Welcome to Episode 4 of KEEP IT TWISTED, the official podcast of the Motorcycle Advocacy Group NZ.

Host Pete is joined by his old friend Paul to discuss his passion for motorcycles. Paul talks about the loss of close family and friends, his restoration project, his personal experience with ACC following injury and how he is managing his motorcycle collection in the face of the levy increase imposed by ACC.

Find our more about MAGNZ at www.magnz.org.nz

Visit the MAGNZ fundraising page at https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-magnz-challenge-unlawful-motorcycle-levies

Shop in the MAGNZ online store at https://magnz.ezymerch.co.nz/.

Are you frustrated by the constantly rising cost of motorcycle registration here in New Zealand?

If you're nodding your head, you're not alone.

I'm Pete and this is Keep It Twisted, the official podcast of magnz.

My guest today is an old friend of mine, Paul.

We've known each other for about 12 years and he's the fellow who first introduced me to magnz.

Since then he's gone all in.

He moderates the page, helps to organize rides and generally refuses to sit quietly while ACC does its best to push.

Us off the road.

It's an open and honest chat about riding bikes, losing friends, motorcycle restoration, big miles around the south island and why this fight matters.

So I'm joined today by an old friend of mine, Paul, who I've known for about 12 years.

And Paul, you were the fellow who introduced me to magnz about a year ago.

Yeah, it was.

You know, I have talked on and off about bikes and bits and pieces and your passion for getting into the motorcycling scene again, and I thought it was relatively pertinent that you have a look at it as well.

Since then it's become a lot, lot deeper for you.

Yeah, it has, but you've been involved from pretty much the beginning.

I think I joined up pretty much when the page started because it raised some interest and then I sort of toddled around in the background there.

And then a post come up one day from Ants looking for some additional moderators.

So I put my name forward.

Privilege to be involved with this group with the likes of Ants and Richard and the rest of the moderator team just trying to make a difference.

Did you go on the VTNZ ride?

Yes, I did.

Yeah, I remember you saying about that.

I think I was overseas at the time so I couldn't turn out.

What's your overwhelming memory of that?

Probably the.

The first overarching memory was getting a phone call asking why I hadn't shown up to work that day.

I completely forgot it.

Being the branch manager, I completely overlooked the roster and of course, on occasion I ride my bike to work on a Saturday morning.

Everybody was panicking because they thought something untoward had happened, but I assumed I wasn't working and then ended up in Christchurch at the VTNZ ride.

Did you get Dr. Day's wages?

I do enough hours, mate.

The ride itself, how it was organised by DJ and Mark.

It was seamless, it was professional.

Just well impressed.

From that, I thrust my hand up to help with the Christchurch ride as well.

To the courthouse?

Yeah.

You did the briefing on the day in the park.

That was quite good effort.

Yeah.

Pretty privileged to be involved and to do what I can.

And you've got a bit of a thing about motorbikes.

Oh, addict.

It's what I go to work for.

It's what I look forward to in the weekends to the point where I'm going pretty deep with my own maintenance.

Recently put a bike back on the road after sitting for 18 years that I scored out of Shed and Blenheim.

What was that?

That was the ZX9R.

Right.

That was a real educational piece.

But it was also, for me, a bit of a defining moment to know that I can do such tasks with a workshop manual.

You know, I am mechanically minded, but I was pretty tickled pink, actually.

You know, put it through for the warrant.

It was a clean sheet, straight through.

Was it running when you picked it up?

We shipped it home, changed the fuel, changed the spark plugs, changed the air filter and pushed a button and away it went subsequently.

From there, you know, we did wheel bearings, steering head bearings, swing arm bearings, brake calipers, full strip down, vapor blast, powder coat rebuild.

And I was lucky.

I managed to get away with not having to sort of doctor too much into the carbs.

Number two wasn't firing at a block pilot jet, so we remedied that, put the balances on it, which was the first time I'd done something like that.

And they were pretty much dead nuts on in spec.

And then once we did that, it was just on the bike.

Took it for a shakedown run and.

Cool, Cool bike.

I just love it to bits.

It's absolutely fantastic.

