Geevesy's Big Adventure

Righto, our first trip interstate in Bibi’s Battery operated car – Tesla 3 Performance aka ‘Tesi’. Brisbane to Canberra to visit family and generally chill-out (literally)…

First stop, Macca’s drive through, coffee and bacon & egg McMuffin; break fast if champions!

Fantastic run down the Pacific Highway on the first leg, first time in a long time and first time ever without roadworks every 50 kms. What a great run it is now…

First stop at Harwood Island at about 300 kms, just off the Pacific (H1) highway, on the edge of the mighty Clarence River. Tesla Supercharger point there running at 125Kw, there or thereabouts.

The charging station is setup at the Harwood Pub, but we failed the golden ‘suns not over the yard arm’ rule, so it was coffee instead.

Second stop at Port Macquarie, this time a winery, complete with cellar door…there’s a theme going here, right? At about the 600 km mark…nicely spaced.

On the road again, third leg and last charging stop for the day at Raymond Terrace, just before Newcastle at around 800 kms for the day.

Wow, the days always go fast on a Smiddy Challenge event.

Hmmm, 2,000 vertical metres of climbing in 140 kilometre day; it’s not epic, but it’s a ‘solid day at the office’ for sure!

6:30 am rollout from the city, 7 km’s across town to the Norton Summit turnoff and the start of the first climb, for 7 kms. Pretty spec’y views of the city on the way up, then up hill and down dale to Strathalbyn, then turn back toward the city for lunch at 100 kms up a lazy 12 km climb!

I spoke briefly yesterday about the work the Mater team are doing in cancer research…then decided I needed better information. I had a yarn with Prof. Brian Gabrielli, one of the lead researchers and asked him that question…his reply;

“Geevesy, good to be riding with you again. The research we are doing is about killing cancers selectively so that the toxic side effects of conventional chemo are avoided. This is not just good news for patients but also means their immune system is not being smashed. Recruiting the patient’s immune system to combat their tumour is where the real benefit will be seen”.

“The new treatment we are working on does this, selectively kills tumour, we are currently focused on melanoma and ovarian cancer, and recruits the patient’s immune system. The current research is into making the immune response better and longer lasting. We have some ideas of how we can achieve this and are testing these now”.

I guess for me, the greatest question isn’t necessarily about ‘finding the cure’; what I’ve seen in all the years of ‘riding bicycles for cancer research’, is that the treatments have progressed enormously. People that’d passed away 20+ years ago, would very likely still be alive today, with today’s knowledge and of course, medical treatments.

Anyway, back on the road tomorrow, another 150 kms, another 2000 metres+ of vertical elevation.

I’ll leave you with the greatest case of ‘helmet hair’ ever recorded! Priceless.

If you see this, please think about passing the link on to others…and ‘spot me a tenner’ for the journey.

G’day all, well it’s that time of year again…time to ride a bicycle some stupid distances in the name of cancer research. In this case, funding melanoma research conducted by the Mater Research Foundation, one of the top cancer research institutions in Australia.

I’ve been involved in this shindig since 2008, so this is the 16th year. I’ve lost track of the number of events over that time…lots.

I want to ask if you can ‘spot me for a tenner’? That’s $10 towards the cause.

One of the 50+ riders this week is Prof. Brian Gabrielli, one of the principle researcher’s at the Mater Foundation In Brisbane…it’ll be good to ‘yarn’ with him in the bunch as we’re riding and get the updates on what they’re working on. There has been enormous work in the past few years around ‘self-immunisation’, I think I’ve got that term right? It’s where the body creates its own defence to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. That alongside quality of life measures, is top of mind to me.

It’ll be twenty years this year, since my old man ‘choofed-off’ from the ‘Big-C’, prostate cancer. I’ll be thinking of him a lot this week.

In Smiddy Challenge terms, this week isn’t extraordinarily difficult in terms of distance; 700 kms over 5-days.

The ‘secret-sauce’ is the climbing, mostly in the Adelaide Hills. I need to re-check the overall elevation gained, but it’ll be north of 10,000 metres, I’d think. Doesnt sound much, but think of that as 10 kilometers straight into the air; OR 3,300 flights of stairs in 5-days!

Anyways, it’s for an important cause…

https://fundraise.mater.org.au/fundraiser/christophergeeves/challenge-south-australia

I’ll check in most days with a quick update; mind and body willing.

Best, Geevesy.

Small bunch of adventure motorcycle riders based out of south-east Queensland, organising rides to get out and about, on a mix of tarmac and gravel roads, stay at country pubs and eat at country bakeries.

The format is; take an early mark on a Friday arvo…jump on your moto and ride a couple of hours to meet your mates at a country pub for some cold beers; except for Timbo, he’s a sheila and doesn’t imbibe in alcoholic bevies!

Get up early on Saturday and head straight to the local bakery for a flat white (3 shots, 3 sugars) and a bacon and egg roll. Then head out on the moto for a day of shenanigans where the principle goal is to generally not act like a responsible adult

Saturday night, repeat of Friday night, per Sunday morning, same. Then ride home by lunchtime to spend quality time with the ‘trouble-and-strife’ and ‘stay in the good books’

In two months time, repeat process until no good country pubs remain unvisited and no local bakeries remain unturned…

China 2018 – Day One

Righto, politically incorrect as this old cowboy may well be…we’re off to see a billion chinamen. So, how do you train for that, any old athlete may ask you. Well, you go to Chinatown, Sydney and you acclimatise.

So, after a quick visit to the Best Chinese BBQ Pork in the Whole World – BBQ King, 76 Liverpool Street, Sydney CBD, it’s onwards and upwards…10 hour flight up to Shanghai tomorrow. #spendingthekidsinheritence.

