New Zealand - Day 1 Auckland to Rotorua

"There and back again"

Here lies within the tale of our epic motorcycle trip through middle earth but this is no hobbits tale. I could hear Bilbo Baggins voice from the hobbit movie in my head repeating to me over and over "I'm going on an adventure". And that's exactly what we did.

An adventure, you might call it that but a 'holiday' definitely not. This was to be 9 days of back to back riding on some of the North Island of New Zealand's most scenic, twisty, and most technical roads. We will be traversing through some of the most dramatic areas from large cities to rural farming land with rolling hills, huge lakes, deserted coastal beaches, forested mountains, active volcanoes and long lost forgotten wilderness areas. The trip was filled with numerous highs and some appreciable lows but one must take the good with the bad and this is what makes these trips so memorable.

So it was time for us to visit our Kiwi brothers across the ditch and unleash some mayhem upon their roads, I knew that customs would be waiting for us so I slipped some bananas into a japanese tourists bag and let the sniffer dogs and customs officers pounce as we then slipped through undetected. Landing at Auckland International we were greeted by heavy rainfall. Not the ideal way to start out a bike trip and it continued to rain throughout the night and into the following morning. 

Welcome to Sunny Auckland

DAY 1 - Friday 17th Feb

We had hired bikes from Auckland Motorbike Hire which is located east of the city at Maraetai. We were picked up from our hotel later than expected and didn't get to the bike hire shop until just after 10am. This turned out to be in our favour as Geoff had said the night before "Hey lets open the 1 litre Bottle of bourbon we obtained at the duty free and drink it, it will be cheaper than drinking at the bar"

So needless to say we were all feeling a little second hand the next morning so the later than usual start was a blessing in disguise. 

It had stopped raining by the time we arrived and we found the four bikes parked up ready and waiting with Randle showing us the features of each of the bikes and how the panniers are removed etc, tyre pressure are set at 36F, 42R blah blah and here is a can of chain oil for the bikes. Yes just one can that's only 3/4 full between 4 bikes. We had hired 2 MT09 Tracers for myself and Stu, 1 Tiger 800 for Geoff and a Street Triple 675 for Rick and none of the bikes were fitted with a gps, and yes i know we are going to get lost at some point. As we were still dusty from the previous night I'd instantly forgotten everything he had said and didn't really pay much attention to the bikes themselves as I just wanted to get riding. Taking off I noticed the clutch didn't seemed to want to engage like a normal clutch would, but thought it must be me just not being used to this bike.

Maraetai is right on the coast and the great riding commenced as soon as we had left the bike hire shop. The road hugged the coastline for kilometers with beautiful views of the Firth of Thames on one side and hills on the other. The roads were still wet and a bit slippery but it wasn't raining which was good. There were beautiful deserted beaches for miles along here.

Tracer and the Firth of Thames

The Lads on tour

We stopped in for fuel and a drink at Thames it was 12:30 pm by now and we had only done 104kms out of the 450km so far, I sent Geoff James a text in the hope that I would be able to meet up with him. As luck would have it Geoff had just arrived at the Thames Yacht club which was 2 minutes up the road.

We headed up to the yacht club where I got to meet the man behind the famous Confessions of an Ageing motorcyclist blog. Quick greetings over and done with he lead us along the famous Coromandel Coast line to Manaia Hill which had beautiful views over the harbour. It was a pleasure to ride along with another motoblogger that I have been following for a number of years and one that has been trained in the ways of the Force(IAM - Institute of Advanced Motorists - basically the training is done to the UK police standards for those not in the know so it is bloody good). Geoff set a pretty cracking pace for a sprightly gent of 69 years young and I noticed how well he was riding, unlike my dusty self, I bet Geoff could ride like a demon if he really wanted to, it was obvious that he knew the road well.

Greeting with Geoff James

Looking West to Auckland and more rain on the way

Geoff's Beastly Suzuki

The 50 odd kms to Coromandel was a fun bit of road which required a deal of caution as one side of the road is basically a drop off into the ocean with the opposite side being a cliff face. I bet this road gets very busy on the weekends but we were in luck today and there was little traffic.
I was impressed with Geoff's bike, it was in immaculate condition and the GSX is quite pleasing to the eye, I like the low slung exhaust it looks good.

Coromandel Twisties

Blogger photo Op time

Manaia Hill overlooking Coromandal

Geoff had then led us on down the hill into Coromandel township and to the harbour for another quick photo op overlooking the wharf and Coromandel harbour, what a gorgeous spot.

Image by Geoff James

A quick batch of photos at the wharf had us all gawking at the beauty of Coromandel. It must be tough to be a retired bike rider living here I must say. Such a beautiful place. Geoff then had a surprise for us all and lead us back to his place which was only 2 minutes from the harbour for a spot of lunch.