Well, it's cool that you've brought that back into regular use, Paul.

Well, somebody's got to do it and I mean, there's a lot of guys out there, they have the passion for the motorcycles and if we're not doing it, it doesn't get done.

Yeah, I was just very, very lucky and very, very good bones from two gentlemen owners.

And the beauty of a slightly older bike is that there is a lot you can do yourself, I guess.

Yeah, correct.

That's my jam and I'm always looking for the next project.

But I'm running out of room in the garage, Pete, so.

Well, I was going to say, you're not just about the sport bike, are you?

You've got quite a bit stable there.

No, I started riding probably about the mid-90s.

That's when it really sort of started to gel with me.

My first bike was actually a wee two stroke 100cc Kawasaki, which I used to and from work.

But in my high school years my passion was actually aviation and I had visions of grandeur to become a pilot.

But in my fourth form, sort of fifth form year almost, school buddies all had their motorcycle licenses first so we used to kick around on Fridays and Saturdays.

A very good friend of mine, Wayne Cooper, and another one called Jeff Hunt.

Jeff actually had a XR250 and I used to jump on the back of that and we go wreaking havoc in town and around the sticks and bits and pieces and that sort of where it gelled from there.

So first bike, mid-90s, progressed up to a GSX750E.

I've always had a passion for the tls ever since I saw one in Balclutha and it was an S model and it was green.

It wasn't quite the Vanilla Ice moment, but it certainly took my breath away.

It was the sexiest thing on two wheels I'd ever seen.

It was just so, so, so cool.

Scorpion mufflers on it.

It looked the part, it sounded the part.

It was just a cool, cool bike, really, really neat.

Loved it.

A lot of power in that tail.

Oh, look, you had to ride it.

If you didn't treat it with the respect it deserved, it would have you.

So yeah, I rode that for a couple of years.

So that went into storage when I shifted across to Australia to work for Coates Hire over there.

And then sort of six weeks into my tenure over there, my youngest brother got killed in a motorcycle accident in Brisbane.

He was on a 250cc.

It didn't go his way and unfortunately he was no longer with us.

So that sort of put me off bikes for another three, four years really to be fair.

But since then, you know, we just press onto it and get into it and I've built up a bit of a collection, really, really Neat.

That must have been tough getting back on the bike after you lost your brother, though.

Yeah, it was.

The kids telling you to do it, the wife telling you not to do it.

Everybody wants you to give it away.

For me is that when I ride a bike, it's about being activated.

We all have busy days and busy lives with one thing or another.

You know, for me, I'm dealing with customers all day.

I'm dealing with suppliers, I'm dealing with line managers, dealing with staff.

But for me, when I get on the bike, all those energies and focuses shift to the bike.

So those focuses now become what I'm riding, where I'm going, what's happening around me, how am I approaching this corner, what hazards am I trying to identify as I'm riding along?

So whilst it's still an intense moment, the endorphins, all the other bits and pieces that go with it, it's a totally different focus and it's a relaxing focus.

That's probably the best way I can describe it.

You own multiple bikes?

Yeah, I got six.

So what effect has the increase in the levies had on you?

Personally, it's a concern.

Am I letting it affect me?

No, to a lesser extent, I guess I need to be very, very strategic in what I do.

It's an absolute pain in the backside, shifting registrations around, monitoring what's on registration, what's on hold.

Certainly the bikes are always at a warrant.

Fitness standard that doesn't lapse at all.

Financial side of things, like, I believe if it was a fair and reasonable rate, you know, there's ways and means you can stagger your registration periods and what have you, and I would have them registered all year round.

My bikes are insured all year round.

It's just a huge inconvenience.

It's certainly not fair.

When I'm looking at the data that's coming through and certainly the post that Richard put up the other day there regarding the difference between, say, GSX750 and the Benelli, it's just lun.

It really, really is.

It's got the ugliest tune out of the factory.

And when I'm 100% on the throttle of that thing, at best, I'm getting 75% of that out of the engine.

That's how dialed Back it is from an emissions point of view because it's a bike specifically for the sort of US sort of Canadian market.

