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The aim of my motorcycle tours is to provide a value-for-money motorcycling touring experience here in New Zealand. My tours are well within the budget of the recreational motorcyclist, and the tours that I have organized so far since 2008 have covered the four corners of New Zealand.

I am typical of a male in his 40’s returning to motorcycling after a nearly twenty year

absence.  My first motorbike (I couldn’t afford a car) at the age of 15years was a  Honda CB 175, followed fairly quickly by a  Honda CB 360, and over a six year period, I rode around 100,000kms.  By 1986 my initial motorcycling days were over, and it wouldn’t be until late 2005 that I would buy my next motorcycle – an older model  Honda Goldwing, part of this due to the nagging of a customer of mine in my grocery store Murray Heaton who urged me to get back into motorcycling.  I joined the NZ Goldwing Riders Club and did two of their ‘F-Troop’ six day tours, which provided the spark for me to take motorcycle touring one step further.

 With no-one to ride with locally, I began to notice customers of mine who rode and with the advent of email, I began to start an email list for regular group rides around Northland every six or so weeks.  From an email list of six to ten email addresses that has now grown today to around seventy-five email addresses.  By 2008, I floated the idea of a four day long weekend ride around East Cape, expecting  ten or so riders, when in actual fact twenty-three folk started.  Despite treacherous weather for the first two days, that initial 2008 tour finished without incident   Further more most folk on that initial East Cape tour have participated in a selection of the subsequent tours. Three years and seven tours later, I have now taken the step to start a motorcycle touring website.

I have operated the Molesworth Four Square here at Mangawhai Heads since 1992 and are currently the Vice-Chair of the National Assoc of Retail Grocers & Supermarkets of NZ.  My other interests include jogging (a former Wellington Marathon winner), scuba diving, rail travel and being the treasurer of my local rugby club  www.tomarata.co.nz for the past eighteen seasons.  In 2003 I walked/jogged the length of NZ from Bluff to Cape Reinga - 2355kms - in 65 days.

Favourite Quote  ‘the harder I trained - the luckier I became’   

 Gary Player – South African golfer.

www.tomarata.co.nz