I must say it was fantastic to meet with Geoff and Jenny. He is a great guy and we hit it off instantly. It felt like I had known him for years. He had put on this huge spread of sandwiches, cookies and drinks. All of this from someone I had never met before. What a fantastic guy.

Kwoky and me at the wharf

Jules from the famous Tarsnakes blog once said to me that his son had told him that friends on the internet are not real friends. I would have to disagree with him there as over the years we have become friends, it's a bit like when you were kids and had a pen friend overseas(yes that was a long time before the internet folks I'm showing how old I am now). So far all the bloggers I have met have been good friendly people. This has been one of the real highlights of the trip and it's only day one.

Photo by Geoff James

The one hour lunch flew by and was nowhere near long enough to talk motorcycles, however it was now 3pm and we still had 260km to go to Rotorua our destination for the night and it was mostly winding roads as well. I felt much better after lunch and was interested to keep going now.

We said our goodbyes and Geoff gave us 2 bottles of Red wine to take with us as a parting present. Thank you very much Geoff very kind of you. If you're ever over here give us a shout out and I'll show you round. Our Geoff had some spare room in the panniers so stuck the wine bottles in separately. Wouldn't want those breaking in there, that would be bad.

Blogger selfy goodness with Mr Geoff James

We set off out of Coromandel up over the Coromandel Mountain range this was a great little bit of twistys I was now just starting to get used to the Tracer. It is not too bad a bike, the engine is silky smooth and has loads of power all the way from down low. It has a nice induction roar when it gets moving. The seat is comfortable and you can move around on it quite a bit. It is fairly quick steering for a touring bike but what lets it down is its suspension. It tends to wallow especially when you hit large bumps, and when you hit large bumps mid corner it wants to make you run wide. I bottomed the bike out a couple of times on left handers here grinding the centre stand away.

It wasn't long before we had to make a stop at Kuaotunu along the coast to put our wet weather gear on, it was just about to start raining. It was just here we were about to get going again and the Tiger just barely turned over like it had a flat battery. Geoff say "Uh Oh that's how my triumph sounded when the battery went on it"

He tried it again but it just managed to fire so on we went. It continued raining on and off and heavy at times. I could feel water leaking into my suit down my neck, I hate that uncomfortable feeling when the water starts leaking in.

We were riding somewhere near Whangamata, Rick was leading Geoff, myself and then Stu as we came around a left bend and onto the straight. Rick slid sideways and kept going but Geoff went sideways right in front of me and got spat onto the road. WTF? Holy shit what just happened, he must have hit diesel as he was riding straight and upright. It happened in less than 2 seconds there wasn't anything he could do.

We all stopped and we checked Geoff out who was amazingly ok. Checking on the bike it wasn't to bad either just broke an indicator off, and cracked the fairing around the side of the tank and near the headlight. It was still rideable and so was Geoff thank god.

Post Crash

Going back to check the road we couldn't see any diesel or anything else on the road however we did notice there was a black patch that was bereft of any gravel. Looks like his rear tyre spun up on it in the wet and spat him off, luckily low siding and not breaking anything. His new rain gear got torn up pretty badly but funnily enough when we got to Rotorua he was still dry.

Geoff's off had made everyone nervous and taking extra care so we were making slow progress with wet twisty roads and traffic as well. We took the most direct route down the coast now and didn't follow the original route plan which in hindsight was probably a mistake as it actually made the route longer and with more traffic. It was at Tauranga that we then got lost. There were no signs anywhere saying Rotorua and we had no gps. We eventually stopped and asked for some directions and then got lost again. It was raining and would soon be getting dark as it was after 6:00pm and without gps and any decent street signs it was a nightmare trying to navigate to somewhere when the next signs only said the next small town. I didn't recognize any of the towns and some were not on the map as they were suburbs of Tauranga it's a much bigger place than I anticipated. 

Luckily we saw a sign after about 20min that pointed to Rotorua but said it was a toll road. WTF? Now I know why there were no signs previously it's because the local council want you to use the toll road. That's shit we'd been going round in circles trying to find the road only to go out too far to Te Puke and down to Rotorua that way, which is a long way off course and in the rain. We had to ride through some roads works in the rain and I nearly threw the bike down in deep gravel 5 metres before the tar seal restarted.  Confidence was at a real low point and I was starting to get pissed off. Lost and almost 2 bikes down on the first day. I thought to myself stay calm, take it easy there's only 30min to go. About 20kms out of Rotorua I could smell the sulfur stench and knew that we would soon be there thankfully.

