I'm now a Randonee.

I have the overnight bag, I have the Randonee stickers on my bike, and I’ve joined an Audax club, and have done excessively long bike rides, so I must be a Randonee now.

Last week I did a 320km ride over two days. It may not have been a huge distance but the gale force headwinds told me otherwise. It was so hard that I was losing my vision and almost blacking out from the sheer exertion. I couldn’t even use my big chain ring in the whole distance, when I turned into a different direction so too did the wind, I only had a tailwind for the last 35kms. I have decided I need a lighter bike for randoneering, so I am looking at turning my carbon fiber bike into a randoneering bike, by making it more comfortable for long distance and changing the wheels from lightweight racing wheels to sturdy wheels that can take the knocks.

 I am undeniably getting stronger, a 200km ride seems quite easy now, and I am looking forward to doing my first official Audax event in January or February. 

getting stronger.

 

 Actually I have been going over my previous trips in earlier years to reacquaint myself with the memories for my book. I thought you might like to see and hear about our first time we saw the Tour de France. It was so exciting I will never forget it.

My trip diary – Tuesday 16^th July 1996

Wow what a day; the Tour de France was fantastic / amazing, I’ll never forget it. We got to the right road and there were Gendarmes stopping traffic and masses of people walking and riding bikes heading towards Hautacam Col. The closer we got, the more people there were, as they converged from all directions. Then we started up the hill. The sides of the road were filled with spectators and the road itself was a mass of cyclists (some riding, lots pushing their bikes) and walkers. We were determined not to walk no matter how hard to got. Just passed half way up, I was streaming with sweat – it was running down my arms and legs, and I saw Niel waiting for me. We decided to stay at that spot as it was perfect; we could see down around several corners and even further down, we could also see up past us uphill. It turned out to be the perfect spot, as the riders looked right through us and up around the corner, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

We sat there for 2 hours in the heat watching everyone come up. People were draped in flags and singing. Then the promotional vehicles came throwing worthless stuff to the crowds. I got a little flag with ‘champion’ on it, and a blow up thing (I have no idea what it is). Everyone was grabbing for things, waving, and touching the cars. Then came the cars with flashing lights – warning the crowd back and following them came the vehicles with rows of wheels and spare bikes on their roofs, and more flashing lights, the helicopters  were overhead. When the helicopters got closer, we knew the riders were getting closer. And then we saw them, it was so exciting, the crowds were cheering and clapping and shouting and the riders passed within half a meter of us – looking right at us – although they were probably looking around the corner. And then Miguel Indurain looked right at me – what a thrill – I’ll remember it forever. Even Niel was bright eyed and bushy tailed at being looked at by such a cycling legend. It was definitely worth the long wait. It showed us they weren’t supermen and suffered like anyone else.

Miguel Indurain in full flight.

 

Not many people have seen Indurain in full flight, and have photo evidence.

We have seen and done so much by bicycle, and we have so many more adventures to come. I am pleased to have made the transition from racer to tourer to Randonee; life it full of possibilities if you just reach outside of your comfort zone and grasp them.

I'm now a Randonnuer.

We have joined the AudaxUK. It is a long distance cycling club. Audax events are also called Randonee events. You have a specific long distance to achieve, and a cut off time to do it in. Assistance isn’t allowed and you must prove you achieved the distance either by event organizers signing your card and submitting it, or using a GPS as proof, and sending your card off to qualify your ride, before it is sent back to you. It’s a wee bit confusing, I don’t even know if I have it correct in my head, but one thing is for sure, you must belong to an Audax club.

We want to do the Paris /Brest / Paris (PBP). Like the Olympics, it is held every 4 years. It is 1,200kms long and you have 90 hours to achieve that distance, including power naps when possible. It has been going for longer than the Tour de France and open to all Nationalities and it is our next goal to train for. We found doing 170km days carrying 25kgs of weight on our tour, so easy; we thought we’d build on that and become Randonneurs. PBP is the logical goal.

