Justcol

Great idea but i am bikeless at the moment
I've given the current one to the wife and am hunting
for a DR250/350 to tour the south island on, I'll them flog
that and get a pocket rocket again

Wierd thing is we went over TeAwamutu last night which is a slightly
smaller town than Cambridge and the puvs there were full
I think its just the snobby Cambridge folk not knowing how to have a good time

gocebe

DR250/350 is quite small for touring on. they also have a low seat height. great offroad though cos you can move your weight around like on a trials bike.
are you planning a lot of offroad on your tour?

Black Sheep

Why is that???

(BTW, how did you manage to meet 'most Australians'? That would have to have been one very major feat to accomplish!)

Justcol

as much as possible, i want to take the roads less travelled which in NZ
usually means unsealed gravell roads.
I've always prefered small capacity bikes over their big brothers, much more
fun to ride and they require a lot more input to get from A to B, you cant just
sit in one gear and let the engine do it all for you.
Look up Mondo Enduro or Lois on the loose to see what what a little bike can do

Expat Kiwi

You'd rather meet them un-socially?

gocebe

interesting.
i spent a couple of years in the late nineties riding a 600 tenere around africa.
i found that in loose sand you need all the power you can get but a smaller bike would have been great for jungle bashing and mud and getting across rivers in little boats.
changing gear a lot might help prevent 'vibration finger' as well!

simonsi

hazeandsteve

We're on a flying two up tour in March.
Going to homegrown in Welly, then jumping on the ferry on the Sunday for a quick flit down to Queenstown.

Droidling

Col,

Something to put in the diary for next Xmas holidays (apologies if I'm teaching Grandma to suck eggs) to stave off the boredom :-

http://www.cemeterycircuit.co.nz/

Can you imagine the Health & Safety police allowing this in Blighty (Hence the popularity of the IOM TT). They had to re-site a lamppost in Wanganui as the riders couldn't get their bikes on the pegs without colliding with it !!
Happy days

Justcol

Vibration finger is similar to what miners suffered with after using vibrating power tools for hours on end.
Basically your fingers go numb through the constant vibration through the handlebars.
Not painful just a loss of feeling and strength in the fingers but it can take quite a while to clear up.

There arent many soft sand places down here so i'm confident a little bike will see me there and back
plus wondering wether it will or not is half the fun isnt it

Gill and Rob

[QUOTE=Tranmere Rover;9085091]Then we got to Rotorua and were the only people on the street or in the restaurant!

QUOTE]

All the better for us Rotorua Locals ;- )

It is a lot quieter, but it's quite different once you become a "local".

Gill