Hard Day.

Day 3.

Thought I'd have an easy one today. Yeah right.

After a good nights sleep with 'the two gay girls' I was up and then on the bike at 8.30am. Not bad I thought because I'd actually been able to achieve a few things that up until now I haven't had time for. Namely cleaning my teeth ( I forgot my toothbrush), shaving my face and fungal creaming my feet (a must as my washed socks are never dry by morning so its wet feet).

A Victim of NZ Drivers. The White Bike

My easy day on the bike certainly wasn't. The sun was out for most of it but the rest can best be described as gale force head winds, up hill for pretty much the whole time and then finished off with the last 1okms in driving rain. Eight hrs of hard cycling has got to be good though. I only hope it stops raining by morning because last time I cycled through here ten years ago it sleeted the whole way across the volcanic plateau and I dame near got hypothermia . It was late November then too.

I was pleased to witness a bit of high country mustering. Raetihi the town I'm staying in continues to slowly disappear into the earth with more rotten and empty shops than occupied ones. Its still got a long way to go before it approaches the sort of decay that I witnessed among small towns in Nevada last year.

And a special note to Adi. I'm still on budget because I've not had time enough to stop and shop! Maybe tomorrow the sun will come out and I will have time for a leisurely did in a hot pool along the thermal plateau.

Where's McDonalds Please

Day 2

Today was a long one and it's not over yet. There's just not enough hours in the day at the moment so my blogging will be limited until I can either learn to cycle faster , not eat or buy a room and a meal for the night. The last option is not an option as I'm also training myself to keep to a budget that adi has set me.

So here I am in Bulls at the motor camp cooking my dinner , blogging and hydrating and its 8.40 pm. Could'nt get potatoes tonight but did manage fresh salad and meat again. Baked beans will have to be a spud substitute.

Nice Day  for a Coke.

Eight hours in the saddle today and 3.5 hrs on the retched ferry. I had to get up at 5am! That was a real ask for the 'reluctant cyclist'. Anyway I completed the 160kms planned and had some nasty wind to contend with.

I've come to realise that campervan drivers and motorcyclists must be bored out of their heads most of the time. They always wonder over to ask the odd question and just look like they need entertaining. Cant blame them really. It's just drive coffee, drive coffee all day.

If I could just make them useful putting up my tent or washing my socks! It all has to be done.

Spot the Bored Motorcyclists.

If I can get to bed by 10.30pm tonight I might get 8hrs sleep.

Fully Loaded Training

DAY 1

Well this time I have a fully loaded touring bike .

I expected rain but luckily not only did it clear just before I left home but the expected strong head winds died and then came in behind me to help me along. Actually it was just as well because the weight of the bike took a bit of getting used to and I didn't leave home until mid day.

My First Coke and Icecream.

Anyway 130kms and I'm here at Picton. Tomorrow I have to get up at 5am to catch the ferry to the North Island. I loath this trip on the ferry. I invariably end up chucking up the last nights dinner and breakfast. While everyone looks on in pity. Why don't they just piss off and let me suffer in solitude. It may not be that bad a crossing. But it can be. Cook Strait is one of the roughest in the world at times. The wind funnels through between the North and South Islands and this combined with the depth of the water mean that you need proper ocean going ferries.

Dinners cooking as I write this. I am coming to realise that the cycling part of this training is going to be the easy part. It's the cooking , washing of socks and making camp and then blogging that is going to be the challenging part.

That'll do for today sweet potatoes and steak await. And I managed to pick up a real vegey salad. There you go Adi man can survive without woman.

Maintaneance.

I'm hoping to do some reasonably big kilometers next week. Starting tomorrow with the Sunday Boys Ride and then carrying on into the week with my ride to Taupo for the around the lake sportive event.

So the Mercian was down in the workshop getting some much needed attention. If you're interested you can read about it in the Workshop section.

There's rain predicted for Monday. But then who gives a toss because this time I'll put the mudguards on.

The Plan for Next Week.

Here I am the computer beginner Niel the Wheel preparing his blog entry on a new little netbook that I got for the race next year. It’s a cheap as chips HP netbook. But hopefully it will do all I want in terms of searching the net and keeping everyone informed of my journey. So Adi will have the laptop at home and I will have this little baby. All I have to do is find an endless supply of McDonalds or other free wifi places to send my ramblings from.

                                         

Adi managed, through writing to the Around Lake Taupo people, to get me free entry into this year’s race. So next week I am going to cycle the x number of kilometres to the race camping as I go , compete in the race and then cycle the kilometres back home again. My idea is to do this as I would in the Global race next year .ie freedom camping as I go and trying to do blog reports when I can fit them in on the little net book. I’m going to have to treat it a lot better than I treated my cell phone a couple of weeks back when I decided to do two days touring in torrential rain and drowned the cell phone.(luckily it has recovered). I will use camping grounds at Taupo itself because I have to turn my touring bike into a sports bike to do the race and then reconfigure it again afterwards. I also need somewhere with a bit of security to store my stuff for the day.

It was great of Adi to once again come through for me in getting the free entry. I was contemplating cycling up and doing the circuit anyway but now I’m legal. I also have Kevin from overseas to thank because he couldn’t make the event this year and so contacted the organisers and asked if they could pass on his entry to a deserving individual. So thanks to Kevin and Adi.

