North Island 2025 time coming up and a week out the weather is not looking too good. Here is hoping I don’t have to put my new BMW rain gear in action.
This will be the first planned ride of my new BMW R1300GS Adventure ASA model since I got it last month. Have already put 3,000km on it just putting around.
To get ready I grabbed my GoPro 11 to set up on the new bike, and it took forever to get the battery to start charging properly. Thought I was going to out of luck but eventually it started working. I can now plug it into the Chigee T100 I brought which will supply power to it. I also grabbed my Nikon Z5 to check it was still in good order and noticed the cable to the GPS unit was bent. Tried to straighten it and yep it broke. Tried to get a new cable but Nikon no longer make them. Will have to get a whole GPS unit off eBay second hand to get it working again. Grumble grumble.
All set and ready to go and waited for Friday for the reveal and the route. Checked it over, printed things out and popped the route and POIs into my new Garmin XT2 using Basecamp. I plan the route out in Basecamp and when happy I select all the routes, tracks and POIs manually in the list and export them to a GPX file. I then email that GPX file to myself and open the gpx file on my iPhone. I then send that via the icon in the bottom left to the Garmin Tread app on my phone. Once there I check all the data has come over and then turn on the XT2. Let it do its sync and then check that out. It is very quick to do. Can do it via a USB cable to the GPS but Basecamp whinges about this about the collections. It still works but then you still have to import everything.
Saturday morning and got up 10 minutes before my 4am alarm. Had breakfast and made sure I had everything I needed and left home about 4:30am. No rain but still plenty of wind. The wind was going to be there all day and very strong over the Napier-Taihape Road.
Arrived in Ohakune at about 7:05am, checked in and got my riders card and got my bike checked. Being brand new there should be nothing wrong. Then over to park up and wait for the 8:30 briefing so I went and had a walk around.
Briefing done and then it was time to start the GoPro 11. This was going to fail very quickly though, and I have been having all sorts of issues with it. Not sure if it is the camera or the battery but it is on external power so should stay running. I have since brought a new GoPro Hero 13. My plan was to stick to 110kph on the cruise control, which is about 108kph actual. Only saw two actual cops and detected one but never saw it. First one was in Owhango. Radar picked him up early. Next one detected was in Dannevirke but I never saw him at all. Last one was just after I left to go home in Ohakune. He had his lights on chasing down a car.
I started in the second group and was away at 9:03am with the GPS was showing that I should be back in Ohakune at 19:45. Heading west for SH4 and Taumarunui where I intended to top off the bike. The big 30 litre tank should easy get 550-600km so really only needed one fill, but I intended to refuel in Wanganui where the petrol is cheaper than most places. Still no rain and filled the bike. Quite expensive here though.
Then onto SH43, The Forgotten Highway. Has now been fully sealed but still not in great shape. Also, it started raining and this was the first time using the Anakee Adventure (80/20 Road/Offroad) tires in the wet. They were not the greatest and could feel them slipping around quite a bit so was taking it easy. That was until the Moki tunnel. I was following another rider in and as we went in my lights went to nighttime mode so the Denali lights turned off and I lost a lot of visibility. Was doing about 10kph and could see bikes stopped ahead. Next thing I know the front wheel starts to slide to the right. I corrected but before I knew it the back came around, and I was laying on the muddy clay floor of the tunnel with my left foot trapped under the bike. Managed to get it out and tried to lift the bike back up but floor was slippery under foot as well. Many thanks to the following rider who gave me a hand to pick it up as we had to move it forward as the topbox would have gone in the wall. No photo as I was holding quite a few riders up. Restarted the bike and got out of the tunnel. I am hoping I was the only one, but I don’t think I was given the state of the floor. It is normally quite dry in the tunnels but not this time. GPS was now saying 20:00 for an arrival time.
My GoPro died shortly before Whangamomona, which was the first photo stop. Checked the bike over and apart from the left mirror, which had been pushed back, there was no visible damage. They are designed to take that sort of thing. Anyway, used the supplied spanner to put the mirror back and all good. Found later at home a small scrape on the crash bar where it landed. Can’t see it unless you rub your hand over it. Took the photo and it was off to the next stop at Opunake.
Had one more hairy moment just before Douglas when taking a milk right hand corner and hitting slick tar in the middle. Both front and back washed out and I stood the bike back up as it gripped and just kept it on the tar seal.
Took the photo outside Allied Opunake and off to the next stop. However, as I was going past home in Manaia I decided to quickly stop and try and clean some of the dirt off jacket and pants. Think I just smeared it a bit more though as everything was still wet. At least it had stopped raining. Carried on down SH3 to Kai-iwi and turned right over the bridge to get to Bason Botanic Gardens. Fun fact! Will be down here again at the end of the month for the BMW GS Rallye which is being held at Kai-iwi. Photo taken and off to refuel in Wanganui. Had used just over ½ a tank at this point.
Next photo was at the old diner in Halcombe. My GPS decided it wanted to go another route, but the track was visible, so I just followed the track making the GPS recalculate each time. The photo says it was closed but it was certainly open today.
Next was a photo of Tuia Te Tanata. I had to put a heap of shaping points to get the GPS to route this one properly. Another rider asked if he could follow me as he was missing this checkpoint. All went fine until I cam to the checkpoint I thought it was, but it was actually one of my shaping points I forgot to change to a via point. Then soon after this I must have put a via point in a place in shouldn’t have been and it wanted me to go back to it. I carried on as I now knew the checkpoint was on the new highway. Got there and took the photo and restarted my GPS route to the next checkpoint of Trinity Hills Wines sign. Was starting to claw back some time and GPS was slowly coming back towards a 19:00 arrival.
This was 137kms away and while it was very warm at 29 degrees and mainly sunny, the wind was blowing a gale and was sapping energy fighting it. The seat on the R1300GSA was not the most comfortable either and started to take its toll. Arrived anyway and took the last checkpoint photo.
On the home stretch now and only the Napier-Taihape road to cross and the rest was easy. Not as enjoyable as normal as the wind was horrendous and was getting sore hands a bit. Was using cruise control as much as possible but it doesn’t work for all those corners. However, everything ends and finally back on SH1 and into Waiouru. I planned to top off again here so I didn’t need to stop on the way home. Checked the distance and thought I might be short of the 800km but it was going to be close. Turned onto SH49 heading Ohakune and of course the rain started again.
Finally, back at Kings and took the photo of my ODO and headed on up and checked in to the finish looking wet and dirty. After the check went and got a Chicken burger and chips along with a shot of insulin and dried out a bit.
Time to go home, so I went and put my rain jacket on as that would keep the rain away. Sure enough, by the time I hit Raetihi it had stopped, and I had a dry run down the ParaPara’s. Brisk ride the rest of the way home and that was the North Island 800 done for another year.
Some stats from my bike computer. I travelled 807.4km taking 9:15 riding time with an average speed of 92kph and consumed 5.6l/100km of fuel. Break time said 2:05 but most of that was waiting for the start. Actual break time would have been 45 minutes. These were stops to take photos and refuel.
Thanks to the organisers for the ride and the person who helped me right my bike in the tunnel. All much appreciated.
