The Great Ride Down / Across Feb 2010

The Great Ride Down from Maleny (Qld) to Phillip Island (Vic) scheduled for Feb 2010 will be for me the culmination of many many hours of work in "The Shed"  building my GPz900R based motorcycle. I've been riding bikes for many years, I've even spent a few years racing them, But a few years back Life caught up with me and reminded me of my mortality.. so a change took place and motorbikes weren't included. Not to say that I stopped loving them, no the love never faded, every time I'd hear a bike I turn to look and envy.. Yep I even envied the Postie. 

Finally I couldn't stand it any longer, Life is meant for living, every second of every minute of every hour of every day.. So I started looking, the choice was simple, The Kawasaki GPz900R, The best motorcycle I had ever owned or ridden, she does everything right, so forgiving, so easy to ride, she will fly in and out of corners like a Sheepdog after sheep, yet will comfortably eat up the long haul miles like a comfy leather lounge chair.. as I've said I'd been away from bikes for  a while so I decided to do some research. I'd come across a fella on Ebay who was racing the 900 with some success and he was selling a 5" wide rear rim from a later model 600, the 900 ran a 3"rear rim. So I bought it. 

More research and trolling websites brought me to Patrick's GPz900R Website, a German based gathering,  looking through the pics there I came across a pic of a lime green 900 with late model USD front end and different rear end with some slight body mods. I Loved the idea of it, Old school GPz900r Charm and looks with late model new technology handling. 

They say that life is all about timing, I'm a firm believer of this, I'd recently started teaching a guy Martial Arts, an ex sidecar racer who wanted a life change, an amazing welder / fabricator, who has the most amazing Shed. I ran the idea of building my dream bike past him, his answer we can do that, we can do anything, Building "The Hulk" had begun. 

I bought a 1984 A1 GPz900R of Ebay to use as a base, I stripped it completely down, selling parts on Ebay that weren't needed and purchasing more parts off Ebay that I wanted to use. 12 months into the build I again was reminded of my mortality and was laid up for a couple of months, unable to do any training or working on the buildup. Timing once again was to play a part in my life, whilst laid up I came across the GPZ owners club online. I discovered a bunch of people who shared my passion, what else could I do but join the madness. 

Again Timing, The GPz900r Celebrated its 25th Birthday recently, the clubs UK based members held a gathering to celebrate and by all accounts had a fantastic time, this made most of the rest of us all over the globe quite envious, us Ozzies in particular started talking about having a gathering of our own, where could we meet up??  as we have a largely majority east coast based membership we decided that Wagga Wagga would possibly be central. So it began, An Acorn was planted .. one post led to another one .. and a Mighty Oak grew. members from all over Australia pledged their love of the idea and started making plans for the ride to Wagga Wagga. When would be a good time ??  lots of prep time would be needed  to organise holidays, permission, funds. again Timing stepped in. late Feb 2010 just so happened to be The World SBK's at Phillip Island, the GPz900R is the Grand daddy of Superbikes, the Origin of the Species, so it was decided to  Ride on down/across meetup at Wagga Wagga and do a run to the Island.. This Blog will be a record of my preparations for this historical event