*Summer riding gear triple combo deals*

Lets face it, who wants to go riding in thick leather or cordura gear on a sweltering hot day? Thought not....... and we all know the risks of riding without proper protection from an unfortunate accident, don't we?
Well now you can go riding, stay cool and stay protected with our new Thunderbike summer riding gear offers.
Take a look at the photos below to see what's on offer, they look great too, so you'll not look out of place anywhere! Different combinations available, Call Tiffany on 03 5485787 or Contact us here for more details parts@thunderbike.co.nz

Save $90 Combo deal #1 Draggin' Jeans Jacket Draggin' Jeans "Traffic" Jeans R-Jays Jetstream Gloves Combo Price from $475	Save $85 Combo deal #2 R-Jays Jetstream Jacket Draggin' "Cargo" Jeans R-Jays Jetstream Gloves Combo Price from $425	Save $95 Combo deal #3 Teknic Aquavent Jacket Draggin' Jeans "Cargo" Jeans Dri-Rider Dri-Mesh Gloves Combo Price from $475

Thunderbike Triumph Twins Performance Camshafts: Click on the picture to go to our camashafts webpage and view more photos and animations of our new Triumph twins performance camshafts. They are still in development but will be available soon, as will our latest dyno figures.

Watch this space and the website for some incredible performance results!

Contact us here for more details parts@thunderbike.co.nz

Thunderbike Triumph Sprint ST 1050 & Speed Triple 1050 Crash Bungs: You've only got to drop your bike off the sidestand to do hundreds, if not thousands of $$$ damage, these new Thunderbike crash-bungs are made of high quality durable nylon and should save the majority of damage, even at low speed spills. Available to buy direct from our website soon. They come as a pair with all hardware included at $175 + GST

Contact us here for more details parts@thunderbike.co.nz

Thunderbike Triumph Sprint ST Givi Luggage Brackets: A simple and clean looking adaptor plate to mount a Givi "Wingrack" fitting kit to take Givi side panniers and top box.

This is also available soon on our website at $350 + GST This is the adaptor plate only and requires you to buy the Givi Wingrack and panniers seperately also available from us. Contact us here for more details parts@thunderbike.co.nz

Motorcycle Lever Stand: A very easy to operate stand that will lift either the front or rear of your bike for maintenance, easy one person operation. Priced at $175 + GST they will be available to buy online from us very soon.

Contact us here for more details parts@thunderbike.co.nz

Handlebar or top yoke nut fitting - available for all makes and models - 7/8", 1" & 1 1/4" Handlebar sizes - 3 Year Guarantee, even if you loose it! - spare battery - available in black or white face.

NEW STAFF AT THUNDERBIKE: There is a fresh new face behind the counter at Thunderbike, Tiffany Farnsworth from Nelson joined the team in November. She has had plenty of experience in the motorcycle trade after coming from Morley Motorcycle & Marine. Tiff, an avid fitness and cycle enthusiast also races motorcycles. She has just sold her1989 Honda RS125 GP bike that she competes on to step up to a newer more competetive machine to race in the 125GP class, as well as racing her ever faster MB100 bucket racer.

Tiff is in charge of the parts & accessory department, so please give her a call with all your parts/accessory needs or come in to meet her and have a look at the great range of motorcycle clothing and helmets that she has to offer.

Dave Wilson, one of our workshop technicians and regular newsletter columnist now has a new position at Thunderbike. He has now taken on the role of Service Manager as Graeme has now moved on to become our operations manager. So if you have any enquiries relating to service or repairs, please contact Dave, email: servtech2@thunderbike.co.nz

PORT NELSON STREET RACES: Thunderbike fielded a good strong team at this years Port Nelson Street Race, with Graeme (operations manager), Jason (bike/export sales) Alan (advertising/marketing), Tiff (parts & accessories) and service manager Dave making up the Thunderbike Racing Team.

The days proceedings started with the practice sessions around the short 1.2km street circuit with the bucket class (more on these bikes later) up first, where Alan had his first mishap of the day by crashing on the second to last corner on his newly built Suzuki GS140, no damage to bike or rider.

First race of the day was a field of 19 in the bucket class, which saw Graeme on a borrowed Suzuki FXR150 from director Ian Fitzwater and Dave on his Suzuki RG/TF125 battling side by side for second place with Dave eventually getting the better of Graeme. Jason was not far behind on a struggling Suzuki TF100, Tiff greatly improving on her increasingly faster Honda MB100 and unfortunately it was more bad luck and the end of the day for Alan, as his bike decided self destruct on the second lap!

Graeme competed in Formula 1 and Post Classic on his 1982 Kawasaki GPZ1100. He did extremely well in F1 considering he was up against much more modern machinery like a blisteringly fast Yamaha R1 and Honda CBR1000RR on his 24 year old heavyweight, finishing well inside the top ten in seventh place. He did come to grief in the second F1 race after a very close tussle with a 750 superbike which decided there was more room to pass Graeme than he thought, the bikes got locked together and Graeme was sent flying into the straw bales!, rider ok, with only minor damage to the bike.

In his "home" class of Post Classics, he finshed 1st in the first race and 2nd in the second race after a careful start following the straw bale incident, to win the class overall! Jason who usually races a Yamaha RD350LC in Post Classics, scored a ride on a methonol burning Yamaha TT500 to finish 4th in the first and second race to finish 4th overall.