115 Horsepower at a gears, but gobs and gobs and gobs of torque.

I've got in comparison, about 145 horsepower and half the weight.

Probably a bit more torque again being a slightly bigger donk 154 horsepower.

You prove the point, Paul.

So, so wrong.

And it's so disadvantaging as well.

For those who have the passion that.

We do, at the very least it just creates a huge amount of admin for you because you're juggling regos to make sure that you've got a bike or two bikes on the road, but you've been financially penalised for that.

Yeah, we are, 100% for sure.

One of my friends I mentioned just before, Wayne Cooper, he's probably my biggest wingman, we go riding.

You've got to juggle that registration for those days and bits and pieces, plan where you're going, plan how you're going to do it.

And we plan around the weather like in the last big ride we did.

I registered my bike for three or four days hoping it wouldn't piddle down with rain.

But when we go, we go.

We maximize the amount of kilometers that we can do.

Had we had a breakdown or we got laid over with weather or something.

Bits and pieces.

Then you've got that administrative task again to try and re register, get the sticker for your bike.

Yeah, it's just insane.

It really is.

When you do your big expeditions on your bike, what do you do for accommodation?

Are you camping or are you find B&Bs?

I've always wanted to do moto camping.

March last year I did a pretty big jaunt on my Yamaha Road Liner.

It was something that I've always wanted to do was get to Cape Reanga.

Basically lived in New Zealand all my life, never been there.

So I loaded up the old road liner to the hilt.

I had camping gear, I had this, I had that.

And As I rode in the Whangare, the Buddy Sky.

So I opened up, got absolutely bloody drenched, so we parked up at a motel.

I learned pretty quickly that, no, I don't camp and I'm too old to be pitching a tent at half past six at night and blowing up nearby.

I've got a lone rider moto tent, the one with a big awning that you can get your bike in.

Yeah, I don't think it's been out of the packet for that very reason.

We fly by the seat of our pants, actually, to be fair.

We plan where we're going to go.

We're watching the weather 10 days out.

It evolves right up the time we leave.

When we did that run down the south there, we fueled up in town here.

Then Wayne says, let's go to Milford Sound.

So we did.

Rolling.

The Milford Sound roared back again.

We'd come up from Invercargill through Tuatapri, all through that way.

We rolled up to the local motor camp.

Oh, we got no accommodation.

And what are we going to do?

Wayne?

He said, we'll ride through to Queenstown and I ain't going nowhere.

I've had enough for today.

I'm not going through the Queenstown now.

We managed to find accommodation, actually, we got it at a discount rate.

We just thought, we're a couple of old fart bikers.

We've had enough.

What do you got?

He said, well, funny enough, we've just had a cancellation.

It's like, yep, quit.

I'll take it.

Awesome.

And that's the thrill of it.

We just wing it.

It's very good for the soul.

It's character building when you're trying to find accommodation at the last minute, it's worked out fine every time, you know, you just got to have that mindset.

Are you flying solo or do you take your missus as a pillion?

Pool pillion sometimes.

Certainly on the cruises.

Yeah.

She won't do sports bikes.

Too uncomfortable for her.

Probably a bit quick sometimes, too.

That all works well.

Yep.

So pretty cool there.

I know how much pleasure and enjoyment you get from your motorcycles and it's just sad to see people being curtailed because of a financial penalty that we haven't asked for and is very difficult to justify, to be honest.

Ah.

There is only one word for it as lunacy.

When I had a meeting with James Meagher there, probably the best part, about a year or so ago.

He's your local mp, is he?

Yes, he's.

Yeah.

Orangutata.

I sat down with him and I probably sat with him for about 45 minutes.

In the end, it was.

It was pretty cool.

And he could actually see the rationale, what we were trying to say.

He's also a fully fledged barrister, solicitor, whatever you want to call it, so he could see it.

But it'd be quite interesting now to sort of get another audience with him now that he is the Associate Minister for Transportation.

Well, it's an election year and I'm quite surprised that none of the candidates that I've seen are actually talking about this.

No, I can't think of any politicians either in power or campaigning for a seat in November.

I can't think of any who are talking about it.

No.

