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Vision From New Zealand

One of the fellas from NZ on the GSX1400.org posted this video a day or two ago. Does a great job of capturing the feeling of what it is like to ride. Great example of using different camera angles too.

Hinterland Run

Had a call during last week from Darren, a guy that I met whilst on holidays in Phuket. He wanted to know if I was up for a ride sometime over the weekend just gone. For one reason or another, I have been unable to get out on the bike for the last few weekends, so I was very, very keen for a fix. We agreed to meet up not far from his place, and do a short squirt on some of the more popular roads in the area.

Sunday morning could not come quick enough for me - I was up early and readied the bike. I had a look outside, but there was no way I was going to let some cloud cover or a bit of rain put me off. I did however stow the wet weather gear under the seat just in case. I grabbed a bite to eat and then took off at about 7:30am for the ride to our meeting point. The ride down through Mount Cotton and onto the M1 was pretty uneventful - I stopped along the way and fuelled up and was surprised at how quiet the roads were. I assume a lot of people would have taken a look out their window, seen the clouds and decided to go back to bed. My preference is to ride early because the air is cooler and the roads are clearer.

I took the Nerang exit and followed the road out to the Advancetown Pub turn-off where Darren was waiting on his Ducati 900SS. Because he forgot to bring his wets, we followed Beechmont Road for a short distance up to his place, picked them up and then continued up the mountain. I was more than happy for Darren to lead us for the ride, as his knowledge of these roads was superior to mine and in these conditions this would be an advantage. As we climbed, the roads got damper and the clouds got closer, but still no rain. We took this section of switchbacks at a moderate pace due to the slippery conditions, but once up on top, the roads dried out and we let the bikes do their ‘thing’. After passing through Beechmont we headed down the other side towards Canungra. Again, the roads were damp, mainly due to the overnight rain and roadside tree coverage, so back to a moderate pace. We rode into Canungra and headed for the Outpost Café for a coffee and one of their beautiful chunky steak pies. It surprised me to see so few bikes parked at this café – usually they are lined up on both sides of the road and it is hard to get a table.

We departed Canungra along the road back towards Nerang, and turned right onto Clagiraba Road. This is supposed to be the road that has claimed the most motorcyclists in the Gold Coast region – I was surprised when told that by a SMART instructor after completing the rider training course last year, mainly because it is not what I would call a fast road. You travel past semi-rural type properties bordering the road and although it does have some pretty tight corners and sharp crests, I would never have picked that road. In hindsight however, it can lull you into a false sense of security if you are not familiar with it – it can also get busy as a lot of people use it as a short cut and if it is not ridden a little on the conservative side, it can surprise you. Anyway, we reached the other end, turned back onto the Nerang-Murwillumbah Road and not long after passed the spot at Advancetown where we initially met earlier that morning.

The short section of road from this point heading south for about 13kms to the Springbrook Road turn-off is one of my favourite stretches of bitumen – long straights and numerous fast right hand sweepers heading up and over a crest and downhill into a left hander which switches back quite tightly - a real buzz to ride. You can get over a long way on the lefties and not have too much of a worry, because the surface in the turns is good - its then power on and up the hill to the next sweeper. The great thing about this stretch is that it can be enjoyed at a reasonable speed – you don’t need to be doing ridiculous speeds to enjoy the flowing sweep-corner-climb effect. The road on Sunday was mostly dry through here and whilst running slower than I usual, I still had a lot of fun following Darren – one minor incident did occur when my rear wheel drifted a little on the exit of the last tight left hander, probably due to some debris or a small damp patch and my PR2’s not being as grippy as they should be.

We reached the Springbrook turn and continued onwards, climbing up through Pindari Hills for the ride through the Springbrook National Park. Again, the higher we climbed the damper the roads became, so it was easy-does-it from here onwards. From the Springbrook turn-off, our decent was taken slowly – this road is not in the best condition in the dry let alone the damp conditions we were riding. A lot of wet corners and a little bit of traffic slowed our decent further. The two or three one lane timber bridges on this road were very slippery and I actually felt my front drift a little whilst negotiating one of these. The other point about this road is that there is nowhere for you to go should you hit the road except into the rocky wall on your left or over the edge and down a rather steep embankment on the other side – all the more reason to take it easy and stay switched on. Aside from all this, our decent was still a really enjoyable ride and incident free with the added bonus that it had not yet rained. When we reached the end of the tight stuff, we were able to open the bikes up a little for the final run into Mudgeeraba.

We reached the Woodchoppers Inn at Mudgeeraba just before 11am and after parking our bikes, went in and downed a couple of well deserved beers. That ride was fantastic – a great ride to do if you don’t want to spend all day on the road but still want a bit of a challenge. It certainly got me hyped and I plan to do it again, when dry, real soon.

You can check out the route we followed here.

Airbag Protection....Coming Soon!

I recently read on the MCN website that Dainese are planning to sell an airbag equiped motorcycle suit to the public by 2010. It looks impressive in the way that it is small and how it provides much needed protection/support to a riders neck. A couple of prototypes were actually worn in the last race of the 125 and 250 classes of the 2007 MotoGP season at Valencia, and they were fully tested.

It won't be cheap judging by the technology that it uses, but at least we will have the option. Good on ya Dainese.

Saddle Road, Hawaii

Thought ths video by dustrotter that I picked up from Lucky's blog was cool - really made me pine for the GSX...

Click To Play

Throw It Around....

Twist The Throttle

The Iron Chef from Motorcycle Paradise has posted a link to a great resource for all motorcycle enthusiasts that Discovery Channel has put together called Twist The Throttle.

Check out his post and the link here.

