Disappointed you didn't have an epic ride to post about in the Epic ride thread*??

It's time to create your own epic ride and here's the opportunity!!!

Ride to Erehwon

It's not about winning; it's about taking part, riding with your team, and having a day to remember!

And those of who already had an Epic ride, it's time to out-do yourselves. try doing it one legged, or on a Tandem, or, god forbid, cross-country on your MTB!



*and I withdraw my comment about Epic rides requiring broken bones.

that looks cool. Only 24 hours after I get off a series of flights from South Africa, but will definitely see if I can put together a "team". Not sure about the compulsory ride report though... Who do they think we are...

The choice between road or mountainbike is all part of the guess work?

you won't have to look hard for team mates!

Looks like a great idea! Need to do something like that down here in the mainland.

I have planed an epic ride up here in Auckland on the first Saterday of September ,We(some Pickledpedallers and some others) are starting in Devonport 630am and heading south into the Waikato ,we'll head south till 1200 then stop for a feed then head home .Dont know how far we'll get or how long it will take .Doing it because it seemed like a fun thing to do(always wanted to see how fast I can go down the Bomby hills) .Another group up here are doing a epic ride but not going out of Auckland area SirLightalot is part of the other Auckland epic, I think its 150+ks

200k from mechanics bay to coromandel town ferry.....on the boat bak which leaves 4.30. Ride via botany, kawakawbay, miranda. thinking abt mid-late sept. Anyone b keen for that? the things we do for k2....has to b a fine day though hahah

so anyone want to form a team???

20 bucks and a few bottles of beer each, can't be too hard!

SaturnReturn wrote:200k from mechanics bay to coromandel town ferry.....on the boat bak which leaves 4.30. Ride via botany, kawakawbay, miranda. thinking abt mid-late sept. Anyone b keen for that? the things we do for k2....has to b a fine day though hahah

That sounds like an awesome ride! ... too bad its a bit far for me to go.

pop down for next weekend , SR, join the team!

Getting a team organised for this proved to be both impossible and simple; I went through a huge long list of candidates, all of whom couldn't make it for one reason or another. Then I turned to the organisers, members of the Kapiti Cycle Club and they became an internet cycle dating service. Mind you even that didn't go so smoothly at first and a number of good riders who had expressed interest had conflicts.

However in the end I was set up with a strong looking team – Miles Davies, first in the youth grade at Taupo in 2008 and sub 4hrs last year; Jim Wickes who had just returned from a cycling tour in Europe which included climbs in the French and Italian Alps and the Paris-Roubaix Sportive; Richard Hope, who had just finished PNP's Balfour Pennington series with a second overall in Cat 2; and, umm, me, who's been doing a bit of commuting recently.

I sent out an email with a few suggestions for team names, and Team Mourning Wood got the only votes.

The days before the race where consumed by watching the rapidly changing weather forecasts (why can't three weather sites agree on anything) leading up to the storms on Friday night, and fretful sleep wondering if the team will even turn up in the rain tomorrow morning...I know the organisers were wondering the same! In the end 12 out of 17 registered teams did turn up.

The start location and destination were announced on schedule, 6pm Friday evening. We where starting in Raumati Beach and going to somewhere in the Waiarapa, a tiny place called Alfredton. I sat at the computer, listening to the rain and wind, and used mapmyride.com to first work out where the heck Alfredton was, and then the best way to get there. The organisers had carefully selected the destination it seemed, since it was pretty equidistant along two diverse routes.

Dawn came and after getting the kids breakfast I headed out the door, slightly late as usual. Driving along I marvelled at the sunrise, and wished I was cycling up Paekak Hill, where I was sure I would be able to see from the South Island to Mt Ruapahu, and probably Mt Taranaki hiding behind Kapiti Island. I was also looking forward to actually starting and finishing in daylight, unlike my commutes...in fact I was so used to not bringing my sunglasses that I, well, didn't bring them. It was also nice to not have a backpack, and not be dressed for freezing temperature for a change, though my garish shirt got a few comments at the start briefing.

I arrived at the start line and met Jim and Richard for the first time. They both looked up to it and though Miles was telling me how desperately unfit he was (despite his obvious speed in the PNP Cat 1 races) I was looking forward to a 150km 4 man TT

We discussed the route choices: the obvious one which we had been expecting over the Akatarawas and Rimutukas, then up SH2 and finally country roads to Alfredton; or straight up SH1 and then via Shannon to the Pahiatua track, Pahiatua itself and then several choices to the end. By the mapmyride autorouting the first choice was approx 153 kms with 1250m climbing, the second approx 158 kms with 850m climbing. I knew the climbing figures would be low, as mapmyride does seems to use a limited number of values when calculating the climbing, so the longer the route, the worse the estimate, but I thought it was probably consistently wrong and route 2 would be 2/3's the climbing of route 1! A third choice would be to go via Paekak Hill and Haywards to avoid the Akas, coming out at 159 kms or so, with still 1200m climbing, though it would be easier climbing.