As I understand it, we've had some discussions with a political party.

Whether they take that on board or not, it's a different kettle of fish.

Is it big on their radar?

I don't believe it is, really, to be fair.

You've got all these other things they're talking about and this is what we want to do and this is how we're going to do it.

I think ACC levies and what motorcyclists are paying are probably way down the list and this is why Megs NZ are doing what they're doing.

I think you're right, but we're starting to make a bit of progress and get a little bit of traction.

And you only need to look at the numbers of people who have logged onto the Facebook page and joined the motion.

You know, we're definitely gaining momentum.

Oh, yeah, 100%.

Certainly the traction with the media at the Christchurch courthouse, I mean, that was gold.

And particularly the gentleman they interviewed who'd come up from Dunedin with one leg, you know, he's being penalized because he got collected by someone.

Completely not his fault.

Correct.

He's living with the consequences.

And now he's been financially penalized for somebody else's actions.

Yep.

Completely not his fault.

The one thing that struck me is the sense of brotherhood between people involved in magnz.

You've moved into that circle, there's no ego involved.

You've willingly put your own time and effort into supporting the cause.

And I think that shows how important this is to people, whether they're involved with the MAGNZ administrative team or whether they're casual observers.

Oh, look, motorcycling is a brotherhood and sisterhood, irrespective whether you're part of mags.

You just gotta look at the different sort of Facebook pages that are out there currently.

When I was heading down to Alexandria yesterday, I called into a coffee cart on the edge of Lake Dunstan there, where the bridges actually turn off to go into Cromwell.

And I was speaking to a guy there and he says, oh, busy today?

Oh, no, it's all going well.

He says, oh, we heading to us.

I'm just heading down to Alexandra.

But I said, I'd rather be doing it by motorbike.

He said, yeah, I know, I just sold my Harley a couple, three weeks ago and of course that sparks my interest.

We get to talk.

And so we were there for about 45 minutes, yakking, talking about his motorcycle adventures.

He circled Australia twice, crisscrossed America twice.

And I said to him, you're going to get back into it.

He said, I'm pushing 70.

And I said, mate, never give up.

That's the brotherhood.

I don't know the guy from a block of cheese, but yet we can spark up a conversation over a cup of coffee on the side of the road on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Central Otago.

Ironically enough, the young lass whose 21st it was last night, she started riding.

And that's my good friend Jeff, he used to kick around with years earlier on the old XR200.

As much as we'd like to get her dad back out on the bike, and that's going to be like trying to pull teeth, we're going to take it on ourselves to mentor her and spend time with her and take her out riding and, you know, show her the ways and the bits and pieces.

Like, Wayne will ride up front, I'll ride behind her.

But also her cousin is a motorcyclist as well and she's got a CBR 500, young Renee, and she's going to tag along.

It's reassuring to hear that young people are riding bikes because one of the fears is that the cost of registering a bike now is going to put young people off turning to motorbikes.

Motorcycles were always seen as a cheaper and more affordable mode of transport and that's no longer true, is it?

No, it's not, no.

Well, technically they are, but it's the ACC levies which are killing it.

Yeah, they're just pushing us off the road.

I've worked hard over the years.

I've raised three kids, I've got a granddaughter my times now.

And this is why I sink most of my spare time outside of house chores into my motorbikes, because it brings me the world's greatest pleasure.

I Can identify with that without a doubt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we're looking pretty forward to sort of going riding with these two young ladies and yeah, we'll just start off and we'll go down and hopefully her dad will get the taste for it again and get into it.

Well, you might have to lend him a bike.

I told him that labor weekend is happening.

It is cool seeing the young guys out in the bikes and bits and pieces.

I mean, here in Timaru, you know, you have the scooter scene and if I pull into the garage on one of my bikes, you know, particularly the vtr or the ZX9, they come and have a wee chat.

But then I give them a gentle reminder.

Where's your safety kit?

How come you're just wearing shorts and Crocs and a T shirt and no gloves?

You got your head protected.

Just trying to sow that seed with them.

You get one crack at it, you cock it up.

Might not be another one.

Do you know, it always amazes me.

