patches

Was pretty watchable. We did watch concurrently The Witcher, which does overshadow it by contrast. But still worth a watch.

Great pics! Looks like you got really close! I've only been to/through Kaikoura twice. Once pre-quake and once post. That drive in is pretty awesome (although not for the easily car-sick). Did you try some of the seafood whilst there?

Back in the office and procrastinating clearing my inbox, so I'd rather reminisce over the fleeting December break... This road-trip took roughly this route Christchurch > Dunedin > Riverton > Doubtful Sound > Queenstown > Christchurch Aaand some snaps... Old timey street in Oamaru Nugget Point (the Catlans) Random shop in Invercargill Dropping down towards Doubtful Sound (after ferry and bus ride) Cruising out on the sound (technically a fjord, but ya know) Kayaking in my socks Cant go past Lake Pukaki on a clear day and not stop for a pic! The entrance to Lyttelton harbour as seen from the Godley Head loop track. (FYI London Street Lyttelton is a pretty cool Saturday morning out). aaand the Christchurch Wizard's parking spot All-in-all, great holiday! Spent a fair amount of it in Christchurch. The city has transformed a lot since I lived there, we really enjoyed it... still working on convincing the wife to move 😅

After residing on my wish list for a while, but being almost impossible to find locally, I finally found and purchased a "Scott Brown hammer" Vaughan Dalluge 16Oz Titanium Framing Hammer. So far I've only used it for knocking some loose decking nails back into place, as well as tapping some drawer bottoms into dados (with a wood block to protect the drawer pieces of course. 16Oz is pretty light for a framing hammer. Most are 20-24Oz. The lighter head and simplistic handle makes it kinda versatile. One can choke up on it and use it for finer/finishing work. Or take advantage of the handles length and drive home framing nails with power. For a pro-sumer like myself though... I just like the "vintage ice climbing pick" look.

Well, Makita does make one, but its probably not available in most adult stores

Been squeezing in a different type of "woodwork"... this time a concrete form for the concreeeete counter-top (patent pending). Finally got to use the 3m rail to quickly knock up a simple box out of formply Then said form was placed onto the outdoor dining table (flattest, most level surface I could find), with a stern warning from my better half that the table better not be damaged. The plan was to mix up about 100kg of multi-crete in a big plastic tub, 20kg batches at a time. (pretty tiring!) spray the form with silicone as a releasing agent and hopefully the un-boxing will go smoothly. scoop in about 3/5 batches into the form, leveling out between and tapping the edges between each batch to release bubbles add reinforcement, in the form of 5mm mesh at 100mm centres (I didn't feel like using seats or convoluted suspending wires etc) fill in the remaining 2 batches, once again vibrating/tapping the form screed off the top gently float with a trowel cover with the tarp then wait! Although I do have delicate office-job hands, the hands in this picture are of the wife loading in the first spade-fulls of concrete mix. Filled, reinforced, screeded and some dodgy trowel-work. Fortunately this will be the underside of the counter-top and the top should (in theory) be smooth from the formply. After a couple of days it was time for the big reveal! (the underside) (the top side) Despite all my tapping (probably about 1hr total), there were still numerous voids caused by bubbles. Next time I may deviate from the concrete mixture directions (as I don't need the full 28 MPa strength) and water it down a little more. This mix only required 2L water per 20kg. I could go full slump test (which takes me back to university material science class, the last time I actually paid attention to concrete, haha) So to fix the voids, I made a slurry and worked it into the gaps. It was messy work, but it came out alright Then half a dozen coats of sealer... Free-handing some sketchy drip-grooves on the underside with the angle-grinder and a tile-cutting disk And finally, lifting the 100kg slap into place... All in all, and considering I have not mixed concrete since uni experiments 13 years ago, I think this turned out pretty well. Now I need to finish off the actual woodwork on this cabinet!

