So what have we been doing?

Since buying the bike’s we’ve been practising for the big trip. Initially we had to pass our motorbike licence which is a serious undertaking requiring a number of skills to be mastered like turning the bike around within an area the size of a car space without putting your feet down – tricky! Having passed and got our “P’s” we then had to ride in convoy for a year until I got my full licence and my partner could ride pillion. We’re now well through that and have ridden 8,300kms together. We’ve been away for weekends to the likes of Forster and Mudgee which are good practice but not very long runs both being about 250-300kms out of Sydney. In preparation for the trip we’ve poured over the map to see where we’re going to stop and realised that on a couple of days we’re going to do in excess of 500kms. This required a rethink to make sure we knew what a long day on the bike felt like so we decided to ride from Sydney to Noosa in Queensland over the 2018/2019 Christmas break. We took two days to get up, spent four days there and then two days to get back covering 2,300km in total and more importantly 4 days, each over 550km.

It was OK and certainly a good learning. We found it best to do two and a half hours first up. After that you can hardly feel your bum so a 30 minute break is required. Next leg one and a half hours with a further 30 minute break and then about an hour to get to where we were going. The most important part though was discovering that the rather narrow looking pillion seat was indeed too narrow and very uncomfortable for my partner.

We decided a seat rebuild was necessary and got onto Mick McCarthy at MJM Custom Motorbike Seats in Goulburn through the local bike store. Mick is not only a very nice guy but also a brilliant seat re-builder. He does work for locals as well as sending remade seat overseas! You take your bike down to Goulburn to get there by 8:00am and Mick sizes you and your pillion up as he plans what he’s going to do to make the seat more comfortable. You leave the bike for the day picking it up at 4.00pm. Mick did a great job on our seat which is now much more comfortable for both of us. We’ve had one day ride down into the Sutherland Shire National Park and it is was fantastic!