Sunday, April 6, 2014

Dodging Rain at Nattai

Just a short ride today out to Warragamba dam. Checking the weather radar and forecast said it was going to rain today, but we headed out in sunshine. I picked Geoff up at his place and we went out through the back of Luddenham and up to Warragamba. I turned off to take a picture at the dam wall viewing platform, point to Geoff to go down there. Looks like he ignored that and kept riding , so we go split up here.

There was nobody about when I got there and 1 car pulled up to have a look  just as I was leaving.
Dam Wall

Warragamba Visitors Centre
I jumped back on and thought I'd better find Geoff, not knowing if he went in to the visitors centre or kept going I rode in to have a look. Nope he wasn't in there either so I continued back out and towards Silverdale. This is where I made a error in navigation and took a left turn instead of a right. I was going back towards Wallacia. Err oops so I did a U turn and came back again, probably a 5-10km detour, ah well shit happens.

So most of the ride down through to the Oaks and out to Nattai was by myself, about 1 km from the lookout Geoff came along riding the other way. I decided that I was going to the lookout regardless so continued on, Geoff turned around and came back just in time to laugh at me for getting lost.


Lookout at Nattai Ridge

The rain was coming up the other end of the valley. Time to get going before it gets here. Neither of us had any wet weather gear with us today. If it was light showers it would be ok but not heavy rain.


As we came down the curves from Nattai it started to shower on and off lightly. It wasn't really a problem as it stopped not long after it started. We headed back to Wallacia Hotel for some lunch. They have done up the beer garden at the pub and they now have about 15 motorcycle parking spots right by the back door. The steak sandwiches was fantastic.

We then dropped in through to Eastern Creek as the Post classic racing was on today and Geoffs mate Stewie was going to be there. It didn't cost anything to get in and about 2 minutes after arriving it bucketed down with rain so we hid inside the pit garage with Stewie who was handing out the trophies today. He didn't want to race in the rain today.



It stopped raining and Geoff and I made a dash for home which wasn't far from the creek. Another day of riding done and dusted, we spent the afternoon dodging the rain.

10 comments:

  1. I have never been to Nattai or the look out over Warrangamba. I must get down there one day. Your bike still looks the business even if it is 14 years old!

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    1. Thanks, there's no much to see at Warragamba really just a wall you cant get near and a visitors centre.

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  2. glad to see you dodged the rain
    and is that a shoei helmet you have and if a yes do you get a lot of fogging with it

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    1. We got a little wet but not to bad. Yeah the helmet is a shoei GT Air and yes when its raining it tends to fog up. I haven't tried the pinlock visor for it yet, maybe I should do that.

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  3. well i have the same trouble with mine as major fogging up
    have tried the nose piece in the chjn and a anti fog shield on the screen all to no avail with it
    very disapointed with it
    the old shoei was no probs

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    1. Next ride I'll try out the pinlock visor and see what happens.
      I think in their quest for quietness shoei have reduced the chance of the warm air escaping from the inside of the helmet and the visor fogs very quick. I noticed that at the front of the helmet there is no gap for air to go up or down around my chin area like my old helmet had and it didn't fog up nearly as bad.

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  4. Stopping at the races sounds like a great excuse for dodging the bad rainstorm.

    The two red bikes look quite nice posed together. Nice and bright against the landscape.

    I too have a Shoei helmet, a Quest model. I have the pinlock as without it I couldn't ride in the rain or just cooler weather without fogging. The pinlock doesn't stop it but it seems to reduce it enough to ride. But my sunglasses or yellow lensed glasses will still fog up though.

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    1. The bikes came out good in those pics didn't they. I'll have to try the pinlock thingy soon.

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  5. Steve, great pics again and I agree that the two red bikes look good together. I dare say that you have re-adjusted to the R1 after your time on the BMW in NZ. I had a ride on a new Kawa Z1000 at a demo ride day here on Saturday. I liked the upright seating position, but that was about all really.

    I've had pinlock visors in my last two Shoei helmets and they completely eliminate the fogging.

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    1. Mate riding the R1 is like putting on an old glove. It fit perfectly. I noticed however I just couldn't slow down on todays ride.

      What in particular didn't you like about the Z1000. Did it have plenty of punch down low? You may think it was a bit on the gutless side coming from a ZX14 but thats to be expected, you'd probably think my R1 was an underpowered wrist snapper.

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