Yay, managed to sneak the Whanganui Rapids 400 in, but marital relationships are definitely getting even more strained over these rides. If I can just manage to sneak that 600km one in a couple of weeks time, then I better call it quits from the Randonneuring for a while. As Jimmi71 says, it does tend to get in the way of other things!

Here's my account of last weekend's "Whanganui Rapids 400" ride. At 400km and 6,000 vertical metres climbing, I struggled a bit with the head-space and was definitely not in the best of moods by the end. Some amazing scenery though!

http://andrewendurancecycling.blogspot.co.nz/2015/05/the-whanganui-rapids-400.html

Thanks for the link MadAndrew. That was a good read and looked like a great ride! I know in the long rides I pretty much force myself to eat and drink almost every hour. I also carry a couple of V shots for when I really hit the wall - they work a treat!

200k Apiti ride with kiwirandonneurs today, plus another 40k Feilding commute.

Early start out the door before 6 for the flat ride out to Fielding. It seemed quite warm out so I cut back on the warm stuff a bit, cause you know, it never gets colder during the day, does it? No appetite so just a banana and coffee for breakfast.

Nice quick ride to Fielding so I had time for an improper breakfast at McDs before the 7am start. We had 6 riders lined up, bit of confusion because another group showed up for a ride to Apiti too. Lots of crazy people around!

Nice ride out of town but it chilled down a bit so the very numerous hills were very welcome. Well, for a little while anyway. It seemed to sit around 6˚ most of the day. Good acclimatising for next weeks ride from Turangi to Taumauranui. The "red sky in the morning" was admired but brought trouble later.

The first 100km climbs up to 670m but theres a lot of short descents to rest the legs. My lack of winter training quickly became evident as I struggled on the steeper climbs. Near the top the forecasted rain slowly rolled in, becoming quite heavy about a third of the way down the 20km descent to Mangaweka. It also got very cold so the rain jacket and helter skelters went on. The heavy rain arrived at a particularly inopportune moment as the was a long section next to a papa cliff so the road was covered in sandy drivetrain eating mud. Luckily I had chain lube with me but I had to use it three times during the rest of the ride.

The cafe in Mangaweka arrived just in time because the worst of the rain passed while I was eating a bacon and egg pie very very slowly to avoid getting back on the bike. A quick look at the rain radar showed the worst was passing so back on the bike for a quick ride down SH1 to Ohingaiti before a largely uninterrupted 25km 440m climb back to the top of the course as the clouds cleared. Great down hill from here to Apiti, traversing a couple of gorges, and enjoying the tailwind. Handle of coke and punnet of chips for dinner. Continued the downhill out of Apiti before a big climb to Kimboulton and then a nice long downhill back to the finish in Fielding.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/836604224

Impressive, Znomit!

A good work out Znomit.

I will try and make the start line for the October edition.

Currently battling to improve my 25th place in the Tour de France VFR.
It is exhausting work

Another nice ride yesterday with Kiwirandonneurs.

Due to some logistics problems we found we had a 200k scheduled in the calendar but no route. I have always wanted to ride the largish hill between Turangi and Taumauranui so suggested a route that included it twice.

We had a reasonably late start to avoid the icy roads, leaving Turangi about 7:30 for the 6km commute to the start in Tokanaau. Very very very cold with the thermometer on 0° and god known how much windchill. Toes and fingers were hurty already. 5 of us rolled out at 8am and after a very short distance we were climbing away from the lake. Things warmed up to tolerable quite quickly. It took about an hour to get over Kuratau, and then another hour of solid climbing up to 900m. Great views from the top though with a bit of ice around and lots of grit there wasn't much admiring the scenery durng the steep 700m descent. Easy downhill run into Taumauranui from there for a big brunch and to regroup.

After far too much bacon and eggs and not enough coffee we headed north for a 100km loop through Ohura and back along the forgotten highway. It was flat for 15km out of town before tackling the steep 200m climb over Okahukura saddle. The thermals finally came off here (about 1pm). From here it was rolling hills through to the almost ghost town of Ohura where we regrouped again and filled the water bottles. The terrain started to get a little less rolly and a lot more pointy from here on, with a couple of big climbs before getting back to Taumauranui as the light faded. I was starting to keep a close eye on the clock as I had to finish by 9:30 and had 60km and on big hill to go.

A quick pie and a coffee before putting the thermals back on and I was rolling again by 6pm. A bit of a tailwind helped with the gentle climb before the nasty 700m climb. It took about 1hr40 to get to the top, with a short walk in the middle. I was really pushing the time limit now with 30km to go, mostly downhill but Kuratau in the way.

Kuratau was a surprisingly easy climb as my legs were well rested from the descent, the upwardly rolling hills after that though were really tough though. The descent to Tokaanaau finally arrived and I hit the Tokanaau town sign bang on the cutoff time 9:30!


One of the the hilliest 200 I've ever done with over 3100m of climbing, probably not an ideal mid winter ride with cold temperatures and extra lard on board, should be a little easier in the summer.




https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/

https://www.strava.com/activities/355580053

First ride on my new bike. Twas nice. Cannondale Evo 6

I rode uphill to get to the beach today. Managed to pass an 83 year old man and a 12 year old girl, otherwise all the locals left me for dust. Including getting dragged off the line by a Mom on a cargo bike with a toddler in the box in front.
Apparently riding everywhere every day make you pretty strong. Who would have thought.

