n2nz

Great Ideas #428 - I'm going to win this Ducati 1098 Matt! 1500 tickets, $100 each, proceeds to the Victoria bush-fire recovery - I got number 1275. Feel like it's a possibility. What should I do when I win? Trade it in on the KTM Adventure and come on the Round Victoria Odyssey perhaps... all suggestions welcome.

Blue Mountains, Upper Hutt Pictured here with a rush of cyclists climbing through the trees on big chain rings during the NZ Road race championships of 2006, this 2km stretch of hill-climb qualifies as a special back-road on it's own. You could ride North out of Wellington (towards the Wairarapa) and never know this parallel route existed. I've been up and down it a hundred times. Getting there from the city is un-memorable. The ride from the top of the hill through Whiteman's Valley is nice, but road surfaces make it nothing special. It is this hill alone that sticks in my memory as a brilliant 'back-road'.

Karapoti - offroad road-trip par excellence Whilst the Karapoti Classic mountain bike race is an annual chance to ride this route through the Akatarawa mountains North of Wellington, it is open year round for the adventurous mountain biker or trail bike rider. You want to see what NZ was like 150 years ago? On your bike! There are plenty of websites to help you find the way - take a map and ideally, someone who has ridden it before. Best memory ever? Riding it in 3 1/2 hours one Saturday morning with Dave Robertson - me on my new GT LTS and him on a tricked up Proflex with dual suspension. And we just did it like it was a ride to the shop. Years later, puffing around in nearly 6 hours with cramp and exhaustion, I reflected on the disgraceful human process of aging. Me that is, not Dave!

RD400. Where this all began. When I was 15 and growing up in NZ, a boy could not hope to own a car - far too expensive. Coupled with a passion for off-road motorcycling (farm life), the natural thing to do was to get two wheels and discover the place I lived. The quantum leap came with the arrival of a Yamaha RD400, same as my big brother's bike and capable of doing anything. In 1978, pretty much every road in the North Island was a backroad. My quest to ride them all had begun.

Noah and the GSXR-600 in Melbourne Laneway There is nothing like the joy of a boy discovering the thrill of two wheels and a motor. Melbourne is such a great place to socialise someone into riding - lots of short trips to destinations like Jocks (best ice-cream in Melbourne), slow back streets under the trees, and the ease of parking on the footpath. I would live nowhere else.