Yeah, the poor old Connie has been neglected for a few weeks so today after spoiling her with a quick bath I saddled up for a nice little run.

Heading out of town I avoided getting run into by a car and demonstrated the effectiveness of my Stebel before having a nice little boogie over the Pahiatua track to warm things up.  In Pahiatua I stopped for fuel as I was not quite sure where I was heading but pretty certain that without fuel it would be a whole lot harder.

In the end I decided to make for Pongaroa for a start and then see what I felt like from here.  On Mangaramarama road I briefly entered a cycle race before turning right onto Pahiatua-Pongaroa road.

Climbing up out of Makuri I ran into a gaggle of campers coming the other way (thankfully) but was soon up and over the hill and into the wind.
Dropping down the other side there was quite a long section of new seal with plenty of chip still on the road.  The wind made this a little more interesting than normal as I needed to keep my speed up to hold a decent line through the mess...

Then there was this lot who decided to cross the road in front of me:

I'd also bought my good camera with me so I need to find an excuse to get it out.  A nice little bridge gave me the chance.

Pongaroa was just up the road from the bridge and here I turned left on 52 to take me through to the Weber road.  Rather than carry on further up 52 I decided to cut the ride a bit short and instead t...