They hold the moto socials once a month during the summer here in Christchurch.

I've been along to a few and there'll be four or five hundred bikes turn up.

It's incredible and it's great.

I like group riding.

Do I want to do it all the time?

No, I don't particularly like riding by myself.

It's much more fun if you're riding with someone, whether it's Wayne or Jeff or a couple other colleagues or yourself, which hopefully we can get a ride planned this summer coming.

Well, I hope so.

I've got a friend coming over from the UK who wants to do a big lap of the south island on two wheels.

Oh, South Island's a beautiful place.

Somewhere between January and March we'll definitely be on the road.

I'm forward planning now.

I'm trying to convince Wayne that we should do a run up to Cape Venga on sports bikes next February, March.

When I did that last year, it was the first time I'd been further north to Wellsford and I did that run by myself, you know, lone morphed it all the way and it was a test of my own ability.

Those memories that are created, I mean, I don't stop and take photos and bits and pieces like that.

My memories are in my head, my eyes are my camera and I, I just like to ride.

And when I got up past and further north, the people are great, they're friendly, there was no issues.

The roads weren't too bad.

It just leaves me speechless, you know, and this ride coming up, we want to go to other places.

I want to go over the Rima Takas and go up that side of the country and hopefully factor in a bit of the east coast and stuff where I've never been before.

I've done the Coromandel Loop once, many years ago.

That was an awesome, awesome memory.

So I'd like to do that in reverse.

But it's cool, Pete.

It really, really is.

I very rarely stop to take photographs when I'm riding my bike.

I might take one if we stop for a coffee because I ride a BMW and of course I only go to coffee shops.

Yep, yep.

We rode back from Queenstown in one go last year and that was too much.

We stopped for tea in Waimetti.

I think we took a detour.

So I wasn't on state.

I won all the way, but I am, you know, I love riding long distances, but that was too much, man, for me.

It's a couple hundred ks in a day is good, but certainly closer to 5 or 600 is better.

You know, I felt it at the end and by the time I got home I'd had enough.

Hence now currently I'm hard up the gym, I'm building up the core strength and all the muscles and that that are associated with motorcycling to get myself fit.

I've lost, you know, seven or eight kilos to do it.

Got myself one of those flash leather race onesies things.

After the VTNZ ride, I was at the bar at the Yacht Tavern getting a soft drink.

One of my rules is that I don't drink and ride.

I don't ride with a hangover and I don't ride if I'm not in the right frame of mind.

Standing at the bar, this guy comes up and he says, oh, are you going the MotoGP?

I said, oh no.

He said, mate, you look so fast standing still.

One of the things I did want to just mention was I know you're heavily involved in the moderation side of the Facebook page and I have to say that correspondence and the comments are generally pretty well measured.

There's not a lot of, well, there isn't any nastiness, there's differences of opinions, but it's a very well managed Facebook group and there's a lot of free flowing conversation and chat around the issues and not everybody agrees and some people are upset that we've done a Regio Freeze campaign and other People think we should be keeping quiet because if you talk about it, it will encourage the powers that be to take even more aggressive action against motorcyclists.

But that's the beauty of a Facebook forum that you're allowed to have those conversations.

And you know, I'll take my hat off to you and the rest of the moderation team that you managed to keep that.

Well managed.

I think the expectations were set pretty clear with Ants and Rick.

When we come on board, I think five of us were taken on when the request initially went out.

There is a degree of high level filter that is applied to it and for obvious reasons.

Obviously we don't want to be publishing or having anything which would potentially put the movement at risk.

And rightly so.

I responded to a comment today.

Once you understand they just don't care what we think, you'll sadly just give up.

Well, you know, I sort of responded back, well, I'd say we're in it for the long haul and we are.

This is why we here.

There's too many people that are committed and are in way too deep to back off.

My sense of it is that even if we're successful and we get a revision of the policy that's led to these levy increases, the motorcycle advocacy group's not going anywhere.

It's an incorporated society now.

And the next issue might be digital licenses and road user charges.

There's a debate to be had there.

Rather than it being forced on everyone.

There needs to be a national debate about the pros and cons of that as a policy.

