Service time.
It was time to do the 30,000km service on my bike and being a BMW and under warranty meant I had to take it over to Tauranga for a service. A ride of about 4.5 hours each way. Had been watching the weather and it was suppose to rain so was not looking forward to it.
Left home at 4am and looked up to find stars in the sky. Decided not to put the rain suit on (silly me). Was soon powering my way up towards Mount Egmont and along the road to Stratford. Seems they have been resealing the road and forgot to put some signs out. Not sure why but they seem to always do this on corners and was soon trying hard to slow down with the back fish tailing all over the place. Shortly after the heavens opened up and I pulled over in Stratford to put the rain suit on. It was crappy weather till about Te Kuiti and then dried up.
Got into Tauranga about 8:40pm and dropped the bike in for the service. Did a heap of window shopping for 2 hours and then went to pick up the bike. No issues with the service except they could not get the right pannier open. Not sure why as I took off the electric lock and it opened fine. Good as well because my puncture gear was in there.
Weather was still holding so left to go home and second time over the Kaimai ranges. Had a sign both sides saying slippery but it wasn’t and had speed restriction signs flashing 80k’s for a bit then 60k’s. Another nice road killed. Actually the 60k was dangerous because there where quite windy spots and at slow speed was getting blown across the road so sped up some. Was raining a bit over the ranges but went away again. Then just before Awakino gorge it really started to hammer down. Was stopping at Mokau for a feed so decided not to stop and put the suit on and by the time I got to Mokau the outside layer of the textiles was saturated and dripping water everywhere.
Had a feed and put the rain suit back on and carried on the last bit to get home. Continuous rain from Mokau to home. The new Metzeler Z8’s handled the wet well with only once letting go under acceleration during a overtake.