Do it! A number of places to rent Katooms from, then there's annual KTM Adventure Rally, and while you're at it, throw in a course (or private lesson) with the king of Katoom adventure bikes, Mr Chris Birch https://www.chrisbirch.co.nz/coaching/2015/9/10/adventure-coaching-clinic

Pester away! Hopefully the January 16th date for opening up a little more with Aus will hold. I've heard from an Aussie or 2 that fly fishing on the South Island is world class. I can also have a colleague that spent 3 months fly-fishing all over the South Island. He should have some good info.

Yeah, we we reinstated an existing manual door closer whilst waiting for the spindles on an automatically actuated one, so existing fasteners and hardware were used. And yeah, the guys have been pulling crazy hours. But yeah, a box of torx self tappers could have saved the day. Anyway, enough about doors... back onto bikes (and even Hairy-esque)... A couple of Kea's sitting on a Fat Boy overlooking the Southern Alps. (Kea's are the worlds only Alpine Parrot. Extremely smart, but naughty buggers. They like stealing the rubber linings from car windscreens etc. No doubt they're plotting something with that Harley).

Aaah, the old slotted screws... in brass... 'tis a brave man/woman that attempts to firmly tighten those. *side note regarding fasteners: this past weekend we were commissioning 2 negative pressure paediatric ICU rooms. After having rapidly (4 weeks) building CDC grade HEPA filtered air extract plant rooms, all the engineering, construction, controls programming, blood, sweat and tears involved, it was 2 stupid little screws on a door closer that nearly did us in. If the door doesn't close properly, the room doesn't seal and can't achieve negative pressure. and the 2 silly little phillips screws fastening the closer to the frame had stripped heads so we couldn't reposition the closer arm. TWO EFFING SCREWS!

You'll have to upgrade to one of those family sized tens with the various rooms... just for the next 5 or so years, then the kids can be in their own tent and you can dust off the 2x2m My dirt-bike adventure tent only weight 1.8kg, but is like a coffin. I basiclly end up spooning my backpack and boots. Then we have the "car-camping" tent which is a monstrous overkill, with separate rooms etc, but it takes up most of the car boot, and I don't think it's worth pitching for anything less than 3 days. So the middle-ground is a Quechua pop-up tent from Decathlon. So quick to put up (2 seconds according to the name. Realistically about 3min including pegs). Pretty spacious (2.85m x 2.3m, but may still be a little tight for a family of 4), and it has a black-out/reflective coating, so stays cooler in the heat, and doesn't wake light-sensitive sleepers up at the crack of dawn. Only downside is it's odd shape. Can highly recommend though! https://www.decathlon.com/collections/camping-tents/products/camping-tent-2-seconds-3-person-fresh-and-dark?variant=39370553557054 The tribe has spoken! I'm sure many memorable summer memories will be had in said spa-pool! One of the things I'm really looking forward to (weather dependant) is an overnight cruise in Doubtful Sound. I've done Milford Sound a couple of times (never had brilliant weather though), but I believe Doubtful Sound is supposed to be better... just harder to access... or maybe people just say it's better to justify the hassle of accessing it.

Love how the Herald makes this seem like some form of refugee exodus Isn't this the scene nearly every year?! Aucklanders are like the Vaalies of NZ... only difference being is that Vaalies are landlocked so their obsession with the seaside is understandable 😅 *said as both an ex-Vaalie and a current Aucklander* But anyway, who here is planning their escape from Aukkies this holiday season? It's South Island for us! Fly to Chch then road trip our way down to Fjordland and Southland.

Sure! I'll be going away in a little over a week. If you could "acquire" my Husky FE350 enduro bike, you'd be doing me a great service... ...I've been meaning to sell the damn thing, but get lethargic every time I think about the schlep to get it road registered again.