To be accepted as an entrant, you first have to do qualifiers of 200, 300, 400 and 600kms; and these have to be done in the 12 months before the event. The event is in 2015, the qualifiers must be done between August 2014 and August 2015. So we are busy doing rides of 200 to 300kms this summer, as a stepping stone to next year’s bigger distances.

On the way to Kaiteriteri Beach

 

Yesterday I did my first 200km ride. I called it the ‘Tour of Tasman Bay Beaches”. It is amazing what choices of beaches we have available to us in a ride of 50km in one direction and back for lunch, and then 50kms in the other direction and back. We truly live in a slice of paradise here. The first 100kms was easy, but the second 100kms were a struggle at times. I had a dehydration headache which luckily disappeared after drinking enough, and then I had to grovel into a very strong headwind from Nelson out to Cable Bay. Luckily the wind didn’t change and I had a strong tailwind on the return 50kms home, but by then my legs were threatening to cramp on me. I held the cramps at off by drinking heaps and spinning the pedals instead of pushing hard, I got home after being on the bike for 11hours. I’m very proud of myself for doing it, and I can build on that over the summer to be competent at 300kms by autumn.

Kaiteriteri Beach voted NZ's favorite beach.

 



Moteka Beach.



Ruby Bay.

 You may also be interested to know that I’ve started writing a book. It is an autobiography, but with an emphasis on all the crazy, funny, bizarre and interesting things that have happened while living my life on a bicycle. I’m thinking that I might call it: ‘A Wheely Good Life”.

 

 

 

 

Rabbit Island beach - only 10kms from home.  

Tahuna Beach Nelson's main Beach.


 

 

 

 

Cable Bay - where the power cable between the North and South Islands used to come ashore.

Home, and reflecting on our trip.

It’s been almost a month since we have got home. We are back to house and garden maintenance, and back to normality. Although some people would question whether our life is normal.

Cup of Tea in the Motueka Valley.

The spring weather is fickle, but we’ve managed to get a few long rides in, purely for pleasure and to retain some fitness.

The cats / kittens are happy and confident, and the two kittens are no longer small, but full sized now and they are still inseparable, usually falling asleep together in a tangle of legs on the same chair. The ginger kitten is now identical to our ginger cat. We have to look for how many legs they have to tell them apart. You may remember that my beautiful ginger cat lost a leg last year.

Three very content cats.

 

We had an article written about our trip in the local rag. I’m quite pleased with it actually, as it says everything I hoped it would say.

 

 On reflection, Canada had some beautiful scenery, and friendly people that have a lot in common with New Zealanders. Having arrived back home, we realize how many people here ride a bike, compared to the lack of cyclists in Canada. Except Vancouver   where there were a lot of cyclists and cycle paths. It’s funny really that when we get home from a trip to Europe – where cyclists are almost more numerous than cars, and we arrive home thinking New Zealand has a lot to learn from Europe, now it’s the other way around.

Do I have a favorite place in Canada? I really like the pretty village of Field, located in a valley of beauty just west of Kicking Horse Pass in the Rockies (British Columbia). There were some lovely campgrounds, some that I felt quite at peace in – moments of mental calmness are treasured. There were some lovely spots in Ontario around the edge of Lake Erie, especially Port Stanley. The spot where we first saw the Atlantic Ocean was special and very pretty. But my favorite province would be Nova Scotia – especially the Annapolis valley, where I felt quite at home.

In America – again there were some lovely campgrounds.  Niagara Falls was incredible, but the area it was located in was not. My favorite spot was in Lake Saranac – New York State in the Adirondack Mountains. It was beautiful, non-touristy, and I had that calmness there - that is special. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were my favorite States, and Burlington (Vermont) was my favorite city. It was vibrant with its student life, and actually had great shops in the center of town – a rarity.

I checked out some of the other transcontinental cyclists from the website, and it was disappointing to find that most of them had hired cars for bits of their trips, but still claimed to have cycled across Canada. Who are they kidding? It really belittles those that put in a huge effort to actually cycle the whole way, no matter how dangerous the roads, how high the Passes, how far between towns, how bad the mechanical breakdowns, or if you suffered from sickness or injury.

