@victor-meldrew said in Springboks v England - Test #2:

You have to seriously feel for the decent Pom rugby supporter

Yep - I know the guy, and I do feel sorry for him.

@tim The TSF Mod-Team ?

@KiwiMurph said in Sunwolves v Blues:

@rotated I don't think there's anything sinister at all. He was sick last week (which if you look at his rugby and travel schedule the past two months it's not hard to see why).

I don't see any benefit at all in flying him to Japan this week. Just let him R&R. Player welfare of your young stars is important.

You don't see anything sinister in a Lions fan being in his kitchen, and then shortly after - a mysterious illness?

So - 2019 London - Beijing
In general...

• A group "expedition" - organised by a company called GlobeBusters. For the last decade or so, every 2nd year they do a London-Beijing trip, and every other year - Trans-Americas (Alaska-Patagonia).
  I would recommend them - they did a great job of organising, support, etc. One thing to note - it was rather pricey, and that would mostly be down to using very high-quality hotels (where possible)... my ideal would have been a cheaper trip, with cheaper hotels, and maybe a nice 4-star once every week or two, whenever stopping for 2 nights - to get a good break/laundry-done.

• Started off from London's Ace Cafe with 20 bikes (mostly BMW GS, 3 Triumphs, 1 Ducati, 1 Honda CB500) and 2 support vehicles - a pimped-out Hilux, and a Mercedes van big enough to take a bike (or two at a pinch). The group was larger than I'd expected/hoped... and it did slow things down at borders or when choices of petrol stations was... limited.
  But - it gradually shrank over time...
  2 bikes had opted to only go as far as Almaty, another 2 only as far as Lhasa, and 1 guy came off with about 10 days to go - breaking half-a-dozen ribs, mangling his front-forks into a shape they definitely shouldn't be, and choosing to fly back to the UK rather than "be a tourist" by riding in either support vehicle or catching a train to Beijing.

• Ace Cafe at each end gave us a decent send-off/welcome.... London shouted us fish'n'chips the night before departure, and then breakfast the next day - with speeches and such bollocks
  Beijing welcomed us with bottles of cheap bubbly to spray all over the place, sweet cold beers, a decent spread, all sorts of "merch"... and speeches and such bollocks

Western-ish Europe...
From London to Turkey is a vague memory, but...

• UK, France, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-and-Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Greece
• Most of it was just getting the miles under the belt, trying to get out of Western Europe ASAP... quite well planned though, to keep the interest up... typically being a couple-hundred miles of motorway, and then an hour or so of some sweet twisties or country-roads, or something else a little more interesting - before reaching the hotel. So each evening, the recent/residual memory was the "fun bit"

Turkey...

• 3 nights in Istanbul - the first time we'd stopped for more than a single night. I'd never been before, so ticked off the major touristy things
• Safranbolu - nice enough old town, with an absolutely shite museum
• Cappadocia, Mount Nemrut & Ani

Georgia-Azerbaijan...

• Tbilisi - rather cool city, very unexpected. Very "bohemian", or "hip", or something... without (much) wankiness that typically comes with those words. Reminded me of a less self-aware Melbourne. Plenty of the old-world stuff (ancient statues, cobblestone streets, bathhouses), and then craft-beer pubs, weird-modern architecture, wine-bars.
  Oh - and look up the 1907 Tiflis Bank Robbery
• Azerbaijan - the sign from Georgia announcing that you're approaching the Azerbaijan border also proclaims at the bottom "Good Luck!". An excellent little dig at one's neighbour
• Caspian Sea - we caught the "ferry" from Baku to Turkmenbashi - a 13 hour crossing

The 'Stans

• Turkmenistan - interesting. Probably most people's choice as "least favourite country of the trip" - but it would be a contender for my Top-3... solely as it was interesting. This is a country where it's essentially still a totalitarian rule... by a nutter.
  Roads - mostly pretty shit, extended periods where they seemed to have laid black glass instead of tarmac. Not cool in the rain - we had one GS go down at reasonably high speed, no major damage to rider or bike
• Uzbekistan - stopped at several classic Silk Road towns - Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand
• Tajikistan - Probably my favourite country...
  The Tunnel of DEATH! - which was an interesting experience, but not one I'd want on my daily commute
  The adherence to Islam was very much waning this far east, and some of the ladies certainly had that "adultery-isn't-really-that-bad-of-a-sin" sparkle in their eyes
  The (bike) riding once we hit the Wakhan Valley/Pamir Highway... awesome. Riding along the Afghanistan border, unmaintained dirt roads along hill-sides, following rivers... so much fun... videos to come
• Kyrgyzstan - the first peek at high-altitude passes, and fermented horse-milk. Some reasonably fun rural dirt roads, absolutely crazy drivers, and corrupt traffic-police armed with speed-radar-guns.
• Kazakhstan - pretty much just a few days in Almaty, resting

China...