I'd memorized the route plan on how to get to the motel in Rotorua however we now came into town from completely the opposite direction, we were in the dark and the rain too. I didn't know where I was and I have been here before for several days but in the dark and the rain nothing looked familiar so we pulled into a petrol station under the awning where Rick could now get his phone out and checked the phone GPS for directions. As it turns out we were only 2 blocks from the motel. Everyone was relieved when we finally got into the motel just after 7pm.

Getting out of our wet gear Geoff opened up his panniers to find one of the Red wine bottles had exploded in his pannier during the accident covering his clothes in red wine. We quickly opened the other bottle and downed it before he could break that one and waste it. Thanks Mr James that raised our spirits a bit after the events of this afternoon.

We got a taxi to take us just a few blocks to the main central hub where they have this great little spot called Eat Street. They had lots of different types of restaurants there of different nationalities. We just got in by 9:30 and had a nice Indian meal washed down with a beer. Most of the places were either closing or closed by 10pm so we just made it in for dinner tonight.

Eat Street Rotorua

The motor lodge we were staying at had a kitchen with an oven. Our gloves were soaking wet so we put the gloves into the oven and put it on low so that the gloves would dry out.

Let's hope that tomorrow is a better day than today for the weather, but after checking on the metservice they were predicting heavy rain in the Rotorua area.

Todays map reference(as best I can work out)

Helmet Stink

In the process of cleaning all of my motorcycle gear for our pending New Zealand tour, I grabbed out my helmet which is usually stored on a shelf with all my other clothes. It needed a clean as it was smothered in bugs, I'm sure that Shoei was spelt with an I. Yes there were quite a few of the little critters stuck to it.

I usually clean the outer surface of my helmet with a bucket of warm water and a chux wipe and some good old fashioned elbow grease. After about 10 minutes the helmet came up looking pretty good.

I took a close look inside and my nostrils were assaulted with the stench of months years of old sweat. Erg god the humanity, the stench was nearly unbearable I thought to myself, no point in having all this nice clean gear if I vomit on it every time I put my helmet on. So it was out with the Shoei manual that came with the helmet to see how to pull all of the cheek pads and inner linings out.

What's the worst that could happen? Maybe I couldn't put them back in again and would have to purchase a new helmet. I can live with that, I'm prepared to take that risk.

To my surprise the cheek pads and inner lining came out really easily, I wonder why I'd never done this before now. To my complete surprise and horror the inside of the helmet was absolutely filthy, not just sweat but there was dirt, dust and a whole platoon of dead insects inside. I've only had this helmet for 3 years as well. God  knows what would have been inside the lining of my last helmet as it was 8 or 9 years old.

Left: Bugs galore.

Right: Dirt, dust, debris and bugs.

I decided on following the manual and just hand wash them in warm water. I also added a dash of liquid detergent that I normally use in the washing machine, I figured it couldn't hurt if we use it for our clothes it should be fine for the cheek pads. After hand washing for 5minutes and a 15 minute soak, it was out onto the line in the shed to drip dry.

Back in the house I got the visor and cleaned it. I've been having a few problems of late with the visor. No matter how I clean it, it always has a hazy looking streak across the visor that I haven't been able to get rid of. That is until now. I bought myself some Plexus plastic cleaner and gave that a go. What a difference that made. The visor is completely clear again, no haze and some of the scratches are barely noticeable. Its look as clean as the day I bought it. This plexus stuff is pretty good even though it bloody expensive.

2015 R1 Long Term Review

After a year and a half of ownership of a brand spanking new 2015 Yamaha R1 I thought it was time to put down some of my thoughts on this machine and do a long term review based on my experiences with this bike. Now I'm not going to go into all the technical specs of this bike as there are magazine articles and online reviews which tell you all about the bikes tech specs, rather I will go into what's it like to own and live day to day with a 200hp modern sportsbike.

First a little history of the previous R1, which ran from 2009 - 2014 virtually unchanged in this time except cosmetics and in 2012 the addition of an electronics package which added traction control. These model R1's did not have ABS, which was one of the reasons I held off buying until the new model came out. These model R1's were the first bigbang(Crossplane) engine R1's which basically means the engine has a 90° firing order which gives it the best of both a V twin engine with down low torque and the benefits of the high power output top end of an inline 4 cylinder engine. These R1's have a very distinctive exhaust note, much similar to a V twin but its an inline 4. These model R1's had twin exhaust pipes up under the seat and reading on forums they roast the riders in hot summer weather.