Cool Birthday card.

 

Would we have done anything differently? Yes we’d use trailers instead of pannier bags. Niel broke both his front and rear carrier racks – they just were not up the job of carrying all the weight for that distance. And I just didn’t have enough room for carrying any food items. It was a real juggle to find spots for groceries for our dinner, or to take lunch food if there were no towns to buy anything. Aside from that, we did everything right, and can call the ride a success.

Halifax - 7350km in 81/2 weeks.

Niel managed to fix his bike and we were back on the road by 10am. We took highway 9 – our so called shortcut  to the Canadian border. Oh my god talk about a hard road, it was non – stop up and downs that were so steep I actually had to walk some of them, and I haven’t had to do that in the whole trip. It was also a humid 30 degrees and there were virtually no shops to buy food and drink. After 113km and no accommodation or hopes for dinner anywhere we decided to stop at a rest area that had a portaloo, a river near by and an area to hide the tent from the road. The only thing that spoilt it was the masses of mozzies and midgies. After a meal of a filled roll left over from lunch and a big bikkie, we slept like a log.

A swollen eye from midgie bites.

 

I woke up with one eye swollen almost shut from a midgie bite, and we carried on -  on highway 9 to the border. We had some American money to get rid of first, so after a meal of Maccas we still had $11 left,  we could always eat chocolate. The customs people were very nice at the border and couldn’t believe how fast we had crossed the country from Vancouver. They also couldn’t believe we had ridden highway 9 – it is well known as being very hard.

The Atlantic at last.

 

We took the motorway after that, as bikes are allowed on the motorway in Canada. And finally managed to get  our first glimpse of the Atlantic, when I felt absolutely awful, I was so tired I couldn’t move, or even open my eyes for 10mins. I thought that I had ‘hit the wall’ big time. But later realised that I had food poisoning.  I dragged my body to the campground and felt a bit better in the morning.
 

We have now made it to the end of our journey. We are in Halifax, and have even ridden out to the airport to confirm our tickets. We almost had our bikes taken from us there, we left them locked together and security guards tried to take them away as they were a bomb threat. Can you believe that! 2 loaded touring bikes – a bomb threat. If they hadn’t been locked together they would have been gone. They had tried to shift them and they were so heavy , they had only managed to shift them a meter. After losing my bike last year to a thief in Vietnam, that would have been my worst nightmare, after all we have been through in this trip.

Yeah we made it to the end.

 

I can now call myself a trans-continental cyclist – awesome. I am very proud of myself. At 53 years old I put a lot of younger people to shame. 7350km in 8 and a half weeks. Anyone can do it you just need to be cycling fit and a determination never to give up, and always just go that little bit further or faster than you need to. It becomes easy after a while.

The life of a cycle tourist is never dull.

Niel finding the problem.

Things always happen in three’s, I said to myself after I had my new wheel replaced and was back on the road again, but I didn’t want to tempt fate by saying it out loud. The third disaster has now happened, is something trying to stop us getting to the end of this trip?

Only 40kms from the Atlantic Coastline.

 

Niel’s bike ‘wasn’t feeling right’. He assumed it was the rear hub bearings, and there was a lot of sideways movement in the wheel. He really wanted to push on to the Atlantic Coast only 40kms away, but I convinced him to stay here in Bangor and fix it, and take the shorter route tomorrow so that we don’t lose any more time. We don’t have any emergency days left. It was the right decision, his rear hub was as cut up as my rim was. Luckily he kept my hub and spokes of my old wheel and he can rebuild his wheel using those parts, but my hub uses a different type of gear cluster, so he will have to wait till the shops open in the morning to get a new cluster and chain. Come back to the motel – fix it, and then we need to ride 155kms before the day is done. The life of a cycle tourist is never dull.

So all going well, we will be at the New Brunswick border this evening , ride up to St Johns along the Atlantic coastline the next day, and be on the ferry to Nova Scotia the following day. Surely nothing more could go wrong ?

Big Trouble.

