Yesterday was the running of this year's Coast to Coast ride which raises funds for the local rescue helicopter and checking my badges it looked like it was going to be number 15 to me.  Leading up to the ride the usual suspects had been in contact and organising when and where we were going to meet etc and now it was just up to the weather...

At 6:30 in the morning it was bucketing down...but I got up anyway and started getting organised for the day.  By the time the Vee and I were ready it hadn't rained in quite a while so I climbed aboard and went to round up Brian - yes, I was early...

Brian was soon ready to rock and we then headed off to meet the rest of the gang at a local servo.  Soon there were eight of us on seven bikes and we then hit the road to make our way out to the beach.  When we got there, we found that we were early among some of the first to arrive.  A few spits of rain fell on us which encouraged us to go into the hall, sign up and get our badges.
Someone should buy that bike..
While we were waiting the chopper turned up and I got this shocking picture of it (a very rushed shot).

Eventually it was time for the ride briefing and then about 250 of us were off on our way to Foxton, crawling along behind a police escort.  From Foxton it was another slow trip across to Shannon where Mark and I stuck to our usual plan of quickly topping up the bikes with fuel to avoid the chaos at Woodville.

The ride then took us up to Aoka...