In the last 18 months we’ve all committed to meeting up to get some riding done together. This has been cool in its own right, but also great to get together to discuss the bigger dreams and build the experience a little further.
We had a weekend in Dunedin in April 2015 when Amand came down, as did Russ from QT, and we had an cruise along the Otago Peninsula on an amazing day. We managed to borrow a bike off Steve’s mate and then hired a little GZ250 from a local bike shop. Nothing went wrong which is more than we can say about the next couple of weekend get togethers.
The Super rugby final weekend 2015 was special. Not for the fact the Highlanders came to Wellington and stole the title, but for Susan going into labour on the Saturday. This meant Amand had to go to the hospital rather than the stadium and not go riding on Sunday. Steve had a weekend that was not expected when he got on the plane! He arrived at Wellington Airport and Amand let him know of the imminent arrival.
Reuben was born early Sunday morning and Steve rode Amand’s bike over to hospital to visit later in the day. When he went to leave later on the bike had been knocked over, Steve and Amand sorted it out but given Amand hadn’t slept in about 20 hours by then it was not a drama that was needed.
Furthermore this tip over of the bike caused some ongoing issues for the little GN, but in the end Amand managed to sell it for what he paid for it plus what he had to spend in repairs, love Trade me (sometimes)!
Steve came to Wellington in December 2015 to catch up with Reuben and Amand who’d just started his Daddy Daycare duties. We managed to borrow a friend’s friend’s bike to go for a ride to the Wairarapa one day. An eventful day – we got pulled over by the cops for “excessive acceleration”; Steve dropped the borrowed bike in a petrol station and wrote it off (eventually), I’m sure Steve would love to expand on this if asked 
. The ride back over the Rimutaka’s was in gale force wind and quite a challenge. So all in all an interesting day out!
And all this led up to the Easter 2016 trip around the SI, our first multi-day adventure ride! May there be many more and may they be just as much fun!