We’re at it again… We’re hoping to raise a thousand dollars or so for ARAN Animal Rescue, this time Stella will be joining me on the bike as we do a Saddle Sore 1600km endurance ride on the year’s shortest day: 22nd Jun 2019. We’ll also have our very good friend, Luke Mitchell joining us for his first SS1600K ride.

What’s a Saddlesore?http://www.ironbutt.com/themerides/ssserieskm/
Why on the shortest day?http://www.ironbutt.com/themerides/fourseasons/

This page will be updated with links and preparation details as we work through things… So come on back to this page from time to time to check progress and for the links you’ll need to follow the ride’s progress on the day.

News:

Luke has confirmed that he’s coming along with us, but at this point it looks like TK is going to sit this one out. – She’s still keen on doing a SaddleSore at some point, but there’s no need to make your very first one a Winter Solstice ride! – I think she’s smart!…

T-minus 14 days and counting… Still too early to be looking at long range weather forecasts I think!…

Current Links:

 

Live tracking using the SpotWalla stuff above, this will be live from 03:15am on Saturday 22nd.

Click to open in new window…

Route planning sheet:

Our planned route is 1,628km in length. We are required to do a minimum of 1,609km to qualify for a SaddleSore. – We’ll be tracking our milage on the way round and checking that we’re comfortably clear of our minimum distance, and if we have any doubt, then we’ll take an alternative route north through Auckland to our finishing spot. If we have adequate, then we might stop shorter and head more directly home from Silverdale (BP).

Route map:

Preparation for the ride:

Two weeks ago I got a new front tyre fitted.

Last weekend I got my bike WOF’d and did a full brake pad change on both front and back.

This weekend’s prep (15Jun) included a full brake bleed, final gear oil change and air filter clean. 🙂 – It was FILTHY!

We’ve got a little bit of shopping to do to grab supplies for the ride (a few CO2 canisters for the puncture repair kit). And a small bit of final prep during the week this next week.

I’ve got to load the planned route onto the GPS and figure out what I’m going to try to do with video cameras on the ride. We need to pair up a couple of headset units and make sure we catch up on sleep this week. 🙂

Weather

It’s cold right now, yesterday I had just 1deg C on the way into work on the bike. Today (Thursday 20th) and tomorrow have chances of rain, but we appear to be hitting it lucky this weekend, with our time-window providing a much needed clear break:

A much-needed break in the weather, our ride window is shown here, on a forecast from Thursday 20th Jun (T-minus 2 days)…
Credit- Metvuw.com