What a difference a day makes, after scaling a 15km hill I summited and started to descend with my brakes on and suddenly – BOOM, my back wheel / tyre exploded. There was no sign of Niel he was enjoying the downhill and was by now kilometres away. I started walking, eventually a kind motorist asked if I needed help and I asked him to stop the cyclist dressed in white up ahead. After walking for another kilometre I saw Niel in the distance sitting on a railing waiting for me.

My wheel rim torn apart.

 

Judy, the lovely lady who rescued me.



I was in trouble, the ‘donk, donk ‘ noise I have been hearing every time I used my rear brake was not a patch of oil on my rim as Niel surmised, but a crack in the wheel rim. My rim was a shattered mess. There is no way to fix that and I needed a new rim or wheel. The nearest bike shop was 60kms away and there was no cell phone coverage to phone them. I had no option but to stick my thumb out to hitch a ride.

Niel is my knight in white lycra delivering me a new wheel.

 

Dirty hands, stuff everywhere, and great entertainment for the McDonalds patrons.

No one picked me up. After walking another kilometre I saw some nice looking people outside their house and decided to ask to use their phone. They very kindly offered to drive me and my bike to Woodsville -the next town with a motel. So Niel and I gathered our wits together there and realised that Niel will have to ride to Littleton ( the place with the bike shop), ride back to fix my bike and then we’ll both ride back to Littleton.

That sorted, we used the Wi-Fi at the motel to look at where some of the other Trans Canada riders are. One couple had discovered their ferry to Newfoundland had been cancelled and they didn’t know what to do. So we thought we would check out our ferry to Nova Scotia. Shock, horror, ours had been cancelled too.

Apparently the Nova Scotia government subsidises the ferries and it is so broke it had to cancel some services that weren’t getting enough patronage. Now what do we do? We found out that there is still a ferry service from St John in New Brunswick to Digby in Nova Scotia, but it is another 300kms to St John. After pouring over the maps and adjusting our mileage, we reckon we can still make it to Halifax. There is one hiccup though; the ferry only goes at 12 noon, so that is another cycling day gone.

We have to make it to Halifax and not just the coast, as our flights home are from there. Thank god I had the sense to keep aside 2 days for emergencies. Those 2 days have saved our bacon.

Well, not only did I need a new wheel, but also a new cluster and chain – it was senseless putting the old one on when it was decrepit too. After fixing that, Niel discovered I had no brake block left – it had been eaten away by the jagged cracks around the rim. So with new brakes, new gears, and a new wheel I was a happy chappy at last. Now it’s time to do some big kilometres and get the end of this trip.

Almost at the Atlantic.

Thousand island area Lake Ontario New York State.

 A new State and a new map – Vermont / New Hampshire in this case. What’s that in the bottom corner of the map? It’s the Atlantic Ocean – we are almost there. We have only 9 days cycling left till we get to Halifax. The seasons have turned, and autumn is just about here. The evenings are shorter, the nights have heavy dews now, and the leaves are just showing a hint of yellow in the forests. The sun has lost its power to give us sunburn, so we have thrown out the sunscreen now. And the temperatures have definitely cooled off. That will be good news to everyone at home, who is sick of winter.

Lake Saranac in the Adirondacks

Trees turning yellow and the cycling route through the Adirondacks.

 

We are at Burlington, Vermont. It is our last city before the end, so we are making it our day to buy something for ourselves. We have stayed on schedule for the whole trip and have 2 emergencies days up our sleeves, which we will use at Bar Harbour in case of bad weather trying to cross to Nova Scotia – apparently it is hurricane season. We are understandably talking a lot about what we will do when we get home, but also trying to enjoy this last bit of the trip.

On the ferry between New York and Vermont States.

 

The Adirondack Mountains were lovely and it was nice to have views of mountains to look at. We crossed from New York State to Vermont by taking the ferry across Lake Champion. The rivers and lakes around here are black in colour and it must be from plant tannins. We are now heading for the White Mountains before heading to the coast.  I think our bikes are only just going to make it. Niel’s tyres have the thread showing both front and back, and my gears are grinding and grumbling, and I only have a couple of gears that don’t give me trouble.