After an extended period of indecision we chose Pahiatua track.

To flummox the oppostion we started off turning right at the start where everyone else went left, earning appreciative chuckles from the remaing teams and organisers, looping around and cruising through Raumati instead of heading straight up to SH1. Unfortunately we had to go to SH1 eventually and formed into a pace line and eased into a nice rhythm. The first few kilometers were taken at a gentle pace to warm us up, and the first few kilometers just flew by. My computer bleeps every km and it seemed to be ticking over incredibly quickly, though we were only cruising at 30kph. We had planned on a nice southerly wind assisting us, but it seemed to be coming more from the east, as indicated by several flags along the route, but it wasn't having too adverse an effect. We were wondering what routes other teams were taking, and just past Otaki we spotted one ahead of us, that we seemed to be creeping up on nicely.

It turned out to be the team with the Tandem, and we passed them after turning off to Palmy, just before Levin. Out pace was picking up a bit and things seemed to be going smoothly, though I had a bit of an unsettled stomach. I hadn't carbo loaded prior to the race and had enough food with me but didn't really start eating early enough. Also I was trying a few foodstuffs I hadn't tried before.

The team was working well, taking 3km turns at the front and we passed another two teams as we approached Tokomaru. As we were coming up to the 3hr mark we were approaching the Pahiatua track, over 95km into the ride and I was wavering a bit. Coming around the back of Massey Uni I saw a road sign that I remembered from mapmyride that would cut a corner off the route onto the Pahiatua-Auokautere Road. A glance behind, no cars, so I signalled and we cut across onto Poison Hill – then saw what is apparently goes to a 17% grade ahead of us! Damn, but up we went anyway. Strangely enough this seemed to wake my legs up, and although we went back down Bush Track again we did actually save a bit of distance...not sure the others appreciated it though!

So up the Pahiatua climb we went, the only long climb of our route, and my legs really came back to me. We re-grouped at the top and stopped for a couple of photos with Gerry from the KCC who was waiting for teams coming through. Going down the other side was a blast, and at the bottom of the hill was another shortcut suggested by mapmyride, Tararua Road. This one turned out to be a gravel track, and I didn't fancy taking our road bikes along 5km of unknown gravel, so we decided no more mapmyride shortcuts...back on track we had a fair bit of a tailwind and fairly blasted along to Pahiatua itself, where we stopped to get water refills from a friendly diary and program Alfredton into the GPS. Only 30ish k to go! Miles' parents were helping the organisers and caught us for a couple of photos just as we were leaving the diary, and tried to lure us into accepting some sort of illegal support, but we weren't going to fall for that!

The GPS had a pretty direct route apart from one bit were it wanted us to turn off Kaitawa Road, go along some random road for 1.5k, do a u-turn and come back to continue along Kaitwa Road. We shaved 3k off our route by going straight on... Don't want to complain about the weather as it was a glorious day, but the expected southerly that hadn't offered much assistance west of the Tararuas was in fine form as a headwind on this side, and was taking its toll! The country road was scenic, pretty free of traffic, but had some sharp hills in it. Not big, but certainly taking the remaining steam out of us. Even though we were still averaging near 30kph, the beeps on the computer seemed to take longer and longer to arrive! Finally, we made it to the end, the last kilometer the longest by far! There was a cheery welcome as we rode into the school in Alfredton and rang the school bell!

The KCC organisers had spent our entry fee on food and the BBQ at the end was great and the food, drink and relaxation well appreciated. There was even a free massage! Overall this was a great event, and for me the company was great along the route. As usual, in hindsight we could have done a couple of things differently, but in the end it was an excellent ride and a great day out!

Garmin here

Nice one Klarkash-ton. Sorry I couldn't join you!

Sounds cool! Good stuff...

sifter wrote:Nice one Klarkash-ton. Sorry I couldn't join you!

Ditto. I hope you turned around and rode home afterwards

thanks guys,

it was a great ride, you know you were my first choices!

We were so lucky with the weather, just reading this morning about the flooding on sh52 and sh57, both of which we used. We were more worried about getting sunburnt!!

Didn't even know about the earthquake till we got to Alfredton.