I live in a house without a front gate. I often forget to lock the car (which parks in the driveway) or sometimes even the front door. Once (while away over a long weekend) some contractors forgot to close my garage properly when leaving the property, exposing it and it's contents (bicycles, dirt bikes, tools etc) to the street and any passers by for 3 days. To date I have not had any incidents *touch wood*... BUT like many ex-pats on here have said, bike-crime seems to be somewhat "acceptable" (or at least tolerated) in even the most law-abiding countries. One often sees "STOLEN" posts on the New Zealand MTB sales pages. I'm note sure why this mentality exists? Is bicycle crime a little more "innocent" in the criminal's eyes? I'd bet that most bike thieves here would not steal a car, but in NZ many cyclists have bikes worth more than their cars, so value cannot be the justification. Maybe the punishment doesn't quite match the crime? Who knows?!

Just over 2 weeks until Dakar kicks off. Gonna be interesting to see if KTM can get top spot again after honda marred their 18yr record with 2 back-to-back wins. They have a strong team with Mathias and Toby, plus bribing over last years winner Kevin Benavides to ride for the big-money team. I'm also intrigued to see how Sam Sunderland goes on the GasGas (essentially a KTM), as he leads that team. Wonder how Pablo Quintanilla is going to do on the red machines. I was bummeb when he parted Husky and I was so hoping he'd take a win with them, one of these years. But yeah, such is life!

I run the Tubliss system on my Huskies and its great! For those who don't know, it's similar to Schwalbe's Procore system with a high pressure bead-lock chamber and a low pressure outer chamber. Now as bigger adventure bikes typically don't run 21F/18R wheel sizes, the full Tubliss system may not be an option... ...however, when installing the system, one is required to seal up the spoke holes on the rim with the provided tape and specified methodology. This tape is available on its own, so may be a good bet for the conversion you're thinking of. Just bear in mind that without a beadlock system (like Rimlock or Tubliss) low pressures may have the tyre shifting round the rim. https://www.acesports.co.za/collections/tubliss/products/nuetech-tubliss-rim-tape https://www.acesports.co.za/collections/tubliss

Yeah, non-KTM & Husky factory teams like to produce bikes solely for their sponsored riders. KTM and Husky seem to be about the only ones where anyone (with enough money) can jump onto the list and if they're lucky enough, can snap up one of the 70-odd bikes released each yeah. Heck if Honda, Yamaha and heck, even Hero sold rally replicas, I'd be keen. Here's the factory Hero rally bike... and this is the closest to it one can get from their production line... pretty far stretch! At least the Honda CRF450 and Yamaha WR450F form the rough basis of their rally bikes. As for the weight, that's an interesting one, because they're not as heavy as one would think. A KTM450 Rally Replica is just under 140kg dry (so lighter than a Honda CRF 300 Rally. The Honda 450 Rally is around 180kg wet (so 150-ish dry), and the Yamaha tips the scales at 142kg dry... all of which are not too bad in my books. It's the 30+ litres of fuel that are killer. Yeah good point, I didn't take into account the seat height, and some people's struggle with the tall enduro bikes. As for seat options, there is the Seat Concepts Low Comfort option for Huskies. That's drop the height by about 15mm. I run the regular Seat Concepts comfort on my 450 and love it! So much more comfortable than the OEM. I bought the kit and used the OEM pan and just re-foamed and upholstered myself. Took about 45min.

I've always liked the look of the Honda 250 (and now 300) rally. However the part that has always put me off is that the "go" doesn't match the "show". (both on paper and from reviews I've watched or read, they're a little pap). eg. (not apples and apples comparison, but it's my point of reference) Honda CRF300 Rally: 130kW/tonne My 2015 Husky FE350 with Long Range Tank & Rally Kit: 264kW/tonne My 2016 Husky FE450 with same setup as above: 300kW/tonne So even a rally kitted Husky FE250 would have around a 70% increase in power-to-weight over the Honda CRF300 Rally. I know for Itchy, touring and longevity are the aim but Adam Reiman and Aaron Steinmann have both proven that a KTM 500 EXC-F is a pretty reliable machine (Steinmann doing over 140,000km on his in just 3 years), and would weight less and has more than double the power of the CRF Rally. So maybe it's a question of budget... but then in the grand scheme of things, a few thousand extra on a better bike for an intercontinental motorcycle adventure is easily justifiable and almost negligible. Or it's a question of maintenance intervals, in which case it's proven that the intervals can be stretched, and changing oil is a 15min job. Anyway, easy for me to comment when its not me planning such an adventure 😅 If only Honda merged the 300 Rally and 450L to make a down-tuned, publicly available, and more affordable version of their Dakar bike. When they (or Yamaha) make THAT bike, I may be swayed away from the Austrians.