Tiff and Dave continued the day in the bucket class, getting plenty of races in and totally having a grin permanently fixed to their faces, Tiff being very pleased with the improved performance of her bike, Dave having some great battles (especially with some of the larger capacity classic bikes that were out there) and Alan just watched!

"King of the Port", the final race that is competed for at the end of the day is an "all in" race that has been won by Timaru's John Hepburn (who has since retired from motorcycle racing) for the past few years. This year was won by Canterburys Daniel Ornsby on a Yamaha R1 after a close race with Matt Ford on his Honda CBR1000RR. Congratulations to Daniel and all who competed at this years event. See you next year!

KAREL PAVICH - 2006 New Zealand 250GP Champion: Thunderbike continues to increase it's involvement in road racing as a sponsor for Nelson 250 GP rider Karel Pavich. Karel who rides a Yamaha TZ250 has been competeing in the New Zealand National Championship in the 250 GP class . Her husband Lester is her mechanic and is responsible for the smooth running of the bike and has been involved in racing for many years and has also raced himself.

After an unfortunate crash in the fourth round at Levels Raceway, Timaru, she went into the last round of the national 250GP championships at Ruapuna 5 points adrift from Southland rider and leader John Beck. Karel secured the 2006 title with 3 outstanding rides. She won the first two races and came in a safe second in the last race to take the championship. Karel is now the first woman to win a national road race championship in New Zealand. Our congratualtions go out to Karel and Lester for this incredible achievement, a job well done!

Please click on the link to read more about Karel, Lester and the bike on their website www.kpracing.co.nz

RALLIES, RUNS & EVENTS: We have had a request to list any motorcycle events including rallies, rideouts, racing etc. So here is a list for the next few months, if you have any events that you think we should let everyone know about, please contact us and we will publish them in future issues.

February 25th-26th - Sound of Thunder - Ruapuna Raceway Christchurch

February 25th Ride Day - Manfield contact Barney 06 357 8748

March 3rd-4th - Akarana Riders Rage, Bayview hotel, Kaiaua. Contact Terry Hills 09 2984810

March 11th-12th - Annual Cliffhanger Hillclimb Championship, Gladstone, Wairarapa Contact Ken Farmer 06 3775467

March 17th-19th - Hororata Bike Fest Christchurch

Please let us know of any other coming events and we will list them.

BUCKET RACING: You are probably aware by now that there is a serious racing element happeneing at Thunderbike these days, it's been dormant for a few years but has now come to life once more. Graeme, Jason, Alan, Dave, Tiffany and company director Ian all participate in some form of motorcycle racing. We'll get more into detail about our staff riders in following issues. You may have heard the term "Bucket Racing" mentioned here and there,all of the Thunderbike Racing Team have a Bucket Racer, but what is it I hear you ask.......read on.

Bucket racing is basically commuter bike racing for example Honda MB100, CB125, Suzuki GS/GN/DR125 GP100/125 . However there are rules to this class. There does seem to be slightly different rules for North & South Island classes. 4strokes are now allowed up to 150cc air cooled, while the 2 strokes are restricted to 125cc air cooled. You can use any frame you like, the only real restriction to all bikes is that there are no engine performance or racing parts allowed.

There are some great "Buckets" out there, highly tuned racing machines that are well over double the factory power output! which have had thousands of dollars spent on them, others are straight off the street with lock wire and a number board. It makes for very exciting, fun and competitive racing. It's about the cheapest form of motorcycle racing you can compete in amd there are lots people doing it. Parts are getting harder to find as these capacity machines are not so popular, although the Suzuki FXR150 which is very popular in NZ, seems to be becoming the weapon of choice. Email us for more info on how to get started.

Thunderbike service manager Dave Wilson shares his knowledge and wisdom to hopefully help you out or just give you some general useful information. If you have any questions please email us (subject- tech question) and we will do our best to answer it, or, if you have any tips of your own, let us know! Anyway here goes:

How old are your tyres?

Want to know how old the tyres you are riding on are?
It’s easy if you know how
Most if not all tyres have a DOT mark on the sidewall this followed by a small row of numbers and letters and ends with four numbers inside an oval stamping
The last two digits are the year that the tyre was made From the above photo we can see this tyre was made in 2005

If your tyres are more than 5 years old they will offer significantly less grip that when they were new and should be treated with caution. So go and have a look in the garage now and see how old your tyres are, you may get a bit of a shock!

Ride safe and see ya next time. Dave.

We now have an even bigger range of t-shirts, including these new ladies cut Thunderbike T-shirts with the famous GET ON! SIT DOWN! SHUT UP! HANG ON! on the back. We also have shirts from our sister company GoTourNZ.com (motorcycle tours), these are available on our website as are our new range of Harley Davidson-New Zealand shirts.

If you would like one of these shirts for FREE, then send in one of your own motorcycle related photos, it doesn't have to be funny, just cool! the best one (in our opinion of course) gets a free shirt! We'll publish as many as we can in the next issue.

Here's some pics of our last winner of the shirt in our caption contest. Joe Mcglennon and his young son, from California, USA. His caption for the photo of Graeme and Dave was "..smile, you know...like you had hair!". Thanks to all our entrants and good luck for the next one.

Now get those photos in to alan@thunderbike.co.nz

Thunderbike Powersports Ltd. 29 Bolt Road, Tahunanui, Nelson, New Zealand Ph: +64 (03) 5485787 Fax: +64 (03) 5485783 Email: sales@thunderbike.co.nz Website: http://www.thunderbike.co.nz

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