Decided to enter the BMW GS Rallye for 2025. One because I have a new BMW R1300GS Adventure and two because it is being held in Kai-Iwi which is reasonably close to home.
The fee was quite expensive, but it does include two breakfasts and two dinners. Communication was okay and about two weeks out, got an email stating routes in information would be sent out on the evening of the 28th of October. There were three options. One was normal roads, two was normal plus gravel roads, and three was normal, gravel, plus some adventure riding if you had the tires for it. I decided on just road seeing as the R1300GSA is new and I have not had much time on it yet.
Route arrived on the 29th and I imported the tracks into Basecamp. I then made a route out of the track and put in shaping points to make it conform to the actual route. All good until I transferred it to the GPS. The tracks and the 4 check points transferred okay. The after-lunch route transferred okay. However, the start to lunch one had issues. Was okay in Basecamp and had no issues in Tread app. It synced to the XT2 okay but the XT2 kept saying it could not calculate route. Tried several times with different shaping points, turned off avoidances, and changed to quickest route and no good. Will just have to work off the track and hope I don’t miss a turn. Later I decided to try again and managed to route just over ½ of it before it started having issues. So, at least I will be on track for at least ½ of the ride.
Note after the event: There must have been some kind of road event on that week and had many of the roads closed. That’s why Garmin couldn’t find a route as it thought they were still closed.
The ride itself started at 4pm on Friday 31st October. I left home about 2:30pm and headed off to Wanganui to refuel as it is much cheaper down there and then headed back to Kai-Iwi to register. Arrived just after 4pm and there were already quite a number of bikes there. I parked up and went inside to register that I had arrived and was handed a very nice little bag with a few goodies inside which included my number sticker which had to go on the front of the bike.
Then it was wait around until dinner was served. While waiting I had a chat to a few guys about the event. Dinner was a buffet meal and was very nice. Shame they did not have drinks available to go with it.
After dinner it was time for me to head home. Being only 90kms away I decided to do it that way and arrived home about 9pm. Got the final bits sorted and went to bed with the alarm set for 5:20am.
As usual, I beat the alarm and was up at 5:10am. Made sure I had my insulin and meter packed on the bike and was away at 5:30am as breakfast was at 7am. Straight away I could see my Denali lights were not working properly and only the centre row were on. There are two circuits in the light with the centre three on one and the other the other four on the other circuit. It was getting light so decided to wait and see. Arrived at 6:40am and lights still had not come back on even with the mode change from night to day. Had a quick check of the wiring and it looked okay.
Went in and breakfast was already up. You could have cooked or continental both being buffet style again. I took the cooked with Scrambled eggs, bacon, potato pom poms, and orange juice. Only thing missing was the toast, but they said they were having technical issues with the toaster, so I decided not to wait. It was very nice.
After that I checked the Denali manual online and found that the two circuits could be turned off separately. I went and gave three clicks on the indicator cancel button and the lights burst into life. Not sure how they got the 3 clicks to turn them off as they were working on the way home.
Briefing was at 8:45am and the seal guys (that me) got an extra brief in that the route had changed, and we were to go to Polama gardens which was not on our route. They said a van would be there to direct us on the corner.
The seal riders left last as they had a shorter route, but we got under way just after 9am. Heading back to Kai-Iwi and then a right turn towards Bushy Park. This route took us through the back roads and towards Wanganui and was reasonably short. We did get held up on a one-way bridge as the unsealed riders came from the other direction. My first stop was in Wanganui again for fuel. Should have been okay but 20 cents/litre is a big difference.
Then up SH4 to turn right onto Kaimartira road, taking that to the Number 2 Line. Just after Fordell we turned left and up to Paloma Gardens for a short stop. There is a lovely motorcycle display here with lots of older bikes. Was very nice. I was starting to get hot so decided to carry on with the rest of the ride. Turning right and taking that road to Turakina Valley Road and taking that. Crossed over SH1 a couple of times and ending up on SH54. The GPS was telling me that the road was closed and it had been the day before. There were signs about an event. There was also one road still actually closed but we did not take that one.
Took SH54 back to SH1 and turn right for a short distance. Then one more back road before coming back to SH1 and into Hunterville. The Hunterville Shemozzle was on and the town was pretty packed out. Had a quick look around before starting my return leg.
A quick back road out of Hunterville and back onto SH1 heading towards Hunterville again before turning left onto Oldworth road. From here it was a straight run back into Wanganui. I stopped here looking for a paper and then went to Burgerking for a late lunch.
After this back to refuel for the last time and then back to Kai-Iwi to finish. I was quite early but there were about 6 others before me. Signed in and got my 2 free beer tickets.
Dinner was at 6:30pm and again a Buffet dinner. Very nice. I did not wait for the awards after and headed home. There was a free breakfast the next morning but 180km just for breakfast was a bit much so did not take that.
It was a great ride and maybe next year if I take it I will do the gravel section.
Thanks to the organisers for a great event.
New GroPro 13 working great. When I cleaned the lens there were dozens of sandflies on the lens but it does not show at all.