| Author | Message | ||
     Danger_dave |
Maaaaan I had a good ride this afternoon. Perfect Ulysses conditions. Just had a few days when all the small things had been going wrong. If I turned the light on - the globe would blow. No dramas - just no matter what the odds - it was always going to land buttered side down. You get those runs. So then the old girl says 'I'd really like to catch up with Mary this afternoon' and 3 nanoseconds later I'm out the door. Nothin' wrong with Mary, but like Steve Winwood said, 'When you see a chance...' Dry Sunday after a few pretty wet days. I picked a direction rather than a destination and did 150 miles to the North of Auckland - 60 of it on hard packed, road base gravel that had washed smooth. There were a few easily avoided potholes and corrugations that the Uly suspension gobbled up - but apart from that it was just slippery enough to be enormously phat.  Only saw 2 other vehicles off the seal. I was using camera equipment about the size of a deck of cards.  So the first thing we do - point it into the sun, but the best views were to the west all day.   It's a little Olympus 7mpx - doesn't perform badly in good light (duh!). The road was outstanding, valley after valley. By now I'm feeling about as good as is legal.   Bike went superbly and I found it a joy in the conditions. Huge grins, a few mildly backed out entrys and exits and it went exactly where I wanted it to all day.  Temps around 14c, Tee shirt and double layer jacket, still in light gloves. Pretty place. We're only an hour from the CBD here.  Puhoi pub is the Bikers pub to the north of the City. Wide variety of motorcycles in attendance. The Barman even bought me my drink.  I went back home via the same road - it was that good. Few miles of twisty sealed road preceded the unsealed 30 miles. That's the beauty of the Uly. Doesn't matter what type of road. I made decent pace on all of it. I also like the way riding on the tar seal feels like you are riding on tracks - after you've done 50 miles on the gravel. Outstanding. Carved it right up.  F*** the light globes. (Message edited by danger_dave on July 13, 2008) | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Sweet shots, did you use a fisheye lens for the first one, or was it a stitched panoramic shot? | ||
| Danger_dave |
Stitched in photoshop. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
great shots. i see you put the windscreen back on and is that photoshop suite that you use for stitching. | ||
| Danger_dave |
CS2 photoshop. - 9.0.2 The screen was only off because the mounting hardware was on back order. Shop put the new one back on Friday. I'll paint it tomorrow. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
one day when i get motivated i got some picks of north carolina that i need to stitch together. very similar country to what your looking at over there in some cases. the niece made it back from there but detoured over to tonga for a spell to cap off her trip. has a ton of pics and all of it is really great to look at. | ||
| Hexangler |
Great Pix Dave! Never underestimate the power of a point and shoot camera with a master photographer behind it! Take a test spin on a Canon G9. I think they capture RAW as well as JPEG. RAW images might be better for high contrast situations. | ||
| Slowride |
Dave, Looking at doing the ALCAN with BDS and crew, you ride alot of on and off road. Do you switch your suspension setting between or do you keep it soft all the time or per manual all the time. Curious to know. | ||
| Djkaplan |
Heh... I forgot it's cold there this time of year. Looks like paradise. | ||
| Danger_dave |
>> Do you switch your suspension setting<< Slightly softer front than book, standard rear. Only mess with it for 2-up. For the FNQ ride the techs softened damping half a turn and let 8lbs out of both tyres for teh long dirt sections. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Damnit man, one of these years I am going to have to come south the Winter over, nice bunch of roads down there. |
