Thursday was the day we rode from Oxford
to Fairlie. From experience I can tell you it’s
not all that ‘fair’ if you shoot down the main
highway, so we took a long cut through
another farm, which made for a much more
exciting ride. Here we had some sights and
riding that you just can’t see anywhere else.
My new Michelin adventure tyres were
going well on the variety of surfaces we
were riding on.
Arriving in Fairlie in the early afternoon
gave us plenty of time for unloading
luggage and doing our wheel/tyre changes
before the event dinner and sign on. Even
this had its own entertainment factor;
watching people do work and change tyres
96 KIWI RIDER
while I simply slipped in my new rims with
the new tyres already fitted. That was my
pre-’race’ check over and done with.
Heading down for sign-on and dinner and
meeting up with everyone else who is doing
the ride always makes for a fun evening -
seeing the faces of riders who have done
the event many times through to the Dusty
Virgins not sure what they were letting
themselves in for. There was the added
bonus that it had started to rain and there
was more forecast for the next few days. It
was looking to be wet, with possible snow
in high places. After riding down in 30°C in
my vented jacket, it was looking like it’d be
a bit of a shock to the system.