Yep, correct.

I would be on board with a digital license because my phone is always mounted to my bike, my wallet's always tucked away deep in the leather somewhere.

So, yeah, on board with that.

I think it's a great idea.

Do I want my vehicle tracked with digital rucs and all this sort of stuff?

No, thank you.

Not interested.

I think it'll be a cold day in hell before I even considered fitting some of that to my bike.

A motorcycle has to go through a warrant every year.

Now, part of that warrant check, it's the same for cars, is that the mileage is recorded on that warrant of fitness.

Why can't they track the mileage used off that WAF sheet?

They know what it was the last time it went in for a warrant.

And then you've got your next warrant.

This is a distance recorded right there for a start.

The current system works all right for diesel vehicles, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does, 100%.

And that's the purposes for, and don't get me wrong, and I am going to go into bat for ACC a little bit here.

Yeah, ACC for the purpose it was created does work well.

I have been on ACC three times in my lifetime.

One was for a miniscule tear in my knee, one was for a deglobbing injury on my hand.

That was 18 months of reconstructive surgery, workplace incident.

Then I knocked it with my backside and tipped it over, went to pick it up and form a bicep off my lower arm.

Went to the hospital on a Sunday, went back on the Monday.

You booked in for surgery on Wednesday.

Job done, fix.

You need to have three weeks off work.

I said, I ain't doing that.

And I rang the case manager, I says, look, I can work from work, just get me to and from work.

I said, I don't want anything else from acc, I don't want to be paid by acc, I just want to get to work.

So they provided driving me staizzi to get me to and from work till I was allowed to drive.

So that was an accident involved a motorcycle, but not a motorcycling accident?

No, it wasn't.

Just trying to pick the big heavy thing up.

Yeah, ACC in itself is a good system.

If it is used for the purpose it was designed for.

It has its place in New Zealand society.

But what they're doing with the motorcycle registration is just so, so wrong and so incorrect.

So it's been great to catch up with you, Paulo has.

Enjoy that.

Anything that you want to close with?

Oh, look, I'd just like to say thank you to Rick and Ants for getting this movement going.

I'm very privileged to have joined the moderation team, but also to all the members of the page, together united, we can achieve more.

And this is what it's about.

We've got to stick together, we've got to fight the good fight.

And not forgetting Mark Chappell, Mate, thank you so, so much for what you're doing, the efforts that you're putting into it.

And I know there's been a lot of selfless hours, a lot of self sacrifice from these three key members to achieving what they're trying to achieve.

It's just huge and it's greatly appreciated, certainly by me.

Oh, I think a lot of people will stand with you on that one, Paul.

It's customary, Paul for people to start their motorcycle on the show.

I'll ask what are you going to start today?

I'm going to start Jason now.

All my bikes are actually named after people in my life which were important to me now.

Jason was a guy I went to school with and played rugby with in bits and pieces.

Unfortunately passed away with cancer and just prior to him passing away I heard about it and I raced down and I said to him, you know what is one of the things you want to do, Jason?

I've got limited time, Paul.

I said, I'll get there.

He says, I want to go bike riding with you and the boys.

We'd planned sort of four weeks out.

Unfortunately he didn't make it that far.

Jason was a fun, loving guy and when he had a few fantasies he would be pretty loud and obnoxious.

We'll rev this one for Jason then take it away.

Huge thanks to Paul for coming on and sharing the good, bad and ugly sides of motorcycle life.

Paul and the rest of the magnz team are pushing hard to support Mark Chappell in his high court fight against acc.

If you'd like to bank the cause, head over to magnz.org nz and join up.

Check out the Givealittle page or have a look at our merch shop.

We've got T shirts, hoodies and more in a range of colours, all with a mag nz, rego Freeze or keep it Twisted designs.

Every dollar we raise will go straight into the legal fight and help us keep the pressure on.

The links are in the notes.

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Think about the show.

Drop your thoughts, questions or suggestions on the magnz Facebook page.

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It's a deep dive into the statement of claim with Mark Chappell himself.

Until then, ride safe.

Stands up, visors down and keep it twisted.

We're not gonna play anymore.