.

After this it was back down the putty again as the group concensus was that going down to Wollembi and the Old Road was going to give us to many traffic headaches. Agreed. Plus i wanted another crack at the top end section of the Putty. It was a much faster run back down, so much so that i started to get arm pump on my left wrist, which left it pretty sore for the rest of the trip home. We had to wait for the 748 at the halfway house, apparently he went down on the twisty section of the top16km, but looking at his bike there was not much damaged, a busted left head light and some scratches on the front and on his helmet. No real scratches on either side, he must have thrown himself under the bike to save it or something.
All in all much fun was had by all, it sure beats the hell out of working thats for sure.