The 2015 R1 is an all new bike from the ground up. Its 998cc inline 4 cylinder with crossplane engine. There are two versions of the bike the R1 and the R1M. I got the standard base model R1, the main difference is the R1M comes with electronic adjustable suspension and full electronics data logging package. The design focus of the bike went back to the original design spec to be the fastest race bike at the track, no compromises, lighter(199kg) and faster(200hp) with a sophisticated electronics package unparalleled  on a road bike and with development testing even coming from Motogp Champ Valentino Rossi. The dual underseat exhaust pipes have been replaced by a single exhaust can on the right hand side.

With all that said what's it actually like to own and ride a road bike that is focused for winning at the track? This might seem like a stupid thing to do but lets see how it actually goes.

Picture above right is me on the day of purchasing the bike at the dealer.

First Ride Impressions

From the very first ride out of the dealers and up onto the Putty Road I was pretty impressed with the bike. Even though I was still running it in it had an awesome power delivery. The engine is silky smooth with heaps of power starting around 4000rpm and then pulling extremely hard around 7-8000 rpm to the point that at first it was intimidating with how fast and savage the power kicks in. The engine in this is truly a savage beast, but at the same time tamed by the electronics.

The ride by wire throttle is especially jerky in A mode Power 1. I ended up riding the bike in C Mode with power 2 or 3 setting just to make it smooth and linear more like a carbureted bike.

The next really noticeable thing was how hard the suspension and seat were. The suspension can be adjusted but what about the seat? It's built for the track so the standard setting are way to hard for road riding especially on our dodgy Australian roads. Needs to be softened to be usable. Also the seat is way to hard.

The bike has incredible nimble steering, sometime I was tipping into corners to soon, it has a very neutral steering and carves up corners like butter.

First Ride Out

Day to Day Impressions 

First impressions were correct and the suspension has been set up for the track. Backing it off on several different occasions I found I had it backed off to the very minimum setting just to make it bearable for road riding and it's still a tad on the hard side. The suspension is actually quite easy to adjust with the an allen key on top of the head stock fork risers. Funny though the allen key is under the rear seat, and now I've put on the single seat cowl you need an allen key to get the seat cowl off. D'oh.

The seat was way too thin and lacked any sort of padding, it was only 15mm thick. After  2 days of riding I ended up with a sore back and really couldn't ride another day. So it was off to the re-upholsterer and a gel pad insert and extra foam padding was inserted. This was the fix I was looking for but still at the end of a full day in the saddle I get a sore butt, due mostly to the firm suspension.

After the initial run in period the engine has freed up at about the 10k km mark and putting a Yoshi 3/4 pipe on had made the exhaust note a lot beefier but also it builds even more power now, not that you need it, plus the combined ECU flash it takes out the snappy throttle and actually makes the bike ride able in A mode Power 1. Oh that engine is so, so sweet.

First gear is extremely tall to the point of being a bit ridiculous to ride, what do I mean by this you ask? Well first gear is capable of sending you straight to Jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars.  The bike capable of about 170kmh  in first, far too tall and I think a sprocket change will be in its future. The flip side of this is, in a set of tight twisty bends of 35kmh corners you only use first gear leaving you to concentrate on braking, accelerating and corner speed and working on that perfect line without the hassle of gear changes.

There are generally two type of bikes. There are bikes that you sit IN, and bikes that you sit ON. The R1 is definitely in the later category when you get on the thing you feel like you are sitting on top of it feeling like you are perch up quite high.



The R1's fuel consumption can be a bit of a contentious issue. On the very first ride out I ran it out of fuel with 211km on the clock, D'oh. That was a bit embarrassing I must say. However since the run in stage the bike can get surprising mileage. Surprising at both ends of the spectrum, where I've seen 4.9L/100km doing highway miles and at the other end of the scale when at Sydney Motorsport park it guzzled a whopping 14.35L/100km, yep 16.5ltrs for 115kms. So if you hit your favourite set of twisties a bit on the hard side the fuel consumption can rise dramatically, just be careful.

The standard OEM tyres on the R1 are Bridgestone Battleaxe RS-10, RS stands for "Racing Street" and 10 stands for errr....how many kilometers your going to get out of them with hard use. Seriously though I used 2 sets of the RS-10's and they are a great sport tyre but they are for the track. The RS-10's are the stickiest tyres I've ever used and possibly as good as the slicks I used previously on my old R1. They are great track day tyres and I got about 2700kms out of each set, much too little to be riding on the road unless you've won the lottery.

Over longer distances the R1 can become a bit hard to live with. With the long reach to the low bars, high foot pegs combined with the hard suspension and seat. Day rides out are usually fine, but when you string together 5 days in a row at 500kms a day, by the end of the last 2-3 days it so relieved to get off at the end of the day.

