Gold Coast Motorcycle Expo – Feb 2012

Its almost that time….The Australian Motorcycle Expo returns to the Gold Coast in February, after a 2 year break.

Once again the bike nuts of south east QLD and northern NSW will descend on the Gold Coast Convention Centre for 3 days of bikes, gear and the finest machinery and two-wheeled related stuff the bike world has to offer!

I first went back in 2007 with the boys, and still love looking at the photos of Zachary and Toby when they were 5 and 3, one in particular that I love is Zachary trying to reach the bars on a Kawasaki Ninja

 

And here is Toby attempting to look cool on a V-Rod.

 

And this is the MV Augusta F4CC…..hand built, costing$185,000…. and Toby knocked over the post holding up the chain which smacked into the wheel….thankfully it didn’t hit any panels, but we made a very quick exit away from the bike as the salesman ran towards us.  The following year the bike was on a raised pedestal far out of reach of everyone!

 

I’m looking forward to checking out the new bikes, particularly the Harleys……If you are on the Gold Coast between the 17th and 19th of Feb, go check it out!

Enjoy the rest of the week…

Cheers,

Anthony

The ride to the office

Hi All,

I thought I’d share with you a video of my commute to work.  I now live at the northern end of the Gold Coast, and work at the southern end.  It’s approximately 43km to get there, and can take anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes to complete the trip depending on the time of day and amount of traffic.

But despite that, it can be a really fun ride.  The day I filmed this it took 39 minutes, and here is 5.5 minutes of the trip……

Enjoy.

Ride To Work

Cheers,

Anthony

The decision is made….

First it was the Bonneville, then it was a GSX-1400…….

Well now I’ve decided to bypass the stepping stone options and aim for the style of bike I imagined I’d eventually end up riding……

The new target, and top of the list future bike is…..the Harley Davidson Softail Blackline. 1690cc of V-twin thumping black and chrome all-American beauty.

Stay tuned for more later….

Cheers,

Anthony.

The Vstrom is back on the road!

Hi all, just a quick post to say that I got my bike back this morning. It feels so good to ride it again, and with the new chain and sprockets it’s running fantastic.

John at Henderson Motorcycles has done a great job, and his service was excellent (I guess 36 yrs of experience helps with that) it was good to see John’s awesome GSX1400 in the workshop too…..(I’m thinking that instead of a new Bonneville I’d now love a big Suzuki)

He showed me a plastic bag containing some of the crap that he got out of the tank, and also showed me some photos he took of the bracket below the tank where the fuel pump attaches……it was a mess.

He also kept some of the fuel from the tank to show me the half a litre or so of water that I had in the tank from my fill-up last Wednesday!

He had the old chain and sprockets there too to show how worn they were.

It was good to see all that, and it made me appreciate how good the bike is going now even more!

So I hope you all have a great Friday, and a great weekend.

Cheers,

Anthony

I miss my bike…..

Hi everyone,

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, and quite a bit has happened….

The big things are that I moved to the Gold Coast and started a new job. I’m into my second week at the new job and I’m living at the northern end of the coast and life is going great. I’m only 10 minutes away from my boys, and am really happy with the way things are going, I’ve got the love and support of my family and great friends.

I have a 35 minute commute each day which is great fun on the bike…….but last Thursday when it was time to go home, the Vstrom decided it wasn’t going to help me make the journey home.

I got a few hundred meters from work and it started losing power, and twisting the throttle was doing nothing, and then the engine cut out and I pulled off the road to stop. What followed was several minutes of attempts to restart the beast, combined with many expletives about the bike….(and its mother!!!)…

So next option was to call the RACQ, and they soon sent a guy out who didn’t fill me with confidence……I don’t want to hear things like “maybe it’s seized”…..or ” I dunno?”

Eventually I convinced him to try and jump start it, which worked, then he checked to see if the battery was charging, which it was, but he thought perhaps the battery was stuffed……

And so I headed off with the engine running……and then a few hundred meters more……it died…..again!

This time I decided to push it back to the office, an idea that in theory seemed to make sense……in reality, pushing a 200+ kg bike 1.3km is a nightmare!

Eventually I made it back, and thankfully my boss was there to help me get it inside…..after pushing it that far I could barely get it up the 1.5 inch high step into the back door…..

Fast forward to Friday and I got a new battery….$139 later…. Ouch! And then Saturday I began an epic journey involving buses and lots of wasted time and got to the office, put the battery in, got the bike to fire up, rode out of the car park, headed down the road…….and guess what!!!!

By this time I was getting mildly annoyed…..and so i called for assistance, and the guy they sent this time informed me…”I know nothing about bikes…. ” and after listening to him waffle on, that fact was blatantly clear……

So I opted to get it towed to a mechanic, and that’s where it currently is.

And so I’m in the process of informing the powers that be at the NRMA/RACQ roadside assistance dept politely that they suck! I pay $100 a year for their services when I may or may not need them, and after the weekend, with the battery and bus fares, I spent close to $200 to get home with no bike…..not to mention the inconvenience and lost time with my family that resulted….I left home at 5:30am Saturday, and wasn’t home till late in the afternoon. The mechanic’s costs aren’t factored in yet…..so you may be right in thinking I’m not happy!!!