                                  

I plan to cover about 160km per day on the way up and back. My bike will be fully loaded so it should be a good test. So far nobody I know has expressed interest in coming with me. I can’t quite understand that. I mean where’s the adventure in just riding around the lake?

I’ve officially finished at the bike shop now so I suppose I will be getting most of my cycling bits and pieces via the internet although I know that  Mike at ‘Avanti Nelson’ will help me where he can.

Now I Can Play With 'Two Gay Girls'.

They have arrived and I spent the afternoon trying this and that. Please read all about it under my Equipment section.

Fully Erected.

I think I've Stuffed My Cell Phone.

When I first started cycle touring we didn't bother with cell phones. In fact we didn't bother much with communication at all. We sort of got on our bikes and disappeared off the radar  between generally 2 to 8weeks. However in the really early stages of my cycling life, when I was 12years old (that's 4 or 5 summers younger than some of the competitors on the Global Bike Race), we were required by our parents to phone home every night and had to find a phone booth to do it. In those days you could find a phone both pretty much anywhere.  The receiver had generally been cut off and some one's dysfunctional kids had usually jammed the wrong size coins in the slots making it useless.

So phoning home was a pain in the arse. Often requiring more effort than cooking a slap up meal of baked beans and sausages.

Well some things never change. Phoning home on my little trip a couple of days ago was also nigh impossible in the 21st century.

Setting Off.

As mentioned in my previous blog I set myself the target of riding my 3/4 loaded touring bike the 210kms to Westport and then back the next day. These ideas always sound pretty good when they go through your head. But the problem is once you have mentally said, 'ok Niel lets go with that' you have made a commitment to yourself and if you don't do it you feel like shit.

Well firstly the weather for the week wasn't looking that flash and Westport is situated on the incoming front side of South Island, NZ. And secondly once I'd loaded up the bike with the low rider bags , Brooks handlebar bag and full rear saddle bag, M.U.M was feeling pretty chunky.

Knowing that Adi wouldn't like what I could turn into if I didn't go, I took what I thought was the lesser of two evils, grabbed a sunny morning and headed off.

Thirty kilometers into the ride and the sun was gone and things were looking decidedly grey.Well the next 100kms can only be described as torrential rain. Not that warm either, as I struggled into the Murchison cafe and ordered lunch.

My mood was not improved by the fact that the only free range toddler in the place had  taken a liking to me and my bike. Luckily for me I had a wall with a pane of glass between me and his food caked face. Ignoring them has always worked in the past and it didn't fail me this time except that his attention immediately shifted to my bike. After about the 4th attempt world child no. 6billion, 900 million and two, managed to pull my bike on top of himself. Well at least my chain got a wipe and it was a soft landing for my Mercian.

The afternoon cleared up! I rolled into Westport in pretty good time and got the coffin tent up after downing dinner. Usually on these sorts of rides I find the first day  is OK but its the next day when you have to ride another couple of hundred and the third day that things get really grippy. I have to say on going to bed in the coffin I was feeling pretty smug. I thought just 210k's home tomorrow and I can feel happy with a 620km week.

Luckily I wasn't so cocky as to sleep in a bit. Because being a reluctant cyclist I can easily sleep in. No, I was on the road by 7.30am . Luckily I was because it was one of the most unpleasant 210kms I have ridden!

Before the Storm Hit.

I loaded a soaking tent onto the bike (after heavy overnight rain) and a wet sleeping bag which had absorbed a kg or two of water due to the coffin like nature of the tent. ( You are never far from nature in that tent). The first 5kms of the ride were not that bad with just light to moderate rain. The next 215kms can best be described as living hell alternating between driving rain, driving hail,and just bad driving from logging trucks and stock freighters. (Where I think the IQ of the driver rates not a lot higher than that of his passengers).

I love the Brooks gear on my bike. If you read my blog a bit you will know I 'm a Brooks man. But I have to say you have to be a pretty enthusiastic type to ride your Brooks stuff in conditions like that.

My leather bar end tape absorbed there own weight in water.
My leather H/Bar grips absorbed at least 3 x their weight in water and threatened to expand to a point where they popped off the end of the bars.
Leather saddle, ditto, even with its nylon cover.
My H/Bar bag topped things off by not just doubling its own weight but soaking my cell phone making it impossible to call home for assistance.

I wouldn't actually have phoned home for a lift because its against my principles ( and anyway we sold our cars and the hobby kombi still has its engine on the bench), but it would have been nice to tell Adi the nightmare conditions I was cycling through.

One interesting point I've noticed in extreme conditions is that you often make pretty good time because to stop is to die of exposure. One other interesting point is that the Sam Browning catch on the Brooks H/bar bag is impossible to undo when your fingers have been in frequent hail showers for the last 8hours. So short of opening it with my teeth my bag was holding onto the cold fried sausages that I put in it. I think Sam Brown  must have cycled only in a temperate climate.  With frequent stops on sunny afternoons for devonshire teas.



In a couple of weeks I'll head out on a 10 day mission to the Lake Taupo 160  Challenge and will have a new net book to keep dry during that trip. Hopefully I'll have better weather. I'll certainly use a tent that I can sit up in. But not 'The Gay Girls' I want to save them for the trip overseas.

So not a tidy week but 620kms is 620kms. I feel happy with that.