The bikes steering geometry is bloody fantastic having a shortwheel base it's inducive of quick steering and when you are out on your local twisty bit of tarmac this bike urges you to attack each bend, it wants you to go faster and faster. If your riding at 50% pace it tends to feel slow. These modern sportsbikes urge you on. But it is so sharp in its steering coming out of one corner it is so easy and effortless to just flick it into the next, sometimes to easy. On unfamiliar bumpy roads though the suspension is hard and this can cause you to start bouncing off the bumps leaving you feeling uneasy and pushing wide, its then an effort as to how fast to attack the bend and you usually end up going in slowly and cautiously until powering out. Another bike that soaks up the bumps better will probably easily keep up with you in these type of situations and feel better to ride too, but when it's a smooth bit of black top its hard on the gas all the way to the point of effortlessly getting your knee down on the road.

This bike is capable of speeds of 300kmh which is bloody fast in anyone's language. It's interesting to find that the Japanese have a great sense of humour as I found this little gem pictured below in the owner's manual for this 300kmh missile. If you shifted this bike at those speeds you'd be stalling it.

Shift into 6th doing sixty, yeah right and stall it and crash more like it

MotoGP Inspiration

It's clear to see the motogp heritage that has be handed down from the Yamaha M1 race bike directly to the R1, from the top triple clamps to the grille like indents in the petrol tank, straight from Rossi's machine. Even if you don't like sportsbikes there's something that is just sexy about them, just like their race bred brothers they are born from.

R1 Headstock

M1 Motogp Headstock

R1 Tank

M1 Tank Design

The Dash

The dash itself is a coloured LCD unit with everything easily accessible. The dash board layout and subsequent menu's and sub menu systems are something like out of the starship enterprise rather than a motorcycle and even turning on the ignition it sounds as if it going to take off.



On the right hand handlebar is a click wheel, much like a computer mouse wheel that scrolls through various menus or for changing the smaller readouts like kilometers/fuel consumption/trip meter/temperature etc. On the left hand handle bar is the Mode button with up/down buttons to change the settings.

Main Dash Layout - Street mode(Track mode is displayed in the video below)

Above - Scrolling the click wheel changes the display where Trip-1 and Fuel consumption is shown and puts up other useful information. The Street mode is the base setting for the road, which can be changed for the track. In Track mode the taco starts at 8000rpm and the gear indicator is larger and the speedo becomes smaller there is a lap timer where the main speedo used to be.

Modes are shown at the bottom of the screen, you can see in the above picture it is in Mode A, Power 1(highest setting), TCS - traction control on 3, SCS - slide control on 2.

Some of the info displayed is quite useless such as the brake pressure indicator on the right hand side where it shows the picture next to the bike. If your accelerating hard a blue bar will indicate the amount of force on the back wheel where as the opposite happens when braking hard it shows the pressure under brakes with the bar going towards the top of the bike which is kind of pointless because you cannot look at these when you're riding anyway.

Below - Holding down the click wheel for 2 seconds takes you into the menu system where all of the more advanced system settings can be changed. Items such as the traction control setting, mode setup settings. You can fully customize each mode. There are 4 modes as standard A(Warp Factor 10), B(F*cking Fast), C(Bloody fast), D(Not quite as fast as Bloody fast). It took a little while to get used to the timing of the click wheel button as I kept going into the menu instead of resetting the gauges.

Main Menu

Below - These are the Yamaha Ride control settings which are all adjustable and completely customizable. For obvious reasons you can't change these whilst your riding but realistically you wouldn't really need to anyway. You can change some of the settings with the mode button on the fly without entering this screen anyway.

PWR - Power
TCS- Traction Control System
SCS - Slide Control System
LCS - Launch Control System
QSS - Quick Shifter System
LIF - Lift Control/Anti Wheelie

YRC Settings

I initially changed a few of these setting but now rarely touch them as it is pretty damn good without making adjustments, but they are there if you need them. I would suggest that these are really for the track and there's not much discernible difference on the road with the exception of the power mode - this changes the whole characteristic of how the bike delivers its power.  It was unrideable on the road in A mode until I got the ECU flashed which smoothed out the jerky throttle and made A mode actually usable. Whats so important about riding with a smooth throttle you may ask?

Let me explain it like this then. Riding at Sydney Motorsport Park(SMSP) as fast as I possibly can and at the edge of traction, braking hard into a bend and rolling off the throttle it would just instantly power off and put pressure on the front tyre which if enough can cause the front to lose traction, and on the other side putting the throttle back on it would put the power immediately on lurching weight onto the rear tyre unloading the front tyre which can also create a front end lose. It was just not smooth, since the ECU flash it is now smooth in A mode power 1 and is usable but you still have to pay attention otherwise if you are a bit ham fisted with the throttle you can still jerk the power on too hard too quickly.