Motorcycle Ballet

Viewed this on another blog that I visit regularly, She Rides A Beemer, and thought it was simply amazing!

Seriously Dangerous???

I spotted this advert for Rocky HD over on the Road Captains blog and thought I would post it here. The Trewins up in Rockhampton are getting creative with their advertising...

Mounting A Video Camera

I found this video which details an extremely simple and cheap method of making a camera mount for your bike. Another slightly different version of this mount can be seen over on The Ride Report - Chuck's variation provides a safe and secure mount for some of the larger video cameras.

Both very clever and simple and either way, they allow us to share our riding experiences with others!!

Simple Motorcycle Camera Mount

35 Days...

Here I am late on a Thursday night sitting in my apartment in Almaty watching videos of my rides - bloody hell I miss my bike! I need to ride, I really need to ride. This is the longest I have gone without riding since I started it all more than three years back - I REALLY miss my bike. I honestly don't know how you guys living in areas where you can't ride during winter actually do it!!

Anyway.....35 days.....and counting......

A pic of the crew to remind me of home

The Lonely Roads To Mapleton

I had planned to do a ride up to Kenilworth & Mapleton on Saturday to capture video of some of the great roads north of Brisbane. I have ridden the planned route many times, knew which bits I wanted to video and was really looking forward to getting amongst it again. I also managed to talk a friend from work, Nina, in to coming along for a ride on the back.

I picked her up from her place on Saturday morning and we headed out through Samford, stopping at the Crown Hotel in Dayboro for a drink. We were the only bike parked out the front and there were very few passing - it felt kind of weird, as I am used to seeing at least a few bikes parked under the big Moreton Bay Fig's at the pub and a steady stream of passers-by riding this very popular route. We sat out on the deck enjoying our drinks and watching the few vehicles and the odd bike rounding the corner. Maybe the lack of traffic was due to Indy being on down on the Gold Coast - don't really know, but it didn't worry us coz that meant the roads were ours!

We took off from Dayboro and headed along Mt Mee Rd - this is where I was able to get my first bit of video. This part of road would be really great if the council did some re-surfacing - in it's current state it is fairly rough and it is really easy to overcook some of the corners on decent into Dayboro if not careful. Going the other way as we were, the climb up to Ocean View is not quite as hairy and these corners do allow you to throw the bike around a little, although riding two up I took it easier than what I would on my own. Check out the first video below.

We continued along for another 20 or so minutes and decided to pull up at the lookout on Mt Mee to take in the view. Not long after, a guy and girl pulled in from the same direction as us on their two bikes - an old Katana and a GSXR750. They came over for a chat and were also surprised at the lack of traffic - so much so that they planned to head back towards Dayboro and have some more fun with the curves. Good on em!

From the lookout, we followed Mt Mee Rd down to D'Aguilar and onto the highway for a short stretch, cruising through Woodford before turning onto Kilcoy-Beerwah Rd for the run up to Maleny. Again, very little traffic on the straightish, flat stretch and so I took the opportunity to stretch the GSX's legs a bit - actually, quite a bit! We reached the twisty's just before Peachester Rd and then took a left turn on to Stanley River Rd. This was magic - nothing at all going our way for the whole 20 odd kms, and this road is in good nick. It really made the whole day worthwhile. Check out the second video below for the entire stretch.

On reaching Maleny, we were getting hungry and so decided to head towards Mapleton via Montville instead of via the longer route through Kenilworth. Both Maleny and Montville were very busy (as per usual) but on riding into Mapleton, we found very few people along th main drag. We headed to the pub for some lunch and were able to score a good table out on the balcony, which I have never been able to do in my 4 or 5 prior visits. The meal was good as usual and after about an hour we decided to head back.

The route home was pretty much the same except for the diversion along Mountain View Rd instead of through Maleny, and a stop at Mary Cairncross Park to take in the views of the Glasshouse Mtns. We did strike a little bit of traffic on the D'Aguilar Hwy as well as Mt Mee Rd during our decent into Dayboro, but other than that, all roads for the entire return trip to Samford were clear - no cops either which was good.

I dropped Nina off at her place and made it home by 5:30. Another fantastic day riding a few of the better roads around Brisbane.

The view from Mary Cairncross Park on Mountain View Rd

My pillion for the day, Nina

Great view of the Glasshouse Mountains

Cool mirror shot

These cows grazed along the ridge in a line, like a giant lawn mower

The twisty bits on Mt Mee Rd just outside Dayboro

Stanley River Rd heading into Maleny

Some Real Action From The Road...

Well I've been playing around with my new camera for the past few days trying to determine the best place to mount it. After much stuffing around I have decided that on the bars is the best place, mainly because I wanted to include the lean angles in the shot. I had previously trialed my helmet and the headlight as mounts.

The video below is part of my run into work this morning - I decided to add music to it as the recorded audio is pretty crappy. Overall, I'm happy with the picture - it's not TV quality by any means, but I didn't want to have to part with huge wads of cash.

Let me know what you think!

Helmetcam

Well I finally received my helmet camera yesterday. I decided to go for the Oregon Scientific ATC2K due to the fact that it is self contained (no wires or additional recording device required), water resistant and relitively cheap. I did do quite a bit of research on each of them but in the end decided to sacrifice some picture quality for convenience. For those interested, check this site out for people's reviews (both positive and negative) of this camera.

The major reason I purchased it now was to familiarise myself with it in time for our Tasmania trip in February of 2008. In the meantime I am planning to wear it on my daily commute into and out of the city, and will no doubt have lots of snippets to share, but hopefully nothing too major!

I would like to send a big, big thankyou to KTDid for arranging the purchase of it in the US and then sending it out to me.