A very tired cyclist.

It's spring - yeah, for the first time in months I am in shorts (not a pretty sight), it feels great. Feeling the suns warmth on your skin, it's like feeling well after a sickness.
I've been forcing myself to do really long rides of 200kms, There is a 400km event in october that I have to do to pre-qualify for the Paris / Brest / Paris. The actual qualifiers start in November, but if you do a distance event before then, it means you have more chance of not being turned down due to too many entering the event. How do you go from a 200km ride  to a 400km ride in one month? I find 200kms demanding enough. I am trying to do a 250km next week and then a 270km two weeks later, in the hopes that the 400km can be broken down into a 270km with a rest, and then finish the remaining 130km.
I'm finding this all very demanding, I still don't know if I can do it, but part of it must be mind over matter and I know how to be determined, and I know how to suffer. Will that get me through?
I've been training myself to drink coffee for the caffeine hit, I much prefer Tea, but I need more caffeine to stay awake and alert.
In the meantime the sun is shining and it is blessedly warm. We just need those daylight hours to extent so that I don't have to go through so many batteries with the night riding.

500km challenge.

I don’t know if it is adrenaline or endorphins, but riding my bike brings me joy. I’ve been very down lately – a combination of winter blues and things that have upset me at work, riding my bike was the one thing that bought me out of the gloom of depression. So last Sunday night, I decided to challenge myself to do 500kms this week.

500kms is easy to do when you are cycle touring. You tour in the summer when the daylight hours are long and the days are warm, and you have all day every day to ride your bike; but at home there are domestic chores, grocery shopping, bill paying and days of work to take up your time. Add in the shorter days and unpleasant weather of winter and I had a challenge on my hands. Niel (not to be out done) joined me.

If only I had the same will power with my diet, as I have with my cycling, because I did it: 500kms in 3 afternoons, 1 full day, and before work in the weekend.

Enjoying the feeling of sun on my face - the top of Dovedale Saddle.

Monday was blessedly fine and we went over the gravelled Dovedale saddle to the Motueka river valley and then the coastal highway back home: 105kms.

Wet and cold at 'The Glen'.

Tuesday was cold, with driving rain, and very strong headwinds. It took all our determination not to turn for home and we took the cycle ways out to ‘The Glen’ (north of Nelson city) and back: 81kms and a total of 186kms.

So wet and cold - our glasses kept steaming up - Kaiteriteri Beach.

Wednesday was still raining, but we had no wind and the rain was intermittent rather than non- stop, but it was very cold. We rode North West to Kaiteriteri beach and to the top of the Kaiteriteri hill, and then home again. 102kms and a total of 288kms.

We needed a break on Thursday to do grocery shopping, hair cutting, and domestic chores.

Near Tapawera with the carved wood stumps.

Friday – we had to make up for our day off and we decided to do our favourite 150km ride in lovely sunny weather. We went over Raeys saddle to Tapawera (home of the carved tree stumps); and up the west bank of the Motueka river valley to where it ends at Riwaka, and home on the coastal highway, where we saw a bad car accident complete with a rescue helicopter (and they say riding a bike is dangerous); A total of 438kms.

Wait a minute Niel the camera's taking a photo. Motueka river bridge to the west bank.

Before work on the weekend I scraped together another 67kms for a grand total of 505kms and my depression has gone, to be replaced with self- esteem.

Actually all this cycling is also training. Do you remember in my last blog entry how we had decided to do the ‘Trans Am’ instead of the Paris / Brest / Paris? Well we have changed our minds back to the Paris / Brest / Paris. There was no way we could raise the NZ$20,000 the ‘Trans Am’ would cost, and we would be repeating a trip we have already done, when our prime objective is to finish cycling around the world. So we are back to training to do the qualifying rides to be able to enter the Paris / Brest /Paris. The qualifiers start in November, so we are building up our distance again as the weather improves. It is less than a month until spring – yeah it can’t come a minute too soon. By spring, we want to be doing 200km rides again and building up to 300km rides. By New Year we want to be doing 400km rides and building up to 600km.

So my 500kms this week will hopefully become insignificant with the challenges I have planned for the next 12 months, but it’s a good start.

Winter Blues.

It’s now the middle of winter and I can’t wait for it to pass and for spring to give us some warmer weather .Patience has never been one of my strong points.

The winter snow has arrived on the mountains surrounding Nelson and after the snow - the frosts made the air and wind absolutely freezing, never-the-less, I have been trying to get my usual long rides in. I feel like the ‘Michelin Man’ with all the layers I’ve got on. It is too cold for an ordinary winter training jacket, so I have an ordinary fleece jacket on over my poly-prop under layer, and a vest on top. I have neoprene booties on over my shoes to stop my feet freezing, and woolly gloves instead of my cycling gloves. When it is only 2 degrees (Celsius) in the early morning on my way to work, I have a woolly scarf wrapped around my head under my helmet and around my mouth. I know I must look ridiculous, but I don’t care, at least I am not a sedentary car user not getting a sweat up at all in winter.

