From dust to urban sprawl

Yesterday was another of those days that I had earmarked as probably requiring ‘ride to survive‘ tactics. A 75km amble from Tuakau to Kelston through south and west Auckland. Just as well the RA wasn’t on the back as she would have lost her voice relaying all the instructions – the route was complicated! Surprisingly, I managed it in good time. Helped by great weather and a desperate need to find a toilet. It had not registered in my addled brain that it would be houses and vehicles for the entire ride rather than dust and handy bushes. At least my decision to time it for a Sunday was inspired – no trucks. A good portion of the ride was on excellent paths but my well developed livestock herding skills were of little use when it came to herding humans. I simply resorted to using the bell.

With the exception of a 35km stint along State Highway 4 from Ohakune to National Park, the route that I have taken since Whanganui has been devoid of traffic. In some parts I have ridden for over 30km without encountering a vehicle. It has been great. The surfaces have often been good quality seal with some longish sections of variable quality gravel. On the ride from Kāwhia I started on an ok(ish) gravel road but when I hit the signposted council boundary the quality deteriorated into one of the worst surfaces that I have ridden on the entire journey. Without the RA on the back I struggled to keep the big bike under control. Thumbs down to the Waikato District Council – head hunt the engineer at Otorohanga District Council!

When working out the itinerary I scheduled rest/reserve days for towns that I knew had bike shops. Raglan was one of these and being around 2,400km into my return journey I had anticipated that the brake pads would be needing replacement. That was job number one and a task that I can do myself as I was carrying spare pads. I checked the front wheel first and was surprised to note that the pads looked like the ones that I put in way back at Awakeri Springs at the end of October. I was riding on the assumption that they had been replaced in Invercargill. Probably explains some of noise emanating from the front wheel.

Brakes have been critical on the ride from Whanganui. While the hills may not have been as high as those in the South Island, they are relentless here in the North. It has been like riding along an 800km roller coaster.

I have had a couple of less memorable episodes of late. I had earlier had a day off at Taumarunui and went for a road trip (in a car) with my nephew – to Taupo. I had ‘charged’ my batteries the evening before, well I thought I had. At 9am the next morning I turned the bike on and was surprised to see that I only had 40% charge on board. I had plugged them in, walked away and when I later checked, the charging lights had gone off. Switched the batteries and did the same thing. I had missed one minor detail, I had not flicked the power switch on at the wall. Needless to say, it was a late start as I waited for an hour to get a little more charge on board. I did not want to be walking up those hills pushing the heavy tandem in loose gravel. Lesson learned – check that you have the power switched on.

That same day I got to Ohura. I looked at the messages on my phone. ‘Your phone data has run out‘. Oh well, I will use the App to get some more. No I won’t, my ‘smartphone’ has offloaded the app because I had not used it for a while. No wifi to download said App or access my route for the next day, one that I recall used a raft of different roads which, from experience, may not have sign posts. Eventually I rang the RA at HQ and got her to give me turn by turn instructions. It was complicated and relied on signposts. This had all the hall marks for me getting seriously lost in the wop wops. So we took another approach, I walked the RA through the process of getting her to purchase some data for my phone. It took a while but we got there. About an hour later I finally got a text to say that I was good to go. Lesson learned – check your data if heading into the wop wops.

I guess these mis steps are an indication that it has been a long time on the road. My equilibrium has been thrown by the recent perpetual roller coaster riding that has been supplemented by the brain juddering impact of the corrugations that I hit when my attention is distracted and I fail to take evasive action.

A common comment that I am starting to get, apart from the now overused “you have lost your passenger”, is “you are nearly home”. I hadn’t thought too much about it but I guess only about 400km to go is getting closer, certainly feels more doable than the number when we started. The RA is pumped and ready to go (my language not hers). She has been busy on stationary bikes at the gym so I am expecting to feel a dramatic lift in bike power later this week.

As always, a major motivator for our ride has been to try and raise funds and awareness for The Bald Angels. Here is another story provided by the Angels on how they make a difference. If you would like to donate you can do so via our give-a-little page – all donations go directly to Bald Angels. https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/the-angel-tandem-two-70and-year-olds-riding-7500km