Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave

On the last Saturday of the month, we went for a nice ride. Down to Waimauku Food Station to eat pancakes, up the back way to Simon's parent's Orewa Beach house, then over to Albany Mega Centre via the Motorway for some shopping, then back towards home. Around...120kms. Whew! All in a day's ride :)

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Magnetos Annual Ride - Sat 15/11

On Saturday, 15 Nov, we set off from home at 1230 and returned around 9pm and 160 or so kms later. The reason? The Annual Magnetos Scooter Club ride! What a blast. We joined 60+ other scooters for a ride through central Auckland and then along the harbour to a BBQ. We went first to Ponsonby for lunch and a bit of a shop then met the club at Scooter eMotion on Ruru St at 4pm. The ride commenced about 430pm once everyone had gathered and had been given instruction. We arrived to the final destination at Kohimarama beach around 530pm. Here are some of our favorite photos from the day.

Simon's bike with the Magnetos Annual Ride Sticker

Leader Bike

The DMW - a classic British scoot from the '60s

The NSU Prima - German bike from the mid '50s with really cool white seats that are blocked by the helmet in this pic :(

The ride leader explaining the route

Scoots lined up under the Harbour Bridge at the other Shelley Beach

The rest of the line up at Shelley Beach

Upper Queen St.

The corner of Queen St and Mayoral Dr.

Right in downtown Auckland on Queen St near Whitcoul's bookstore

At Britomart Place

The Deemster at a light on Quay St

Scoots stopping midway through the ride at Mechanics Bay - about 65 scoots on the ride!

Tamaki Drive

Yes, he is riding without any hands taking photos!

The trickster again taking a photo of Angelle taking a photo of him; this time over his shoulder with no hand on the throttle

Mission Bay

BBQ post ride at Kohimarama

Parked on the grass verge at Kohimarama

"Vesparate Housewives"

Just the two of us before taking off to get sushi and make the long ride home

Our favorite bike of the day was this rat bike with the mud flaps reading "Manic Mutha"

Playing Catch Up

Last Saturday we had a wonderful day. We went for a flight to Whangerei and had a pie and then came home and went out scooting. The weather was great and we had all the time in the world. It's not often there is no training on at the airfield on a Saturday morning or that we have absolutely no other commitments or plans and can spend an entire day pottering around enjoying the countryside.

Simon is a pilot of microlight aircraft and working on his instructor rating, so he needs to fly as much as possible. Although we had no specific goal in mind for our arrival at Whangerei and could have gotten a much better pie elsewhere, we went for it.

Simon re-fueling the plane in our "back yard"

Pie in Whangerei

Funny signs in the cafe at the Whangerei Airport.

Graffiti "SL <3 4 AL"

As you can see, we certainly weren't the first to leave our mark.

Ready for take-off towards home.

Pre-flight run-ups

Instrument panel

Scenery on take-off

So, after the flight, we got the scooters out of the garage and went for a burn. Again, no specific agenda which is usually the best way. We took the back road from Helensville down past Waimauku and on to the Riverhead area where we stopped at Hallertau Brewery for a pint. We were responsible and had only one and some chips alongside as well. In the past, Hallertau has been a dinner destination for us, so it was nice to sit out on their patio and see it in another light.

Out in front of Hallertau

After our brew, we went to Coatsville and stopped at this store.

We saw another scooter out with a larger motorbike and snapped a photo.

And we shared a thickshake.

The Longest Drink in Town cup our thickshake came in :)

Scenic Saturday

Off we went again for brunch at the Waimauku Food Station. The thought of the blueberry pancakes with cream and Texan omlette breakfast was enough to get us out of bed early-ish this Saturday morning.

Blueberry pancakes with cream.

Texan omlette with vegetable mash and bacon rashers.

We decided this time to take the back road from behind Helensville through what is known as the Kumeu Valley. Such a lovely ride in comparison to the highway we took last time. Some of the scenery is so amazing, you have to make an effort to ignore it and focus on the road. In order that we didn't miss anything, we made several stops along the way. The Kumeu Valley is a known wine-producing region and we made a stop near some of the vines to take the following photos.

The road also boasts a sweeping view of the Kaipara Harbour and Helensville. Here are two photos of the scene with the two of us acting like fools...


Sorry, no map this time as google maps is very slow today!

Faux pod mod

We love the look of the side pods on our classic Vespas and decided to create this look on our ET8s. Angelle had done a similar mod to this on her Yamaha Vino 125 in Canada a couple years ago using chrome autobody trim. We weren't able to find any of the same product she used back then, but decided pinstriping would work to create the desired effect.

The big decision was what colour and width of pin striping to choose? We wanted something that would suit both our scoots and wouldn't be overly ostentatious.
Angelle pondered over 3 different choices for the pinstriping as Simon spent time browsing the other auto accessories.

We decided fuzzy dice wouldn't really work on the scooters even if they are super cool.

In the end, we chose 6mm chrome finish pinstriping to create the faux pods on our scoots.

Before applying the pinstriping, it was inspected for flaws.

Simon was really keen to get going on modding JC out, so he washed and dried the scooter thoroughly.

The pinstriping needs to be carefully applied along the contour of the bike where you'd like the pod to stand out.

Extreme concentration is required at this stage to make sure the pinstriping is smooth and straight.

We found a heat gun and heat resistant spatula were very good in helping to smooth around the sharp curves at the front of the pod.


The look from the front of the pod.

And this is how we finished off the back.

Of course, this procedure was repeated on the other side of the bike and other bits and bobs were added for an overall classy effect.