Snowing in the mountains.

I don’t have the daylight either for rides of over 125kms, so I just have to accept that I can only do that length of ride for now. To make up for it, I have increased my weekly average from 200kms to 250 -300kms, and am achieving that by one long ride and one slightly shorter one, and at least a hundred kms of commuting. Once spring finally makes itself known and the daylight increases, I can up the weekly average again.

Heading to the snow capped mountains for our weekly ride.

Why am I devoted to distance and counting my kilometres? I want to do the Trans Am race next year. I am excited about the Trans Am, or the unsupported race across America. It is everything I enjoy, long distance, touring, crossing countries and the accomplishment you feel afterwards. My goal is to be the fastest Vet 3 women (over 50 years old); it would also nice to be the first married couple to complete it.

I have made a list of stuff I need to get, but realised that I can’t afford all of that stuff so have whittled it back to smart phone so that I can still continue to communicate and post my blog, and a solar power charger to charge my camera, and phone (yes I know my phone will have a camera), and my MP3 player. I really wanted to get a new one person tent, but the one and a half person tent we have is only 600gms heavier than a new one, so I will use that. This trip will cost us twice as much as the other contestants as there are two of us doing it, so we will have to cut costs by camping as much as possible instead of the luxury of using motels.

It is critical to cut back on everything to be as light as possible. So one pair of cycling clothes and one change of top for when not cycling, only cycling shoes and no other shoes, no cooking stuff, although I will take a can opener and pocket knife, cup and spoon, that way I can eat cereal etc. I am sure I will refine this list as I go.

As for training, I am going to cycle around New Zealand in the spring, do Radonnuering events over the summer to get competent at long distance and maybe the odd racing event, to work on my speed. So you can see why I can’t wait for winter to end, I’m impatient to get started. 

Disappointments and dreams.

It has been an eventful month, but not in the way I would have liked – on my bike.

The first couple of weeks, I was trying to slowly build up my strength and distance after my knee operation, and it was going well. Then the winter frosts began. It would be a gross understatement to say it was too cold to go for a long ride starting in the morning, so our rides were only afternoon rides getting back before the dew froze in the early evening. The days are lovely, but the short rides frustrated me, it was only to get worse. It’s no wonder I like to go away cycle touring in the Northern Hemisphere in our winter.

 I had to go to Christchurch for my post - operative appointment – that was two days out of my days off written off, but I found out some interesting news – that I have been trying to walk around for two years with a fracture (and other injuries) in my knee – not just a cartilage tear. That explains why I have had trouble walking and standing, but could ride my bike without any problems.

I thought I could make up the lost exercise the next week. Little did I realise that plan would go up in smoke by having an encounter with a Pig.

After encountering a pig on the road in the dark.

I was riding home from work in temperatures hovering around zero. It was pitch dark. Now this is in the country-side, there is no overhead lighting, when it is dark – it is very dark, there wasn’t even a moon. My bike light admittedly was pointing on to the road in front of my bike wheel instead of up ahead, as my battery was running low, and I could see better that way; when this shape appeared about 1 ½ meters in front of my wheel, my brain registered that it was a full grown pig standing in the middle of the road ½ a second before I slammed into it.

I was lying on the ground in incredible pain in the pitch dark as my light was now shining into the heavens, and I wondered if the pig was hurt. I didn’t know where it was, was it still beside me? Had it run away when I hit it? Had it rolled onto the grass road edge angry and ready to bite me? I had no idea.

As soon as the pain became bearable I tried to push the bike off of me – it took several goes as everything hurt. Then I had to stand up – very difficult as both arms where in severe pain and one knee felt like it was grazed and the other knee had only had an operation not long ago. My left ankle hurt like hell and my right shoe was falling apart as it had scraped along the road.

As I was walking my bike home, I realized that another week of exercise had just been written off.

After a trip to Accident and Emergency the next morning, I had a broken finger on my left hand, and a graze with a hole down to the bone on my right elbow, bruises galore on my left leg and a graze on my right knee. I asked Niel in desperation if he would get the tandem  out of the garage, check it over and go for a ride with me (on the back) – I could turn my legs without having to use my arms.

Our tandem is quite old (1980’s) and we don’t use it very much. Back in the 80’s tandems were all the same geometry, with the assumption that the man in front was bigger than the girl behind. I am bigger than Niel, so he has his saddle virtually sitting on the frame and mine is on its highest setting possible. He wrestles with the front and I feel cramped on the back.

