S
ome say it’s a sad state of affairs that it
has taken me roughly a decade of riding
to finally pop my navigation ride/rallye
cherry. While I’ve done more than my fair share
of group rides and gravel excursions, the idea
of being given a set of instructions and sent
off into the wild blue yonder isn’t something
that ever really crossed my mind as a social
activity until Kiwi Rider started to advertise that
it was organising the second BMW GS Rallye.
With an invite to join the Kiwi Rider team
for the 2019 BMW GS Rallye in Mangawhai,
I decided that it was about time I got stuck
in and accepted the challenge to find
out what this type of ride was all about
and whether it lived up to the hype.
There were, however, a couple of small
problems that needed to be addressed
before I departed for Northland. The first
was that my personal ride isn’t a BMW.
Would I be accepted into the fold as a
relative outsider to the GS lifestyle?
26 KIWI RIDER
The second hurdle being the method of
navigation for the rally – a route sheet – is
something I had never used before, with my
only idea of what to expect coming from
watching videos of the Dakar Rally. I’m firmly
a GPS/phone navigation kind of guy, so to
say I was nervous would be… correct.
So, it is fair to say that it was with some
trepidation that I left my home in Cambridge
for Mangawhai to take on the 2019 BMW
GS Rallye. Not only was the bike I was riding
the wrong brand (I have a Honda CRF250
Rally), but when it comes to navigating a
ride my preferred method has always been
the simple click and go of Google Maps and
not a seemingly complicated route sheet.
What were people going to say when I rocked
up on a 250cc Honda and not an R1200GS?
Luckily for me, this feeling of unease was
quickly blown away upon arrival in the Northern
town and meeting up with the KR team.