All on my Todd

A very quick update before I head off into the wilderness for a couple of days.

I have already briefed you on the off – on – off RA which in the end remained off. So on Monday I awoke at 4:10am in order to catch the ‘red eye’ out of Kerikeri so that I could get a connection to the direct Auckland to Invers (it’s a local thing) flight. A deterioration in the weather made all of this look extremely marginal on Sunday, not the start that I was hoping for. Anyway, the plane was on the tarmac, the weather was in an hiatus and I got away.

The next anxiety touchpoint was collecting the bike from storage in Invers (yes, I know – it’s corny). Had the rodents gone into overdrive and eaten the tyres away, or chewed through the panniers? As I nervously inserted the key into the roller door lock, I anticipated the worst, but hallelujah all was well, the bike looked just as I left it.

Job number one was to work out how I was going to set the bike up for a solo ride of 3,000km. The sane Cliff was saying “don’t bother, just wave the white flag and send it home”. The silly Clive was saying, “don’t be a tosser, sort the bike out and get riding”. Now I hate being called a tosser so it was a case of ‘onya bike’.

I had a pretty good idea of how I would arrange it sans RA. By the end of Monday it was sorted and on Tuesday I took it for a spin out to Oreti Beach and then around Invers ( I can’t help myself). Felt ok, if not a bit wobbly at the back and a bit sluggish, kinda like riding my manual mountain bike. Missing the weight on the stoker seat does mean that the rear end with the panniers tends to wobble.

Wednesday dawned and the ride home commenced. Ironically, the first 37km was south. But what a start. Not a cloud in the sky, the temperature had soared to around 16c and the World was my Oyster (I was riding to Bluff). I had also decided to ride up Bluff hill to see how I managed a steepish climb. The problem down here in Southland (who named these places?) is that it is flat and anyone can ride a bike on the flat. My concern was that in a few days I was going to need to get the bike over the Crown Range and I did not want be pushing a heavy tandem over that!

The ride was a ‘piece of cake‘. I rolled into Stirling Point, got one of the milling crowd to take my photo, and then headed off up Bluff Hill, a 260m climb. I thought that the ride up was pretty challenging, I dropped the gears into granny and increased the assistance levels and the bike was just making progress, but I made it. Well worth the effort, Rakuira/Stewart Is was clear as a bell and there was a lot of Rata in full flower. When I began my descent I was shocked at the gradient, cripes, no wonder the pedals were barely turning going up. I feel better about tackling the Crown Range the wrong way, despite a fellow cyclist at Bluff telling me that I was dreaming thinking that I could ride it ‘the wrong way’.

The weather forecast was, unfortunately, accurate and I set out from a very wet Bluff on my ride north to Winton. The cycle path for 16km out of Bluff runs a few metres away from the southbound lane of what is an unusually busy stretch of road. Mostly populated by semi trailers. Now chuck A LOT of water on the road and you have a perpetual water blaster that you are riding against. Fortunately, the weather forecast was for conditions to clear around midday so I figured that even if I was a ‘drowned rat’, I would get to go through a dry cycle before I hit Winton.

After to Invers (there I go again) I needed the RA as my navigator. The route started to resemble a game of snakes and ladders. With the rain persisting down, I could not have the phone out. What to do? I tried using the voice navigation and this was a really bad move. The voice was annoying, aggressive (turn now!) and confusing, oh for the gentle recommendations of the RA. I turned it off. Ah ha, I could send the route to my bike computer. A genius stroke. Until a bit later when i noticed that my phone battery was being consumed quicker than a cold beer on a hot day and should I lose the phone, I was lost.

So things were only going so so and then I spotted a cafe which I had not been expecting on this ride. I screeched into the parking lot (disc brakes really object to having water on them) and popped in for a pie (I was wet and cold!) and a coffee.

On my exit I went to press the flashing light on a the rear rack and my luggage moved, dramatically. WTF, I checked and it was going freestyle, not something that you want. It was still persisting down with rain so I could not open all the bags up and rummage around for zip ties. I found a Velcro strap and managed to secure the wayward rack back onto the bike.

The forecast clearance in the weather morphed into really heavy rain in the afternoon and by the time I swam into Winton I was really wet. I sloshed into the pub. The Manager said that he used to live in Opua. I thought about my response and politely said “gosh that is a big change”.

My room quickly resembled a laundry. The heater was cranked up to full and it was like having a sauna. What is it with this summer?

I am happy to report that today dawned dry but cool. I found a great place for breakfast, the roads were great and deserted, there was no wind, no rain, Bob was back up top after spending yesterday in the pannier and humming ‘singing in the rain’ (what a witty guy). It was all uphill and my legs did feel a little tight but overall, I was getting back into the swing of things.

The weather forecasts for the weekend have not been great. Now, as you can already gather, I am not bothered by a little H2O but my ride over the weekend requires me to camp and ford two rivers. Rain is not a good outcome for a happy ending to either of those.

I can also joyously report that the latest forecast is for just the odd shower. Let’s hope that is how it pans out!