The other reason we don’t use it very often, is that our cycling  styles are so different. He likes to ride off the saddle a lot, I don’t at all. He likes to push big gears and I like to spin smaller gears. He rides in the crap on the extreme left and I like to ride on or beside the white line on the side of the road. The person on the back is stuck in the leg speed and way of riding of the person in front, and I cannot stop pedaling to relieve the pressure on my backside.

We have worked out that he can lift his butt off the saddle while I stay seated, and I have to yell out when I want to stop peddling to relieve my rear end. It is amazing how fast we go up hill with him in control, and the double leg power is quite a buzz.

So while my elbow was recovering, and in between days of persistant rain (which makes a change from the frosts), we went tandeming.

I am better now and riding my own bike again, catching up on kilometers. Actually we are seriously reconsidering our intentions for next year, instead of the Paris / Brest /  Paris, we are now keen to do the Trans Am or the unsupported race across America, no help or support is allowed, everything you need you carry with you, as oppossed to the Race Across America where everything possible is done for you - all you do is ride nonstop.

Niel on the west bank and I am on the east side of the Motueka river on a frosty winters day. 

Autumn washed out.

It rained and rained and rained

 – The average fall was well maintained,

 And when the tracks were simply bogs-

 It started to rain cats and dogs.

 After a drought of half an hour,

We had a most refreshing shower.

And then the most curious thing of all,

A gentle rain began to fall.

Next day also was fairly dry,

Save for a deluge from the sky,

Which wetted the party to the skin.

And after that-

The rain set in.

One of the streams feeding into the Motueka River.

Autumn was washed away in continuous rain that caused flooding in certain areas. I was going insane with the weather and being house bound, so I had to get out even in the heavy rain. Niel was not going to be shown up by his wife and he joined me. The streams were raging torrents cutting of houses and even taking out bridges. The apple orchards had their ripe fruit stripped off the trees and the apples had floated away to be caught into puddles of apples. The main Motueka River where all the streams feed into, was a brown raging force with whole trees floating down stream and all the paddocks beside the river under water. I had never seen the Motueka River like this before and it was very intimidating. At one point I saw a goat tethered to a kennel. This kennel was half in the water and if it started to float away it would take the goat with it. The goat was standing with its chain at its most stretched, and it was looking at the raging river and looked very frightened. I had to do something, so I went to the nearest house to tell them about the goat; it was only a matter of minutes before that kennel would be taken by the river and therefore the goat, as the streams entering the river were making it rise by the minute.  Fancy tethering a goat next to the river for 2 weeks of torrential rain and then forgetting about it! I left the householder to contact the owner and for something to be done about the goat.

Soaked to the skin and warming up with a coffee at Ngatimoti Hall.

While I was getting something done about the goat, Niel had gone across a bridge to the other side of the river - as he likes it better on that side. He was up to his thighs wading through flooded roads when his attempt to cycle through it came to a stop. He was enjoying himself and acting like a school boy, and was buzzing when he met me in the shelter of a hall porch for a hot drink and a chocolate bar. It hadn’t stopped raining, in fact the rain got heavier still and quite cold to boot. It continued to rain for a few more days until the sun made a begrudging appearance.

One bandaged knee on the Nelson cycle trails.

Now at this point in time I was about to go into hospital to  finally get the cartilage tear in my knee repaired, so I wanted to do one more big ride before that happened as I knew it would take a month or two to get back to doing long rides  again.

It is no longer autumn – we are officially in winter now. The days are getting shorter and shorter, although not particularly cold; so long rides have been reduced from 200kms to 150kms. So off we went 5 days after our last ride on a rare fine day. We retraced some of our ride from last week and I checked to see that the goat had been moved – yes it was now in a paddock away from the river, and we checked out the flooded areas. The roads were covered in mud in some places, and there was debris at head height on the fences about 10meters above the present river height. There were whole trees lying on patches of river bed, and massive piles of debris around the pylons of the bridges.  The tide surge that had left drift wood and beach stones all over the coastal part of the road, had been bulldozed to the side, and there was generally enough of a mess to need two weeks of fine weather to clean up.

After effects of fall this rain - mushrooms everywhere.

Apples lodged in fences at head height after  the flood.

I have now had my operation, and am quickly getting back to my old self. After 48 hours I was on my bike again, 72hours after my operation I was riding 50kms around the cycle trails, and 4 days later, I was pulling my trailer to the supermarket to do the weekly grocery shopping. On day 5 I was back at work and within 30 seconds of starting, the workplace bully had already denied me the use of the stool to sit on as she – get this – had a sore knee and wanted to sit on it!

Day off today and guess what? It is raining again and there is already surface flooding. Weather like this makes you ponder future cycle tours and gets my head spinning on where and when to go. We are already considering our options for a short late winter cycle- tour to kick start us for spring, and the Qualifiers we want to do then for the Paris / Brest / Paris next year.

Option 1: The length of Australia. It gives us the long distance per day that we are after. Australia is cheap to get to, but has very expensive accommodation.