Below - For track riding you can set up the display so that when you press the high beam flasher it starts the lap timer and it can be reset each lap when you press the flasher again.. Yep those are my lap times for Sydney Motorsport park last year. I might be slow but I'm consistently slow. Australian Superbikes lap SMSP in 1:30. Yikes

Lap Time Recording

At the Track

This bike was born for the track, it's in it DNA. After all it is what it is designed for. So what is it like when you're at the track where there are no limits.

What can I say but, it's...... #FAN F#CKING TASTIC.

This bike is absolutely rock solid at the track, not once did I feel like I was out of control in any way and the quickshifter and horsepower really come into their own here. Not to mention the firm suspension is simply the best at the track. This bike feels like its on rails. This would be where you could really experiment with the traction and slide control to test its limits out. The bike feels like it can do no wrong and really inspires you to push harder and harder until you hit your limits, which is much sooner than the bikes limits. The high footpegs that were bad for riding on the road are long forgotten here and are perfectly placed. I would need to do multiple track days to get better and better.

Here is a little snippet of my fastest lap of SMSP on my new R1, at my fast moderate old guys pace. Notice the Track mode display instead of he street display.



If you are in the market for a track only bike, then this is the bike for you. Look no further sell your kids and your house and get an R1 and take it to the track. It's more addictive than any drug and you will absolutely love it. It's the ultimate track bike.

Modifications

Here are the modifications I've made to the bike, some are cosmetic and some have functional purpose to them.

Ventura Rack and Bag - This is pretty well essential on longer 5/6 day trips away as carrying a back pack on this bike is not really a pleasant experience, plus I can take a lot more things now.

R&G Fender Eliminator - not really for any purpose except to make the bike look sexier, one thing I have noticed though is that a lot of debris flings off the tyre and now hits the number plate and the rear brake light. I noticed a crack in the brake light from a stone chip. Mud also sprays up onto the number plate and brake light covering them in crud, both good and bad depending on the circumstance.

Ventura Rack and R&G Tail Tidy

R&G Radiator/Oil Guards - I decided to put these on straight away as my old R1 radiator looks like B17 bomber after a mission over germany, there's that many holes peppered in it and fins bent out of place the engine runs hot because its blocked up so much.

R&G Radiator Guards

Pazzo Shorty Levers - I wasn't sure whether or not I'd like the short levers but easily adapted to them and now will never go back, they look so much better than the horrible ugly standard OEM items. I see other R1's now with standard lever and they look horrible.

Pazzo Shorty Levers

Oggy Knobs - Front/Rear axles sliders and frame sliders just as a bit of peace of mind in a small low speed drop, these saved Bushpigs R1 at Phillip Island in a 130kmh crash.

Oggy knobs

Single Seat Cowl - The R1 was never designed to take a passenger and even if you did I couldn't inflict that much pain on another human so it got ditched along with the rear foot pegs. Now it looks all MotoGP. So this was just for cosmetics only. Note the seat only comes off with an allen key so there's nowhere to put that except in the ventura bag, no bag no seat off. But on that note there's nothing under the seat except 2 allen keys and seriously you'd have trouble fitting your credit card under there.

Single Seat Cowl

Re-upholstered seat - After my first 2 day rides to Philip Island and back I couldn't ride for a third day, the seat only had 15mm of foam, so I got a 15mm gel pad insert and 20mm of foam on top, and I must say it has made 5/6 day rides bearable but that's not to say I still don't get sore, I do its just bearable now.

Extra padded seat

Yoshimura Alpha1 3/4 Exhaust - This was always going to be on the cards, this R1 crossplane engine sounds so sweat, not like an inline 4 but more like a V Twin and this Yoshi pipe looks and sounds the goods.

Yoshimura Alpha 1 3/4 System

Summary

So to sum up this bike there are a couple of bad points which as you'd read previously are the hard suspension and the ultra thin seat combine that with the race crouch  and after several days in the saddle can be very difficult to live with. Fuel consumption is a bit heavy at times but what can you expect with 200hp on tap.

On the other side of the fence there are plenty of great things that I love about this bike. I love that crossplane engine, it sounds glorious at full noise. The engine is the heart and soul of this bike and sets it apart from every other inline four cylinder superbike on the market. The quickshifter is a lot of fun and its handling is superb, it carves up corners like nothing I've ever owned. I've got my knee down more in my forties than I did in my twenties, it's the bike not me honest!

I also love the styling and head lights on this thing, that's a bit of a personal thing as many others think the front looks ugly. I love it though because if I didn't I'd be selling it.