• Border Crossing, at high altitude - a full day to just get physically across the border. Then 2 days stuck in Kashgar, getting the bikes' paperwork sorted.
• Xinjiang province - oppressive. Police checkpoints everywhere, a very very police-state feel about the whole place. I probably shouldn't write too much about it, sitting here in a Beijing hotel not using VPN, but... look it up. Xinjiang, and the "Uighur problem".
• Tibet - the story goes that Tibet is now essentially "pacified" - and the guy that managed that, has been moved on to Xinjiang.
  There were certainly far less police checkpoints, etc - but still some
  But anyway - Tibet... awesome. Altitude, obviously. Snow-riding - not fun, when I'd swapped the visor out for goggles during the previous dirt road sections.
  Mount Everest - I've already posted about that... just awesome. The mountain itself - just being there - literally brought tears to several bikers' eyes. And the road to get up to Base Camp... motorcycle heaven. So many switchbacks... and chinese road rules - so safe overtaking is very much optional.
  And then - the Tibet-Sichuan highway - the G318 - some sections, contenders as being even better than the Everest Base Camp road. On a bike, dodging chinese fuckknuckles in Land-Cruiser-Prados - just great fun.
• Sichuan - some decent scenery, but the roads were already becoming rather "tame" compared to the previous month or two... so just ticking off tourist boxes on the way up to Beijing... Chengdu - pandas, check.
• Shaanxi - Xi'an - great city, with a couple of days off to rest/relax/drink, and more of the touristy stuff... Terracotta Warriors - I'd seen about 15 years ago - not a single bit of more excavation has been done since then, but there are shiny new restaurants/souvenir-shop complexes.
• Shanxi - at this point, we're just trying to get to Beijing, on roads absolutely rammed full of the infamous "red trucks" - what are presumably state-owned trucks, shipping coal from mines to power stations. Hundreds of them... thousands. I've got a video where I passed about 200 of them all queued up. So - lots of trucks, lots of coal-dust... doesn't make for traditionally enjoyable riding. Does, however, make for some very inventive interpretation of road rules at times... I was swerving up onto pavement to get around trucks, nipping back from the wrong side of the road into the middle of a police checkpoint, taking shortcuts through building sites, rice-fields, whatever.
• And finally Beijing - made it, 16,500 miles, I think I remember my GPS unit claimed.
  Beers were had.

Sorry to break this to all you guys, but it doesn't matter anyway, nobody's interested in the World Cup. It's just a money-spinner with fake enthusiasm pushed by the broadcasters, newspapers, and merchandising salesmen.

So... 10,000 miles under the belt, with a couple of days off in Lhasa.
I've been writing near-daily updates on my own website/blog if anybody's interested, but generally get in each night too tired to really do it justice.
But - figured I'd update the Fern on one of the very recent highlights.
Mount Everest.
HolyFuckBalls - how awesome.
The road up to the Tibet Base Camp - absolutely amazing. I don't know how many switchbacks there were - one person cited 200, another mentioned 348 - and I genuinely don't know if these are exaggerations or not. I've never done Stelvio Pass, which is apparently considered one of the best motorcycle roads in the world... but a few others in the group have. And the general consensus was... Stelvio Pass has absolutely nothing on this road.
Personal accomplishment - managed to scrape a foot-peg for the first time ever, and it was with knobbly tyres.
And then - at the end, a big magnificent bastard of a mountain.
The very first viewpoint, where we stopped for our first long-range view of Everest... it was a little weird... the road is now completely tarmac, but there was still somehow enough dust around to get in a few eyes, my own included.
And then - when we got up to Base Camp (the 'tourist' one, at Rongbuk Monastery - not the actual climbers base camp) - with Everest framed by the valley... cool as fuck. Just sat there for a couple of hours soaking the magnificent bastard in.
A portion of the road down the north side of the pass on the way to Rongbuk...

Representing Aotearoa with the black woollen singlet, Red Bands, etc...

I was so simple in my wanting cathartic release.
I walked home from the stadium through deserted dodgy areas, no mugging.
I went to a standing bar, got thoroughly re-drunk, yelling “fuck” at the ceiling once in a while. Much to the amusement of locals.
Then I went down to the riverside with a couple of drinks and cigarettes, found a gang of teenagers hanging out causing trouble. Sat down close to them, and when I got eye contact... gestured to the litter-mess they'd caused. They cleaned their shit up, and left.
What do I need to do to get beaten up in this country? I just want my body to feel like my mind does.

38 minutes - I finally had to sign up instead of just lurking, to get rid of the highly visible white screen while at work.
Dammit.

Sitting in Osaka watching those magnificent bastards.

Sake was had.

@duluth said in Can we replace Super Rugby?:

Just looking at those numbers, it seems like a good idea to level the field would be to merge Taranaki, Manawatu, Hawkes Bay - into some sort of "Central" team.

@jegga said in Woo:

No comment necessary

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2455767498005528&id=1649307311984888&tn=%2As%2As-R

Indeed... "Vouchers are available for gifts..." - your birthday coming up, is it?

@mariner4life said in Coronavirus: should I be panicking yet?:

The Chinese Government is building a new hospital just to deal with this issue. It'll be completed on Feb 3.

