The Final Push to Cairns

Day 9 – Porcupine Gorge to Cairns Waking up early this morning was a great opportunity to see the sunrise over the gorge. And after a great cooked breakfast we packed up and set of for Cairns. But we only made it to the main road before Russell ran into a problem with a deflating…

1,000km Loop

Some days you just need a ride. A day in the saddle. A day to sit and let the world wash over you. A day to just decompress.
Today’s ride will take me to Bathurst, along the Bylong Valley Way where I will bid Russell farewell and I head home via the Putty into Sydney and then durge home the last 300km in the dark on the Freeway.

ZX14R repairs on the road - replacing the fuel filter

Replacing ZX14/R Fuel Filter

I’ve had this post sitting in draft for a few months and then a friend asked about changing the fuel filter in a ZX14R today (or 1400GTR), so it was time to put everything together from my experience and publish it.

Weekend Escape to FNQ

As we exit the airport my sunnies fog up instantly as we hit the wall of heat and humidity. Welcome to Far North Queensland. I don’t often fly domestically as I usually ride or drive, so it’s a bit disorienting as I don’t quite have a sense of how far north we really are. Cairns is 2,500km north of Canberra via the most direct route, or 2,900km if you follow the coast.
This is a quick weekend trip to visit friends who recently relocated to Cairns for work and to pinch one of his bikes to see some of the sights and ride some of the roads I’ve heard so much about.

An appropriate sign on a Saddlesore 1600 ride with 1400GTR and ZX14R

Saddle Sore 1600

While I’ve completed a few of these rides now, I wouldn’t say they are easy, just that our approach to them is more casual. We know what it takes. A ride like this is not about speed it’s about consistency. It’s spending time in the saddle not in the cafe sipping your latte.

The Saddle Sore 1600, or 1600km in 24 hours. The minimum endurance ride certified by the Iron Butt Association (IBA).

Just Going For A Ride

Walking out the door at 3:15 last Saturday morning I briefly thought about grabbing my electric vest but as it was going to be a minimum of 2 degrees C it shouldn’t be too bad.

For the next hour and a half the temp hovered between 0 and 3 degrees. Maybe I should have grabbed that vest.

Own Backyard

How often do we crave to ride in far off exotic places and just forget to explore and take in what’s around us … in our backyard. It hit me a couple of weeks ago after an afternoon’s ride with a friend in the ‘snowies’, Australia’s high country just a couple of hours from home. …