Rented a bike from “cycle Auckland”. Great people there. Offered to open or close the shop early or late to meet my schedule. They are located a ferry ride across the bay from the CBD. Stopped in the day before I was due to pickup the bike. Instead of me having to come back the next day the owners offered to meet me at the ferry terminal in the morning with the bike, having taken it home with them the previous night. Amazing.
Grabbed the bike the next day, brand new cannondale touring bike with all the panniers, tools, computer and spd peddles all for about $100 per week. Given that it’s at least a $2,000 rig that was pretty decent pricing. Made my way to the bus terminal and in just under three hours was deposited in the “northland”, which, as you probably guessed is north of auckland. Got dropped off at the “swinging cow” cafe where I planned to eat something fill water bottles and head off. They were closed… So I headed off hungry with no water and temps I’m the 70s. Same thing happened to me on the prince rupert to calgary bike ride 15 years ago. Go figure. But unlike then when I had to ride nearly 90 miles to food, this time it was only 12.
I had planned 12 days of riding for the 250 miles involved in the “northland” trip as outlined in the Lonely Planet bike booked and recommended by Tim and Kim. Figured maybe nine days of biking and several days of side trips and puttering. Turns out I did the trip in 8 days of biking and a couple of puttering. As Tim warned there were a couple serious hills involved. Which wouldn’t have been so bad but: I had too much weight as I was carrying everything I brought with me for the 3 months south of the equator (about 40lbs all told); and, two, there are few if any shoulders to NZ’s highways. What there is usually consists of about 12″ to left of the fog line. Except, of course, on steep hills where there are no shoulders at all. Now for you non bikers out there the trick to getting up a steep hill is to gear up for it–small chainring on the front and big sprocket on the rear. The result is that you can climb idiotic grades (10-15%) with relatively little pain. The problem is your angular momentum goes out the window. The result of that is you have a tendency to wobble left and right. Which is no big deal, if you have a FRIGGIN shoulder to ride on. But without that you now have the joy of wobbling in the traffic lane on a steep usually twisty road with traffic zipping by at 60+ mph. AND, if you are really lucky you have a double pass situation and you can share the narrow twisty lane with two cars. Actually these stretches of road are usually uncommon and the vast majority of the miles are relatively safe. Besides you just have to remind yourself that less than 5% of bike accidents involve bicycles being hit from behind.