Fuck they get shit done when they want to.

This.
Visiting some of the sights/touristy-shit in China, it's not so much just the thing itself which is awesome, but thinking... “some fluffybunny thought this up, AND had the will/power/mandate/manpower to actually DO it. WTF?”
Great Wall & Terracotta Warriors especially, but more recently Three Gorges Dam.

@westcoastie said in Indian Cricket Tour of NZ 2020:

What the hell was that stumping milarky?

CJ Gardner Homes had presumably paid for a certain minimum of reviews.

@jegga said in Planes:

Thai airforce vs China’s

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/one-cheap-fighter-jet-sweden-crushed-chinas-air-force-115416

“Too much focus was on front of the aircraft rather than all around.”

This made me laugh, as it perfectly sums up every driver on the road in China, and well... most asian countries.

@Crucial said in Beer thread:

Back to the old discussion about light/low all beers and I discovered this one during the holidays
Had been hammering the liver for a couple of weeks and was restocking when I saw this and the idea of a beer I could drink all day was appealing. Bonus was that it is actually very nice. Not quite up there with the Croucher low alc IPA but cheaper. The Croucher one is excellent but it kind of defeats the purpose of having plenty without getting hammered at $4.50 each!

This was $15 a 6pack at Whack'n'Slave in Qtown.

Mot sure if it will hold up in the cooler months when I prefer a bit more weight to my drinks, but as a summer option it isn't watery, has a touch of bitterness and feels like drinking real beer. I am going to keep on it as a option.

PS: If you are worried about what anyone thinks of you for drinking low strength stuff, not one person even asked me what I was drinking, just assumed it was yet another 'craft' beer.

What was the previous consensus on the low-booze beers?
Being on the bike in NZ over summer - I'd quite like some options for staying under the limit.
Garage Project's Fugazi seemed alright. Haven't brought myself to try any others.... will try the Good George and the Croucher's when I get back up to BOP/Waikato area.

@antipodean said in Aussie Bush Fires:

If there's an omnipotent being, they certainly don't like where I live...

Shouldn't have voted in gay marriage, should ya?

@canefan said in Hawt discussion (lots of PG13 gifs/pics):

@Snowy said in Hawt discussion (lots of PG13 gifs/pics):

@canefan said in Hawt discussion (lots of PG13 gifs/pics):

@mariner4life said in Hawt discussion (lots of PG13 gifs/pics):

Taylor Swift is fucking hawt!

Doesnt mean to say she ain't crazy

I didn't think there were rules about hawt and crazy here? Hawt is hawt right?

If we rule out the crazy ones that's almost all of 1746 posts gone. That's the pics and a few of the posters too.

Total agreement. I wasn't trying to say crazy was a negative. Its irrelevant to this thread. I was trying to work out why Bones said 'ban' over Tay tay. She is definitely hawt

I suspect @Bones was upset over the lack of evidence submitted with the original post.
And rightly so.

@Virgil said in TV Serieseseses:

This seems the best thread to write this....

I swear if that latest Trivago ad where the old bitch complains she’s paying more for her room then the hot bitch keeps playing over and over and over I’ll I’ll I’ll.... I’ll do something!!

THIS - times much.
I'm just in NZ for the summer, but within a week I'd noticed this... the same very small number of ads just being repeated over, and over, and over again. That trivago bitch - often twice in the same ads break.
And Sky - what the fuck? I thought one paid for Sky, so that one could avoid ads. Watching some of those Sky sports channels - there were literally more ads on there than what I've seen on Free-To-Air.
But then - the only time I ever see broadcast TV is when in NZ, staying with friends/family. Perhaps it's just as bad in other countries?

@mariner4life said in Christmas Gifts:

@chimoaus said in Christmas Gifts:

@mariner4life said in Christmas Gifts:

@Paekakboyz said in Christmas Gifts:

@chimoaus is it wrong that I read that as MILF?

Sicko

She might be though...

In her day she was mighty fine, still an attractive older woman for sure.

Dear Penthouse

I always thought these letters were just made up, and never happened to anyone, that was until two weeks ago when...

Oh - I remember this game from a kid... we take turns writing a line of the story, right?
So
... my Mother-In-Law came to stay for Christmas, and brought a basket of gifts. The one with my name on the tag was a very strange shape...

So... I'm back in New Zealand for summer, and trying to find excuses to travel around the place.
eg: last time I was here, I rode around the North Island visiting every waterfall I could think of.
For this time - I was thinking of visiting/tasting all the "Best ... in New Zealand"... eg: the Best Pie in NZ (apparently - Tauranga?); the Best Fish and Chips in New Zealand (I haven't found a definitive award for that, other than the Best CHIPS in NZ - Okato); etc, etc.
And figured... maybe I'd just let the Fern do the work for me... suggest the best pies, fish/chips, sausages, restaurants, etc in NZ - and I'll use that as a basis/excuse for getting on the bike and visiting some spots I wouldn't normally otherwise.
I'm typically based in central North Island - but very keen to travel further afield than normal... I've probably got all summer.
Discuss.