This bike is great for local rides and day trip out on your favourite twisty roads or a track day, but the multiple day tours start to get difficult around the 3rd day and at the very end of each day you start getting sore. The first half of each day is usually ok but the bike just wears you down by the end of the day, this is also subject to road surface conditions. Good road surface then not so bad for 5 days, bad road surface can mean slowing down to cope with it and I've actually taken a day to recover from a ride until I've felt better again. But this road surface was extremely poor.

Whatever you want to buy a bike like this for just don't buy it as a touring bike. I have bought it as an everything bike, day trips, touring, track days. It's a superb handling bike and you won't be disappointed with it or it's performance in any way, it's just not great for touring on. If you want a pure track bike, then this bike is for you you can't go wrong. You can tour on it, but you'll just have to put up with the sore butt. Might have to try one of those air hawks and see how that goes.

The 5 year plan

I've not really spoken about this on the blog before but I have talked about it amongst my riding friends. When I bought the R1 I knew it was going to be a hardcore bike to ride on the road because of its sports focus and lets face it I'm not getting any younger, now I'm just shy of 44 years young. If I was 27 then most of the comfort issues would be a lot more bearable. I had considered a couple of other bikes but the R1 really just drew me to it, like a moth to a light.

The R1 was only ever going to be a 5 year plan at best. Yep you heard it right. 5 years of ownership I gave myself on this bike before I think I won't be able to ride it anymore and then it will be time to choose something that's more comfortable to ride and tour on. I'm 20 months into that plan so far. That's not to say I don't like this bike because that couldn't be any further from the truth, I love it in fact. But I've come to realise as I get older that sooner or later I won't be physically up to riding a sportsbike and it's why I chose it now rather than later, because if I went the other way and got something that was a bit more cruisy then I would have been wondering in 5 or 10 years time gee I wish I really could have ridden another sports bike but by that time it would be physically beyond me. Now I am still young enough(just) to ride one so I will until I can't anymore.

2 R1's at Mt Lindsey, Queensland

Starting 2017 with a bang

How lazy am I? Its nearly the end of January and I haven't even been out on a ride yet, although I do have a few reasons for this. Someone take me out into the back paddock and just put me out of my misery, please. I've been busier than a blue arsed fly what with work and other family commitments, and the result is that riding has been on the back burner. Time to change that and quick smart. Too much work and not enough play. I organized a quick fang up to Tarlaga for lunch and then back again. A call to Bushpig and plans were hatched and we were soon under way, and he even invited his friend Saint Pat.

Meeting up at Bushpigs place we headed up out of Sydney along the Bells line of road, one of Sydney's classic biking roads across the blue mountains. We did notice however on the way across the Bells Line some of New South Wales finest hiding in the bushes with their hair dryers. Not sure if they were drying each others hair do's or trying to burn out our retinas at distance so we couldn't read our speedo's in the hope we'd mistake 80 for 60kmh, but none the less they stayed firmly where they were planted, in the bushes.

Riding across the bells line with its twists and turns I'd noticed that my bike wasn't handling like it normally would. You see I've been a bit lazy and still have the mismatched tyres on the bike. The rear is not the original size or matching brand for the front. It was tipping in nicely but the rear didn't want to follow at the same rate, a bit of a weird feeling really, but never the less I adapted and pressed on.

We stopped just after Mt Victoria for our first stop just past the lolly shop for a break and a bit of a chat. We turned into Cox River Road as I'd recently heard that it had been sealed all the way through, which turned out to be false. Cox River road still has a couple of kilometers of dirt on it, but its really easy riding dirt.

Three Gems in Little Hartley

Main Street of Taralga

We then continued on through to Oberon via Duckmaloi road for our first fuel stop of the trip. All the bikes had used within a half a litre of each other, so not much difference.

We headed down to Taralga via Shooters Hill road rather than the more direct and more boring route of Black Springs. Shooters Hill road is much more scene up through the pine forest to I might add so if you're in the area you have to pass through this way. Saint Pat and myself had swapped bikes at Oberon and were trying each others bikes out. The Ducati 1098 wheelies straight off the throttle coming out of town, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.................... It was a very narrow bike in comparison and handled very well. I don't think it turned quite as quick as the R1 but was still very good. Comfort wise seemed about on par and it also had a hard seat and it felt a lot like you sit down inside the bike and not on it like my R1.

Taralga Hotel

By the time we got to Taralga there was a bunch of bikes parked out the front of the pub and most of the tables had been taken. I jammed my hand under the screen of the ducati whilst trying to park it, between the bars and the screen on full lock it comes together which I thought was a bit dangerous.Lunches ordered we relaxed and  looked at the bikes parked out the front and any that happened by. I must say every time I've been here for lunch the meals have been fantastic, I can't recommend this place more.

