October And November "Stuff"

 I'm playing catch up here on the blog again and I am just trying to remember what went on in the above mentioned months. I do recall though that I spent a lot of money!

Radiator guards and a bash plate turned up for the SWM RS500.

Bash plate installed.

Need to move the horn for the radiator guards. Luckily I had the 300 there for reference.

I had a problem with the rad guard cross brace as I just couldn't get it to fit. perhaps I should take the tank off? Nah, there is something not right as the brace is asymmetrical and it doesn't need to be.

The keen eyed reader might see that the enclosed instructions are for a 2017 model, not the 2023 that I have......hmmm, nothing on the outer packaging says anything about being for a 2017. Contacting Force Accessories via email, they were absolutely no help at all. The guards seemed pretty sturdy so I decided not to worry about the cross brace for the time being. It was too hot working in the sun this morning to mess around any longer!

Job done (for now).

Will and I got out for a ride in the Glasshouse Mountains pine forests the following weekend. We found heaps of flowing, sandy single track and had hours of fun as it wasn't too hot.

I had a dumb fall at the end of the day where Will was leading us down a steep rutted track and I was thinking "NOOO, don't go down there". At the first flatter bit he was stopped and as I stopped to say "lets go back to the car" the front washed out suddenly and I was on the ground before I knew what happened! I was doing all of 10km/h but standing on the pegs so landed heavily on my right shoulder/side. This is the first crash I've had on the dirt in a few years (I haven't even been off my mtb in that long) so it was a bit of a shock how fast it happened. To be honest I was pissed off at myself for such a nothing spill after how we had just spent the last few hours! At least I wasn't injured.

Continuing on the spending them I lashed out for some decent ADV boots in early November. I found some Alpine Stars Tech 7s at a reasonable price so I jumped on them. I still haven't actually worn them yet as I haven't done a decent moto ride but they seem very comfortable wandering around the house. I went with the waterproof Drystar versions even though many internet reviews said they cook your feet in a hot climate. My take on that is that 1. lots of people on the internet are sooks and 2. I would rather dry warm feet in winter and am willing to put up with the heat in summer. I mean, I live in Australia - we are born into dealing with heat but cold? No thanks!

While we are talking Alpine Stars, I have been toying with the idea of purchasing a Tech Air 5 airbag vest. Pushing this thought is the fact that I am getting older, won't bounce as well into the future and I need to buy a new ventilated jacket as Will seems to have taken possession of mine. This will also see me needing to buy some new leathers as the Tech Air 5 needs room to expand if it is deployed and there is certainly zero room in my 30 year old Rivet leathers! 

The main draw back on purchasing has been the price - $1100 Australian. So, after procrastinating for several months I noted a second hand, "as new", one come up for sale on a FB Marketplace advert. I offered about half the new price and the guy reluctantly took it after a few days. I have only worn it a couple of times and it does add to the heat discomfort at this time of year but hopefully a new ventilated jacket will help on that front. Lets hope I don't get to test it's functionality any time soon!

The biggest expense of all though was my new car! After three years without a car and waiting for 13 months for this one to arrive, it was finally time to pick it up!

Normally the car would have been delivered to me with the options I had selected, namely a towbar and bullbar. The pandemic has thrown many things into disarray and the leasing company seems to be one of them. I needed a towbar by the following week as we had to head down to Dad's place and pick up his old car. We had sold the house and it was settling the following week!

I did need to park it up at the pub and just look at it for a while. I didn't realise how much I missed having a Prado (or any car for that matter). I have a bunch of other mods to complete so as to get it to the spec I had on my old Prado. Drinking beer while looking over the car is part of that thought process.

Don't drink and drive kids....!

So, I got the Toyota dealer to throw a towbar on at the 1000km service (which took me 4 days to put that distance on the car) and then Will and I headed for Central West NSW for one final trip to "Mum and Dad's". It was handy having a co-driver for a change!

On the way we pickled up another low kilometre, second hand dirt bike - this time for Lucy. The bloke we bought it from in Bathurst was an absolute champion and the bike is immaculate. So, we now have a smoker in the stable, a Beta 300 Xtrainer

We stopped off at a mate's place near Orange on the way from Bathurst to Forbes as he has his trailer and car there to bring his KTM1090 home to Brisbane. He kindly offered to bring the Beta home for me as it wouldn't fit on the trailer with a car loaded as well. But not before we gave it a rip around his farm and had shot a few cans off some logs. Ahhh, I miss country life!

I think Will would have loved growing up in the bush.

Then it was on to "home" to pick up Dad's old Falcon. He bought this car in 1975 and it was our family car growing up. Dad drove it every day until he retired, when he bought a new Corolla for he and Mum. The Ford was simply driven into the carport in the backyard and that is where she has sat since 2005.

We got her loaded up and said one last goodbye to our childhood home. It was a sad day and I was glad Steve and Will were there for it. 

We headed for Brisbane late in the afternoon. Initially thinking we might stay in Dunedoo we decided to harden up and press on. We had two drivers after all! Filling up in Dubbo we did just that.

With just a short stop at about 2:30am to close our eyes for an hour, we were home at about 0930 the following morning. 

It has been as dry as a chip all year here in Brisbane and the countryside, as well as my lawn, was starting to look very depressing. 

My yard was withering away and what little greenery I had left was being devoured by the local wildlife.

But a succession of thunderstorms in the past few weeks has restored a tinge of green to the place, thankfully. 

Mud even replaced the dust for a few days out on our local mountain bike trails.

Well, that was a bit of a rambling post but I think I am pretty close to being caught up on happenings in the latter stage of 2023. There is certainly not much left of it but lets see what we can pack in, eh?

Cheers.