I miss my little panel van (Citroen Berlingo). Had two Saris Traps Triple racks which hold the bikes securely in an array of configurations. I could comfortably fit 4 of my bikes in... unless the pupper decided she wanted to come along for the ride One day I'll have a van again... one day! But yeah, congrats and many happy miles! Any cool fit-out ideas planned?

A fair amount of working with wood was the order this weekend. Whether it took the form of chopping wood for the pizza oven... Or making brackets from offcuts to store the 3m guide rail... or continuing work on the outdoor kitchen bench... (Cabinet internals installed. It was a slog adding the 4 coats of marine varnish, each requiring 6hrs dry time between. Not fun!) (Outer cladding added. It's 18mm ply with 3 coats of Dulux Weathershield . Was going to use marine grade hoop-pine, but at over $300/sheet, I took my chances on the Weathershield). (The rough idea) So yeah, busy weekend. Next steps will be making drawers and doors, then trying my hand at casting a concrete (or "concreete" as they say in the biz) countertop.

That's the plan! and with average house prices in Auckland being about $1.3m (R14m equiv.), a bigger house might require a move to the South Island (my not-so-secret agenda) ???? Side Note: Last year Feb we went and looked at a 4ha plot of land about 45min from Queenstown. The vendor had built a new 250sqm garage/workshop on it and had architectural plans, services and foundations in place for the main house, but decided to sell before building. The garage had a bathroom so was habitable while one is constructing. They were asking around $450k. I was sold! The wife, less so. I'll convince her yet!

Black Friday sales got the better of me and I ended up with one of the big-boy rails... At 3m it would have been perfect for all the sheets of ply I was breaking down last week... haha oh well, it's here for next time. Now I just need to find somewhere to store it in my already cluttered garage. Might try do something like this, one of my garage doors is juuust wide enough.

A couple of years ago I did one of the RideForever day-long rider instruction courses and the instructor had half a dozen Cardo PackTalks to lend out to each participant. They were great, and an awesome way to learn with the instructor giving instant advice and feedback whilst on the ride. Shortly after I bought the integrated intercom unit (by Sena) for my Nexx helmet, with a cable adaptor so I can use my in-ears in stead of the speakers. Works pretty well... ...for music and phone calls anyway.... I have no friends to talk to while I ride, hahaha But yeah, I believe the Cardo's are better all round to the Sena's. Nexx X.Wed adventure helmet with integrated spaces for their proprietary X.Com system. I run the helmet with goggles instead of a visor (because it looks cooler ???? and from what I have heard when answering calls, the sound quality is still pretty decent.

Stop it! I know it's not blue and yellow, but I'd "settle" for that

Funny how things work... A while ago I was working for the breweries and you were working in healthcare, now it's the other way around. I still miss the utilities & process engineering side of things, and would seriously consider getting back into it. It would be interesting to know the difference in scale between the SA industry (obviously dominated by SAB/AB-Inbev) and NZ. Like SAB were building "starter" breweries in smaller African countries like Botwswana and Namibia, and a "starter" brewery was 500,000 HL/year. I think The bigger breweries in SA (Alrode and Rosslyn) are over 6 million HL/year, if I recall correctly. Anyway, best of luck in the new role, and if you ever need some Saffers with experience working for the breweries, I know of at least 3 who made it over to Auckland