After something like 60 emails and two months of planning, 11 of us left Taupo BP at 7:30am on a Friday morning. The first lead rider went South, while the rest of us went North to Kuratau, a good indication for the rest of the ride … So, after 30 minutes we’ re at an entrance to Pureora Forest, with a broken clutch lever and four riders missing. Fortunately, one of the four had a GPS and we managed to regroup after about 15 minutes. By the time we got through Pureora, my bike was flashing every alert( Fuel Pump, ECU, ABS, CVT) and it finally died 10 minutes out of Bennydale. A trick for new players, always make sure you do up the battery connection when installing a new GPS mount. Lesson learnt. We rolled into Taumaranui at 10am, smashed a coffee and pie which were a blessing in the cold weather- and an antidote to the night before at Finns in Taupo. The ride at this point lifted pace and the boys were flowing. On the way to Whangamomona we encountered a road block, and also received an SMS from one of our riders to say he had a puncture. Rescue riders were dispatched and less than 20 minutes later we were back into it and gravel was spinning smoothly on the way to Kiwi Rd.
That was until we came across some skidmarks going into ditch … and the lead rider looking a little sheepish limping back to his bike. There were no tears, so off we went into Kiwi Road, a magnificent track for which the‘ naki can be proud. Dust, puddles, and gravel flying in all directions, we spun out to the coast so we could get to Whangamomona before 2pm, the goal was to do old Whangamomona Road and be in Oakura by 5pm. Leaving Urenui just after 1:30pm we were optimistic we would be on time to the pub, but after 60km of grooving and moving, we came around the corner to the brother of the guy who fell off earlier, lying on the ground refusing to be moved. It looked like he was trying to rail the corner like Travis Pastrana and lost the front, put his foot down and broke his leg mid-shin. It didn’ t take long to realise thing were rather ugly, so we all agreed to trigger the button on the Garmin In-reach. Only 26 minutes later we had the Taranaki rescue helicopter parked next to us. We watched them pump all sorts of good stuff into our mate and by the time we were loading him on to the stretcher he was asking for sexual favours. Taking his boot off slowed him down a bit … We eventually got rolling
60 KIWI RIDER