Spent a couple of hours yesterday at Qld Raceway for the BMW Ride Day and a chance to ride the BMW 2015 BMW S1000RR – the 200hp Beemer litre superbike.  They had a dozen of these things lined compete with Pirelli track rubber, some S1000R’s and K1300’s for good measure.  

That’s Chris Vermuelen, former MotoGP champion and celebrity instructor for the day.

Now, not having ridden a superbike on a racetrack before had me well and truly anxious beforehand but the briefing beforehand by Miles Davis, Marketing Manager at BMW Motorrad Australia and official titleholder of the ‘best job in the world’  settled much of that talking about the track layout and how they’d marked the circuit with paint markers to indicate racing and cornering lines.

And the bike..?  OMG, 200hp into 200kgs is stretching the boundaries of Newtons Law of Physics in the first place, but the real eye-opener isn’t so much the acceleration (you’re expecting that ti pop your eyes), its the braking force the thing is capable of…to own one will mean two days a week in the gym for a 50-something to even contemplate doing it justice.

Anyways, a couple of hours out of a work day and $59 buys about as much fun as you can have with your leathers on.

   

   Thanks to BMW Motorrad Australia and the California Superbike School for putting on the day…very well run event.  Looking forward to getting to a Phillip Island training event run by the Superbike School, before buying the S1000RR!

   

 Footnote:  the 2016 S1000XR was on display for the first time – S1000RR engine tuned to 160hp in a GS Adventure style frame.  Looking forward to riding that one day!

  

This weekend was the TeamMoto (local multi-brand dealer) ride-day at Lake Wivenhoe (the dam at the centre of the disastrous 2011 Brisbane floods), with pretty much all brands represented – Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, KTM.

For me, it’s also the first time seeing the Kawasaki H2 super-charged litre-bike destined for WSBK duties…it’s an awesome looking thing and has signs of the future design direction for all makes, I’d think. For mine, the benchmark design-wise is still the BMW S1000RR, but the Kwaka’ pushes past that again. The integration of the supercharger is indeterminable from the outside design, so that’s something for the techno-brain to read more about.  Just thinking about the aftermarket tuning options is doing my head in.

My rides for the day were the Honda VFR1200X Crosstourer, Honda’s adventure-touring offering and the new KTM 1290 Super Adventure. The comparison will be against the Beemer’s of course, both my model, the last of the oil-cooled’s and my mate Sharky’s water-cooled 2014 1200GS Adventure. We’ll see, I guess…more to follow post-ride.

Well, the Honda was first cab off the rank and you have to first understand that this is a $10,000 cheaper motorcycle than either the BMW R12GSA or the KTM Super Adventure.  The V-Four 1237cc-engine is just sensational…it pulls like a train through the mid-range and shows every part of the forty-year development that’s gone into it.  MCNEWS (the legendary Trevor Hedge) did a good review on these…where the engine was also the highlight of an otherwise ‘half-done’ entry as a serious RTW contender.  Tall gearing (3,000rpm at 100kmh) makes good sense for a road-tourer that can easily eat a lot of miles.  Lack of electronic cruise control is an issue from here, as road laws in Australia now leave very little room for error.  So, in summary:

• Fantastic engine – 130 hp, but feels like more with low-end torque;
• Excellent upright riding position – would chew 700km+ days;
• Lack of electronics compared to rivals – but hey, it’s $10,000 cheaper.

The announcement of the 2016 Honda Africa Twin is pretty exciting and will put a different dimension to Honda’s adventure-touring cred’.

The other test-bike for the day was the new KTM 1290 Super Adventure – with the 160hp donk (detuned) out of the 1290 Super Duke.  They’re claiming this is the bike to out-gun the BMW R1200 GS Adventure and in many ways it does.  160hp versus 125hp looks pretty compelling on paper AND in reality.  Faaarrrk, that thing goes!

It also feels incredibly light, on the road.  Much lighter than it should really, at about 240kgs dry weight…but either way you look at it, 160hp into 240kgs is always going to ‘fire your day up’.  I reckon a rival test-bike to compare at some point will the be new BMWS1000XR, when it hits the deck shortly…it’s also 160 hp in an inline four.  The KTM’s the sort of bike you’d want to get on every day, just to experience the fluid power – wouldn’t like to be on a litre sport-bike chasing this thing through the ‘twisties’.

Thanks to the TeamMoto team for putting on the day…as always, very professionally run and already looking forward to the next one

Anyways, back to work for now.  Got a few hours tomorrow at the BMW S1000RR track day at Queensland Raceway riding the 2015 model as well as the BMW K1300S…cant wait.

G’day all and welcome from (for now) south-eastern Australia.  I’m an adventurer that loves all things two-wheels.  I travel and work across Australia running a technology company in agriculture that works with agronomic technical advisers and their farmers and graziers for the planning and recording of farm production and agronomic information.  I’m incredibly lucky in that my work takes me to many places that I’d otherwise want to go to anyway.

I want to use this blog for two things…to keep a journal of where I go and what I do and to enable anybody with similar interests to share the journey.  I guess I’m what’s called a ‘digital nomad’ where mine and my company of twenty people’s work is done from wherever we are…on trains, planes, tractors, cars, or (in my case) motorcycles…and even bicycles.

I have many passions, including my incredible wife of 25 years – Brigit, and our kids.  I love riding motorbikes and bicycles long-distances and have been involved with an adventure sport cycling charity known as Smiling For Smiddy since 2008…we’ve raised more than $7 million for cancer research.