This ride was actually a couple of weeks ago but I am just now getting around to uploading the photos and gps track. I was out for the whole day but most of that time was spent driving or taking an extended lunch break. The GPS tells me I was only moving for two and a half hours but it was a lovely day so I figured I may as well share it.

I have a friend who lives in San Francisco, so the plan was for me to drive up there and we would ride though the park, past the Presidio former military base, over the Golden Gate bridge and then down to Sausalito for lunch. The return journey would include a detour up the Marin headlands for as far as we could manage (which turns out wasn't very far).

Things got off to a fairly rocky start. It took a little over an hour to get to San Francisco and when I caught my first glimpse of the bridge I could see it was encased in fog. This is not unusual and I had light jacket so I wasn't overly concerned. What was bothersome was trying to find street parking in the Haight-Ashbury district. After driving around for 30 minutes and finding nothing we agreed to meet by the windmills of ocean beach where there is always ample parking.

The next bother occurred when I was assembling my bike and over-tightened the handlebar GoPro mount. The cheap plastic bracket snapped. It wasn't a complete disaster because I had a rear facing mount but it would have been nice to take a few front facing photos. Still, I came here to ride, not take pictures so we set off through the park. All the faffing meant the morning fog had burned off and the weather was now perfect. Probably around 25 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

Riding over the Golden Gate bridge is much better in theory than it is in practice. You have full on racers in team kit trying to claim the Strava KoM, tourists on rented bicycles, pedestrians taking selfies and tourists on rented bicycles taking selfies all squeezed onto the same narrow stretch of pavement. For some reason the other side of the bridge is only open to bicycles during commuting hours.

After clearing the bridge, it is a pleasant ten minute freewheel all the way down to the quaint tourist trap of Sausalito where we stopped for lunch.

The first place we stopped at had valet bicycle parking which was little more than a couple of bicycle racks already filled with rented bicycles.

After handing over 4 bucks for the privilege of using their "valet parking" we needed a beer so we each downed a pint while waiting for a table outside, on the deck, to become available.

After finishing off an over-sized burger, a pile of french fries and another pint of beer I was in no mood to get back on the bike but get back on we must. Straight away we were faced with the "pleasant ten minute freewheel", only in reverse it was a 20 minute slog and we didn't stop when we got back up to bridge level, we just kept climbing the Marin Headlands. Now, I know beer was one the earliest PEDs but I'm sure the Tour de France competitors in the 19 hundreds did not pair it with a burger and fries half way up a mountain stage. We stopped at the first vista point and agreed to come back another day and a try climbing the headlands before stooping for lunch.

The other side of the bridge was now open for bicycles so the ride back was much less stressful.

I wound my way back to the car through Pacific Heights and Seacliff, the home to many a movie star in their insanely expensive residences.

Saturdays training ride - set a PB on a 10km hill climb segment

took the new TT bike for a spin. tyres look a little flat but they roll ok.....

Another training ride out the way, 2 laps of Scenic Drive, then out to Taupaki - legs are pretty tight atm LOL

foremannz wrote:Another training ride out the way, 2 laps of Scenic Drive, then out to Taupaki - legs are pretty tight atm LOL

Capture.PNG

Good effort

You probably know this but the Avanti shop group (Department of cycling) are doing Sunday rides in Taupo as their aim if you want to ride with them.

FLATULENTFRIEND wrote:

foremannz wrote:Another training ride out the way, 2 laps of Scenic Drive, then out to Taupaki - legs are pretty tight atm LOL

Capture.PNG

Good effort
You probably know this but the Avanti shop group (Department of cycling) are doing Sunday rides in Taupo as their aim if you want to ride with them.

I have ridden with them, but I don't like the bunch ride mentality of some in the group on open roads - I'm also a car lover, and I'm trying to only ride with other car lovers who are mindful of how it feels to be held up by cyclists ...

foremannz wrote:

FLATULENTFRIEND wrote:

foremannz wrote:Another training ride out the way, 2 laps of Scenic Drive, then out to Taupaki - legs are pretty tight atm LOL

Capture.PNG

Good effort
You probably know this but the Avanti shop group (Department of cycling) are doing Sunday rides in Taupo as their aim if you want to ride with them.

I have ridden with them, but I don't like the bunch ride mentality of some in the group on open roads - I'm also a car lover, and I'm trying to only ride with other car lovers who are mindful of how it feels to be held up by cyclists ...

I've got 10 1/2 cars - I guess that means I have some affinity with 4 wheeled pollution devices

'car lovers who are mindful of how it feels to be held up by cyclists ..."
The nature of driving on the roads means at times anyone will be "held up" by cyclists.

I've found their group riding skills pretty good in relation to motorvehicles. They have written instructions re group riding, have had some training in same and there are always the calls forward to go in single file etc so I don't really know what else they/we can do to now annoy / stay safe on the roads.

What do you find dangerous / annoying? Do you have any suggestions?