I made it home. Today I rode a lot of my favourite roads. New to me was the highway from Mudgee to Lithgow, but from there I took the Jenolan Caves Rd, Duckmaloi Rd, Shooters Hill, and Abercrombie. Stopped in Goulburn for a cup of tea with mum, then slabbed straight up the highway. I took some photos of the stunning views on the way, but I just can’t get any depth of field on my phone, and they all look like I’ve taken photos of grass next to the road. Read on “The Big North: Day 7 (home!)”

Tamworth woke up beautiful this morning! Read on “The Big North: Day 6”

Planning the trip home is hard.  I have to avoid my natural inclination just to head home, and instead keep exploring. It’s also hard as I want to go inland and the distances between towns are huge – it’s harder to make adjustments than on the coast where things are close together.  I’m also a bit sore & don’t want to over-commit & have to ride long distances while tired. Read on “The Big North: Day 5”

Today, instead of heading a lot further North, I did a loop ride, coming back to Caboolture. My motorcycle atlas listed 3 good rides, so I programmed the GPS to do them all 🙂 Read on “The Big Wet: Day 4”

Today was all about north.  The weather was windy and unpredictably stormy everywhere so I decided just to hit the highway & get  north of Brisbane to get it over & done with. 450km or so of highway got me to Caboolture just before the hailstorm hit. Read on “The Big North: Day 3”

Singleton started the day warm and humid. I started the day with a run (yes, really) along a really great path. Read on “The Big North: Day 2”

Ooh, what a big, wet day. I knew today was going to rain but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

I woke up early and was out of the driveway by 7. Read on “The Big North: Day 1”

Today I pack, which means tomorrow I can go and buy anything I still need. (I wrote this post as I packed, so it is a bit of a running commentary…) Read on “The Big North: Day -2”

I made a map of many big things in NSW & Qld. It took me 2 nights. I’m sure I don’t have them all. I am also sure I won’t see all of them 🙂

Next: The Big North: Day -2 Read on “The Big North: Day -3”

I’m going on a motorbike ride. And I’m going to write about it. I haven’t done this for ages (the writing about it part, that is – I’ve done plenty of riding).

The back story is that I’m not working at the moment, don’t want to ride in January as it’s crazy-busy (and crazy-expensive), hopefully will have work in February/March and am likely to move in April. So now is the very best time for a ride. And the week before Christmas is actually fairly inexpensive as everyone starts their travel the week after.

But I needed a goal – Read on “The Big North: Day -4”

It’s been far too hot to ride recently – around 37°C for the entire week (and it starts getting hot too early to get a ride in).

I did get out on one great ride on the Australia Day holiday – about 11 of us spent a few hours on the back roads before settling in for a burger at Jugiong. That was fun – after saying I could probably manage 80 on gravel roads, I managed a top speed of 112 before it got a bit wobbly (my top speed on tarmac is only 124). But most importantly, I Read on “Seat, tyres and boots”

After spending a lovely week in Melbourne, catching up with friends, doing a little work, hanging around, it was time for me to head home. Not directly, of course, but another 3-day adventure ride! Read on “Beating fear”

The plan for this weekend’s ride was to ride some easy roads through the Victorian high country, this time on my small adventure bike (my WR250R). I was going to ride down by myself, then we’d ride together for a day, then I’d spend a week in Melbourne doing some work and seeing some friends. Read on “First (3-day) adventure ride on my WR250R”

After re-discovering how much I like adventure riding, the next step was to get my bike and gear set up much better.

R and I had talked about how I could improve my skills and confidence. The initial plan was to put knobby tyres on the BMW and lighten my load. But then he made a very obvious suggestion – instead of setting up my big, heavy bike, I should start riding my small, light bike. After all, I do own a Yamaha WR250R, and I did buy it to improve my off-road skills. It’s a great bike – it’s Read on “Preparing for the next trip: Bike & gear”

The back story

There’s a bit of a back story to this ride, and it’s kind of important as context.

Last year I fell off my motorbike – I was riding fire trails with friends, went over an erosion mound, landed front tyre first in a puddle, lost the front end and went for a slide. I didn’t break anything, but because I landed heavily on my shoulder, stretched a bunch of stuff out, and couldn’t move my arm easily for a while. Worse than the damage to my arm was the damage to my confidence – I had been Read on “Victoria high country adventure ride”

The back story

I was attending a conference in New Orleans and had booked flights that would give me 3 days free after the conference.

I knew my friend Joe would be there as well, and at some point one of us must have said “let’s go for a ride”.

So we did. Read on “Riding Louisiana & Mississippi”

I just spent most of the last 5 days on my butt, riding my motorbike, along some of south-east Australia’s very best riding roads.

It started with a friend saying ‘I’m riding to Tassie – anyone welcome’. I locked it away in my calendar, and am very glad I did, as I know that otherwise I would have just continued to work.

I had no plan except to follow him to Melbourne, visit my dad in Seymour, and come home over 2-3 days. Somehow.

I wasn’t sure where I’d stay, so I thought it would be handy to take the Read on “Two Snowies ride”

Today’s plan was to head home!

Last December I drove from Canberra to Kandos via Taralga and Oberon. I remembered the road between Taralga and Oberon was particularly nice, and the motorcycle atlas supported my memory. I’ve been wanting to ride this road ever since I bought a bike. Read on “My random country NSW ride: Day 3”

Day 2!!!!

Over a number of beers last night I decided to head towards Bathurst then home on Thursday. Initially I was going to go mostly up the Olympic highway but then read my motorcycle atlas which told me that there was a better piece of road via Boorowa and Wyangala Dam. Ahah! A plan. Read on “My random country NSW ride: Day 2”