But looking at this a different way……everything happens for a reason, and although I’m not sure what that reason is yet, I’m sure I’ll look back on this episode of “Shit that went bad” and feel like I’ve learned something.

Have a great week, enjoy the road and stay safe,

Cheers,

Anthony

Helmet cam photos

I was up on the Gold Coast again last weekend and when I headed up, I put the Gopro on the helmet once more, selected 1-second photo mode……and ended up with about 4300 photos…..

I had a quick look through a lot of them, and here are some that I thought looked good…..

 

Part of the view on Teven Road west of Ballina.

 

Cruising along the Ballina Bypass

 

Back on the highway, and I noticed when I zoomed in on this one that I was on the phone to my sister….

 

 

iPhone 4S owners will see that I was using “Siri” in this shot to send a txt for me….

 

Heading through the tunnel under the Gold Coast Airport runway.

So there is 5 shots out of over 4000.  I didn’t see anything that was odd or weird or different….most are just like you see….helmet, bike and different scenery, but one day I’ll have a closer look and see what I’ve got.

So that’s it for today.  I hope that you have a great week.  Get out there and enjoy the road.

Cheers

Anthony

updated video editing software…..

I love my Mac……and I love making movies on my Mac.

Recently I upgraded my iMovie video editing software to the lastest 2011 version, and I have to say that it was definitely worth it for the new Trailers feature.

The following movie is a Trailer that I made for the Gold Coast hinterland ride that I did back in early October.

I’m looking forward to seeing what else I can come up with from some of the other footage that I’ve got.

Hope your week is going good.

Cheers

Anthony

 

Motorcyclists are awesome!

The title of this post says it all….whether its passing another rider on the road and getting a nod or a wave, getting comments on this blog, or being able to comment on other bike blogs…..

all of these things (for me) are part of being a member of a unique group of interesting, funny and amazing individuals whose passion is (and always will be) riding motorcycles.

Over the past 12 months or so I’ve come to know an amazing group of riders/bloggers who I would count as friends, and would love to have the opportunity to visit you in your part of the world some day……Special thanks and smiles go out to Geoff and Rachael, I would dearly love to visit NZ and NY in the future and swap stories……and ride your Triumphs!!   the comments that I’ve received from you both are greatly appreciated.

So that’s it from me today, enjoy your friday tomorrow and have an awesome weekend – and remember….you are a motorcyclist and you are special.

Cheers,

Anthony

 

Another week, more riding!

Over the weekend I headed up to the Gold Coast once again to see the boys and also catch up with a friend of mine.     It had been a couple of weeks since I’d seen the kids, so I was really looking forward to hanging out with them once again.

The week leading up to this had felt like a long one……I love my job, but there are times when sitting in an office watching a clock tick over in 6 minutes intervals can wear you down.    Especially when its a gorgeous day outside and I see and hear bikes riding past!

But I soldiered on, because the end of the week meant that I would be on the road, heading north.

Each time I catch up with the kids, they have lots of stories…….and just like Homer Simpson, “I like stories!”    And sitting down with them at the playground and hearing them talk about the things they have been doing is great.  I talk to them on the phone each week, but seeing their faces light up when they talk about the things that they enjoy is just so special.

And the other highlight of the weekend was catching up with a friend of mine from the Gold Coast.   There are times when people come into your life and they bring with them such an amazing, positive attitude, combined with a strength and character that is truly inspiring.

It was such a great weekend and I’m blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.

And so today for the ride to the office I had a go at running the Gopro in photo mode – on 1 second intervals, and mounted on the handlebars – to see what I might be able to come up with……the battery ran out a few minutes before I got to the office, but I did manage to get 1043 photos to choose from!   I took a bit of a detour around town via the beach, and so here’s a couple of them to give you a view of my commute to Maclean.

Getting ready to go…

Cruising the streets of Yamba….

Pippi Beach……we had a storm last night and the day started grey and a bit ugly.

 

Heading across Shallow Channel

Empty cane paddock at Palmers Island

The BP at Maclean.

So that’s just a sample of what I shot this morning, I’m looking forward to doing the same thing again with the helmet mount.

So I hope you all have a great week.  Get out there on the roads, ride safe and have some fun.

Cheers

Anthony

Pirelli Diablo Super Biker app

As you may know, I’m an Apple nut….and my iPhone is something that I can’t live without….it gets me up in the morning, it’s music can send me to sleep at night, its my link to the world…..and on Friday I got the newest version – the iPhone 4S.

But I’m not going to go on any more about how awesome it is…..but I am going to tell you about the Pirelli Diablo Super biker app that I used today for the ride to work.

And so what can it do?  

In honour of the Diablo family of Pirelli performance tyres, the super biker app allows you to measure your riding performance and record everything from your lean angle to your corner speed without having to use expensive equipment on your bike.

The app is free and uses the GPS tracking technology of the iPhone for immediate feedback on your rides.
 
You can see your best lap at the track or info about a road ride, then easily upload the data on Facebook, directly from the app…..which is something I’m not going to do today, because the data says I broke the speed limit……apparently

So if you have an iPhone and you ride a bike….this is a great tool.  It was wet today so my maximum lean angle wasn’t that great….but I can’t wait to see what I can get on a dry road!

Have a great day!!