Last week's sunny Sunday arvo ride in Northern New South Wales on my 'olde' '87 K100RS. I've just recently fitted a Works Performance rear shock and a Motad round silencer to it with excellent results.

wow, a beautiful bike in a beautiful landscape...

grt pics grt looking bike

Nice bike and nice pictures.
Here (in Halifax) we are in the middle of winter and even if today is very warm (4 degrees), we still have snow on the ground.
Maybe I should try to live 6 month in AU and 6 month in CAN.
I could have a 12 month biking season!

Superb looking bike and you can't beat Northern NSW and is that the Gold Coast you can see way off in the distance?

Regards,

Phil

Ta for that. The bike is fairly clean for such an age, and with under 80,000 kms too!
That's Tweed Heads/Coolangatta so, yeah, the Southern end of the Gold Coast you can see in the background. Surfers Paradise and the remainder of the Gold Coast would be another 20/30 kms along.
Tassie's not a bad place to ride. I spent three weeks there in late-2007. It snowed on Ben Lomond on Xmas Eve! I lived in Launceston and near Hobart as a nibbler. A great place to grow up!

Aussie is truly a great place to grow up and live. I always said to my pals in the Attorney Generals Department "Australia is a country of the future not the past".
Regards,
K-BIKE

Unless you're keen on knowing yer origins from back in the early days. ;/
"Everyone knows that Australia is entirely peopled by criminals."
~The Princess Bride

We need a shot from the other side to check out the new pipe.

Regards,

Phil

Yeah, agreed. Those pix were taken whilst the old pipe was still fitted. I'll make time this weekend for some happy snaps of the pipe and the new shockie too.

Today I rode the short way to work. I'd left late and had to cut and thrust through neighbourhoods, around roundabouts and along the busy with traffic commercial strip to my day job. The pipe, in that environment, really shone. I could hear its non-intrusive raspy sound burbling under me as I cornered deep and hard in the urban jungle. Is it loud? I reckon a copper wouldn't have given me a second look as I passed by. Stealth is good.

As a KIWI I have to say the facts are not all states of Aussie took convicts. Don't forget lots of convicts went to the US, I suspect that Aussie had far less convicts sent there than America.
Regards,
K-BIKE

Way off topic here but the only state that did not have a penal colony was South Australia and was eventually settled by ex convicts and basically the first white inhabitants of the country were convicts so probably proportionately greater than the US.

Not exactly a proud heritage but what do you do.

Regards,

Phil

Just a coupla historical footnotes about the early days: Mother England sent a total of 162,000 convicts, both male and female, to Terra Australis through the period of The First Fleet of 1788 through 1868. There were a total population of about 1,000,000 'whites' living here at the end of the convict period of 'Transportation'. North America took in an unverified 50,000 'undesirables' prior to the American revolution. Therefore more Aussies are convict-related than in the US as a percentage of population and as a number. Convict heritage is often regarded in Australia in modern times to be a badge of pride. The vast majority of convicts sent over were English/Welsh at 70%, Irish 24% & Scots at 5%. Many people don't realise that the Poms (Brits) sent a large percentage of convicts of Canadian origin, Maoris from New Zealand, Chinese from Hong Kong and slaves from the Caribbean as well. South Australia and the Northern Territory of S.A. never accepted convicts directly from England, however, they accepted many ex-convicts from the other states after they'd been given limited freedom. Many convicts were then allowed to travel as far as New Zealand to make a fresh start after serving their term, but they were never allowed to return to Great Britain.
Modern Australia was built on the backs of these convicts. Many non-native and ultimately destructive animal and plant species were brought in to make the settlers 'feel more at home' too. Foxes, rabbits, cane toads, deer and camels, gorse & lantana, to name a few. Talk about introduced pests! That's not just you and me, white man. At the end of the day, Australia, to those who have not heard, is known as The Lucky Country. This is due to the fact of it being a modern, stable economy, a democracy with a high standard of living, literacy and birthrate, an overall good climate and a fairly relaxed lifestyle. Though I reckon American television/pop culture, and the availability of fast food might be spoiling some of us!
Now for the motorbike content of the discussion; Australia has some of the harshest, driest, hottest & wettest conditions on the planet, but with some amazing scenery and smaller, bendy two-lane motorbike-suited roads. All the better for those of you so inclined to travel here for an extended time, take a good long motorbike holiday, meet the locals, drink some beer, take in that scenery and the incredible flora and fauna, and while you're at it have a Dingo's brekkie (a good look around).