Option 2: Bangkok (Thailand) to Singapore. It is bound to be wet as it is the tropics, and not so easy to do long distances, but it finishes South East Asia – which was literally stolen from us, with the theft of my bike and all my stuff when we were last endeavoring to ride from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Singapore in 2012. (I will never ever forgive that thief). It is darer to fly there than Australia, but accommodation is vastly cheaper.

Meanwhile I am still fighting the Accident Compensation Commission for the cost of my surgery. I might be fighting a losing battle, but I’m not giving up. They must be the most hated Government Department in New Zealand.  

A Perfect Day.

I’ve just completed my second official Randonneurs event, actually I didn’t just do it, I also hosted it, and it was one of those perfect days when everything went right.

Gethyn on the right, like a tethered race horse eager to get going.

It was a 200km ride and I am now finding that distance easy, I need to do a 300km event now. The ride had a section of steep hills, a section of riding down valleys, a section of riding along the coast, often right next to the beach, and a section of fun cycle tracks. We left at sunrise and finished at sunset, as we have now passed daylight savings, and the days are getting shorter. The weather was perfect – fine, warm and not a breath of wind the whole day. We all rode at the same speed – no one got left behind, although our friend and neighbor – Gethyn, was so strong he went off ahead and finished two hours faster in an awesome time of 8 hours 45mins. So a great day was had by all.

Craig, Niel and I at our Kohatu stop.

The café at Kohatu was an oasis in the ‘middle of nowhere’. We had a pleasant stop in the sunshine there, where Craig got a belated breakfast. The hills and farms are very dry and brown from the lack of rain, but it was still a very scenic route. Our second stop was at Riwaka, and we had a third stop at Ruby Bay beach reserve. The Great  Taste Trail from Rabbit Island and along the edge of the Waimea Inlet to Richmond and back to the start / finish at Brightwater was a lot of fun, and you almost feel like a kid on a BMX bike.

So anyone out there, who would like to do a scenic and fun all day ride – look me up.

Niel, myself and Craig at the lovely Ruby Bay beach reserve.

Niel is doing a 600km ride the week after next, so while he is away doing that, I will do a ride of at least 250km. That will be my last big ride for a while as I have surgery at the end of the month on my knee, and then it will be winter. But I already have training plans for the end of winter and spring.

Vindicated

“They are all idiots” said my surgeon. I was explaining about how much flack I get about riding my bike long distance, but have trouble standing and walking. “Riding your bike is the best thing you can do” he said.

ACC have declined my claim again for the fourth time, because – get this – I am too active (amongst other reasons). Doesn’t that strike you as contradictory that they reckon I have degeneration, but am also too active!!

I’ve had enough; I’m getting this cartilage tear fixed if I have to find the money myself. So in a month’s time, 20 months after the accident that caused it, I’ll finally have normal knees again.

Sunrise on the hills on leaving Hanmer Springs.

It hasn’t stopped me however. I rode home from seeing the doctor in Christchurch, a mere 535kms in 3 days. Day one: from my Mothers place south of Christchurch through the city – which was weird as they had rebuilt the place after the earthquake so much, that none of the roads looked familiar, as they had different buildings on them and I thought I must have gone the wrong way. Anyway I got through to the northern towns and on to Hanmer Springs. It was raining and very cold there, and you could even see your breath. I had a cabin booked there at the camp ground and got warm, fed and rested after 160kms. Day two: was an early start as I had a big day ahead of me of constant up and down hills – I counted 30 hills by the end of the day.

Tired and having a rest and food at Maruia Springs restaurant.

 After finally summiting Lewis Pass I was shaky with fatigue and lack of food, so stopped at the very beautiful Maruia Springs restaurant for lunch. I have to admit I was rather saddle sore today, but 8 applications of my best friend – anti chaff – and I was able to keep going to Murchison and a ride of 180kms. Day three: Murchison to home sounds easy enough, but I was sick of the traffic and decided to take the ‘dry weather road’ to Tapawera. It was rough and corrugated on my skinny road tires, but I got through without getting a pinch puncture on the stones. From Tapawera it is a bit further home than if I had stayed on the main road, so after135kms I arrived home tired but very pleased with myself.

Kawatiri Junction - just before the dry weather road.

With that effort, I’m halfway to being fit enough for the Paris / Brest / Paris. I need to be able to 1000kms in 3 days. I still don’t know if I can do that, but then a year ago I wouldn’t have been able to ride 535kms in 3 days.

I can now plan my next year or so of cycling. Riding the length of Australia may be a possibly in late winter to set us up for spring fitness, and the qualifiers for the Paris / Brest / Paris next year.

ACC staff are all idiots, but my doctor and I aren’t and riding my bike is the best thing I can do. So why can’t I get any of my cycling friends to do a 200km ride with me?

Food and a rest - what every long distance rider looks forward to.