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What an awesome day for a ride!
Pretty damn cold this morning when I got up at 6am (or 5am if you ignore daylight savings). Cold enough that I decided to give the new winter gloves a go. The Old Pacific Highway seemed very empty for 7am on a Sunday morning - saw all of 3 bikes! I took the OPH pretty easy on the way down because it was pretty foggy, but I still gave the new BT014 front a bit of a go - more on that later.
The fog on the OPH almost made me late, but a bit of questionable speed limit interpretation saw me at the nasho entrace at about 8:20 - Matt already waiting. Marek rocked on up 5 minutes later and Phil soon after that. Everyone except for Dave bright, happy, on time and ready to go.
8:45am and still no Dave so I send him an SMS that we're leaving and we head off. Excellent run down, Phil not going flat-out for us tourists - and because Tim wasn't around for the competition I think -
so we weren't left too far behind and had some good fun and only minor obstacles on the way down to Stanwell Tops. Phil showed us his secret photo spot on the way down and took some snaps before the Fire-ies turned up and wanted to use the causeway.
Excellent clear run the rest of the way to Stanwell Tops, begun with Phil giving me a mirror-full of belly pan as he passed me ;) Good long coffee break at Stanwell - giving Dave time to catch up if he was actually coming. We chatted to a few people and I handed a couple of stickers to a Z1000 owner named Paul and said he should join up - he in turn mentioned http://www.riderforums.com/ which might deserve a look-see. Maybe we'll finally get someone from Sydney signing on.
I can't remember what time it was but we decided it was time to head off so I sent Dave another SMS and off we went. Marek had noticed a slow leak in his rear just as he was leaving Stanwell so he took it easy on the way back. I had some fun on the way back, getting more familiar with the road, but lost sight of Phil and Matt when the combination of a largish bump on a straight and the poor ZZR suspension squashed my nads and had me gasping for a bit. They were waiting for us to catch up at Waterfall, and we headed off for the last nasho leg. Too many obstacles on this last leg - lots of cars and vans - still fun though. Phil showed off his skills by riding a few downhill corners with his hands in the air. Damned show-off :D
We all split up at the end of the nasho - Phil showing Marek the way to the nearest servo to check out his tyre, and Matt and I heading north for a go at the OPH. With Dave a no-show we decided the Putty was too far - the trip to Berowra was slow and boring enough as it was. We almost caught up to a cop car at Berowra - him going through some lights before they went red and made us stop. Could've made for a very boring run but he must've been having some fun too as we didn't catch him till Brooklyn when he was turning around for another lap.
North bound run up the OPH was fun but I could tell the BT014's had more in them than I was asking for at the time, so on the way back down south to Mt White for lunch I pushed them a bit more. Damn what a nice tyre. If they have a more-or-less decent wear rate I'll keep getting these. Felt totally firm in corners that the old BT020's lacked confidence in - very impressive. Anyway, lunch at Mt White was great - hadn't tried their burgers before and have to recommend them. When we stopped I saw that I'd gotten a message from Dave, the lazy bastard slept in! Didn't wake up until 11! Maybe he'll wake up in time for the next one :D
After perving at the various bikes for a bit Matt and I headed off back south again with Matt leading the way - him to head home and me to do another lap. Have to say for having a 6 week break he's pretty damn quick - both on the Nasho and the OPH. The north run after parting with Matt at Cowan further entrenched my satisfaction with the BT014 - did some of those corners 10-20kph faster than I've been able to before. Very nice tyre.
All in all a good day. Excellent weather, no real troubles and good company.
ty
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