Taralga

We spent about an hour in Taralga for lunch before deciding it was time that we got going. So I got back on my bike now and I decided I would lead the ride back up to Oberon as I'd followed the other guys on the way down.
The road through Abercrombie gorge is still dirt at the moment as they are doing road works to widen and smooth the road out. Should be good when they finish it which the signs said around April.

Abercrombie River

Saint Pat

On the way back to Oberon I decided I'd like to take the short trip up into the hills via one of the logging roads. This was only a short 8km long section before it turned to dirt and we would have to turn around and come back but is some of the most beautiful winding roads around in the area with elevation changes, sharp bends and spectacular forest scenery.

Along the way I checked my mirrors and about 2/3 the way along I didn't see anyone following. Funny that Bushpig and Saint Pat were there following me only about 2 minutes before. I didn't think too much about this as they must have pulled over to take a picture or something like that. Well after all I was doing the same thing. I got to the end and turned around and took a couple more pics. I waited for a couple of minutes and no one came along so I thought I'd better head back and see what where Bushpig and Saint Pat had gotten to.

Yes I know I've posted up photos of this road before but I love this piece of black top so much I just had to stop and take more pictures of it. Its motorcycling heaven, if only there was 30-40kms of this instead of 8.

I crested a rise and suddenly I saw Bushpig heading towards me, he started madly signalling me to slow down, well that's what I thought he meant so I did. It's a bit hard to tell what he was signalling really. I pulled over and stopped and waited for him. About 5 minutes went by and he came back into view. Very strange to say the least. He stopped and and I strolled over and I asked where everyone got to, he said follow me.


Over the very next rise there I saw 3 people standing in the middle of nowhere and a flash of red in the forest. WTF. It was a red Ducati. FUCK!. All you bike riders will know the sudden sinking feeling that I suddenly experienced.  Saint Pat had run off on one of the bends and into the forest, I immediately thought the worst. How could you survive that running into a pine forest. Luckily for him and everyone he was ok, more or less. A tree had broken his fall so to speak as well as one of his fingers.


The 3 people standing around were from a passing vehicle. The bike wasn't ride able the rear swing arm was smashed to bits and Saint Pat wasn't in a state to ride anyway. The bike could wait so we got Pat quickly into Oberon hospital via the passing vehicle. We loaded him into the front seat so he could go and get checked out and we could worry about what to do with the bike later, so we left a note on the bike to say rider was ok and taken to Oberon Hospital so anyone that found it didn't worry about what happened to the rider.


The ride home was a bit of a come down from the morning and was really just a boring commute across the blue mountains via the great western highway until we got home. About an hour out from home the R1's seat was rearing its ugly head and I was sitting from side to side to save my butt checks from the pounding it had taken during the day but in comparison this was very minor in the grand scheme of what had happened today.

RIP

Post Ride DAY +1:
Bushpig took his car with trailer in tow up to pick up Saint Pat and the bike.With a little help from some passing Adventure riding GS riders they got the bike into his trailer and brought it back. Saint Pat was out of hospital and on his way home. One very lucky bloke, one very unlucky 1098.

Tour planning

Finally after a week of pouring over maps, google street view, my trusty HEMA NZ Motorcycle atlas and 2 of NZ's best bloggers I have managed to finish off our route plans for our up coming NZ North Island trip.

I initially had a lot of enthusiasm to plan the trip and looked at the maps for about a week, then realised how many great bike roads there actually are on the north Island then it got a bit overwhelming really. So I did what all great procrastinators do, I sat on it and waited and waited until only 7 weeks out before the trip where I thought I'd better actually get off my ass and do something about it, before we are standing at Auckland airport with puzzled looks on our faces as to which way to head in.

So over my christmas break I pulled out my Hema Atlas and an email that I'd received earlier in the year from Geoff James and decided to get this thing done. Compared to planning the South Island trip which was fairly easy as there are not so many roads to choose from there are literally hundreds of different great bike roads on the north Island it was a lot more difficult.

A few emails back and forward to Geoff and Andrew and a few facebook messages and some head down bum up work I managed to finish off a decent route plan for our trip.The Hema road atlas is 11 years old now and some of the rides in it that are dirt have now been tarred(thanks to the local knowledge of Andy and Geoff). Most of the roads though are still the same with probably little in the way of new roads.

The bikes have been secured and the route has been decided, flights booked and now I just need to sort some accommodation and we are nearly done. 

A big shout out here to 2 of New Zealand's best motobloggers for their assistance in helping me plan the route. Check out their blogs if you haven't already, click on the link below to open in a new window.

Andrew - Bandit Rider

Geoff - Confessions of an Aging Motorcyclist

Cheers boys and I'll shout you guys a beer when I see you.