The Worst Shortcut

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

Tags

Auckland, Cycling, Hunuas, MB4, new zealand

Generally speaking, I like a shortcut. I enjoy the little surge of smug pleasure I get when riding along a little path between two city streets that people driving cars can’t use. Or riding down a backstreet that means I can avoid a nasty intersection or a steep hill. Like using Sarawia Street in Parnell to avoid cycling down Broadway, or that path between Sylvan Avenue East and Sylvan Avenue West in Eden Terrace. But some shortcuts turn out to be slippery slopes that begin with overconfident foolishness and end in misery. Let me tell you about one of those.

Back in November of last year, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could find a better route through the Hunuas. I had tried Hunua Rd (ok but a bit busy) and the Tour Aotearoa Route (scenic but hilly) but recently I had been in the area and made a typical navigational error, which took me some way up Ponga Rd. Which was both scenic and quiet. When I looked at a map later, it turned out that Ponga Rd joined Hunua Rd further up and looked worth exploring. So on a drizzly Saturday morning I trundled my newly resurrected old Bridgestone MB4 off the train in Papakura and set off South West. Ponga Rd was indeed a nice way to go and I was nearly at the top when I got a phone call from Guy, saying he was keen to come for a ride and would meet me at the Upper Mangatawhiri Dam. So I kept riding while he drove down with his bike in the back of his car. We duly met up and pedaled to the top of the dam and then up Lilburn Road.

It was a nice gravel road that led up a hill along the side of the reservoir. When we got to Piggots Hut, there were some trampers having lunch. We wandered around a bit and looked inside the hut. There were a couple of bunks, a tiny christmas tree and bugger all else. The ultimate destination I had in mind when I set off in the morning was the far end of Mine Road. I had been part way down there before (walking) but I wanted to go all the way to where I hoped the ‘mine’ would be. But to get there, we would have to ride all the way back down to the dam, and then up the northern side of the reservoir. I had a look at the map painted on a sign outside the hut, and it showed a track that would take us from where we were, to Mine Rd. Aha! A shortcut! So I walked over and had a look at the entrance to the track. Unfortunately it was just a walking track and not suitable for cycling. So that was disappointing. But Guy had the same idea and he was not daunted by what was clearly just a walking track.

“Lets give it a try.” he said.
“Umm…” I replied.
“There might be a bit of pushing.” he suggested.
“Uh… Okay.” I mumbled tentatively.
“So this is a joint decision?” said Guy.
“Sure.” I replied, thinking that we might be making a huge mistake and I was just accepting half the responsibility.

And that was it, we were off down the track and had to get off immediately and carry our bikes up some steps. At the top of the steps we could ride briefly before getting off to push for a bit. We passed the first hour or so that way – cheerfully pushing our bikes, riding occasionally and carrying them up various steps.

Then we came upon a seat in a small clearing at the top of a hill. It had a nice view across the reservoir so we stopped to drink some water and consult my topo map. Which gave me a somewhat different perspective to the map on the sign outside Piggots Hut. That map, it seemed, was more symbolic than accurate. My map was also (as the name would suggest) more topographic, and showed several hills on our route. I started to feel the first twinges of concern, but Guy and I said things to each other like “Well we’ve come this far” and “It’s probably not much further” and then kept going. And the path deteriorated and we were doing more carrying and less pushing and no riding. We passed some more trampers going in the opposite direction who were (understandably) surprised to see bicycles. By this time I was no longer enjoying myself and was treating this as a part of the journey that I would just have to put up with to get where we wanted to go. Then it go a lot worse. The track had pretty much disappeared and now there was just bush with triangles on trees every now & then and the hills got really steep. So steep that just walking would have been hard work, but dragging bikes along was just awful.

It’s something that I hadn’t really appreciated before, how your friendly and docile bicycle, your useful assistant in daily travel, changes when the terrain no longer suits it. Your bike becomes an awkward, pointy, scratchy, worse-than-deadweight that seems to be actively trying to hurt you. All the time. The pedals are constantly scraping your legs, the handlebars keep swinging around to poke you in the chest or crush your fingers. Getting a rabid cat in to a bath would be more fun. The hills were so steep going down that at times I could just lay my bike (that I now kind of hated) on it’s side and let it slide down through the dirt and leaves until it would get caught on a tree root or something, and then I’d slither down after it and try and untangle it. At one point, Guy said to me from up ahead “I think I’m getting the rhythm of this” and immediately fell over. I was too tired to laugh so I just thought sarcastic things like “Oh, and falling down is part of the rhythm?”. And so it went on for actual hours, hills, valleys, falling over, bikes scratching and biting us. It was truly horrible.

Eventually I started to worry that we would have to spend the night in the bush, or abandon our bikes. We had started ‘The Shortcut of Horror’ (as I now thought of it) at about 1pm and six hours later we were still in the bush. After a a particularly steep climb, where I had to carry my the MB4 on my shoulder & stop every few meters to rest, Guy (who was coping better than me) said he’d go on ahead and see if we were near the road. I reluctantly agreed, worrying about being left alone in the bush. He came back within 20min or so with the glorious news that it wasn’t much further ahead. With Guy carrying some of my stuff, I struggled along the last bit of “track” and emerged thankfully on to Mine Road.

By this time it was dusk. The ‘shortcut’ had taken us seven and a half hours to traverse (I checked later and the distance we had covered in that time was about 7km). We still had 10km left to ride, to get back to where Guy’s car was parked and I expected this to be really hard after our ordeal in the bush. But the gravel roads transformed our bikes back in to efficient vehicles, carrying us quickly and pleasantly along through the gathering dark. We had such a great ride that it almost overtook the certainty that this had been The Worst Ride Ever.

Ride here.

The Road to Trollville

15 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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All-City, Auckland, Cycling, Hunua, new zealand, Spacehorse

I was at Tumeke Cycle Space the other day (either selflessly helping someone or standing uselessly around) when I mentioned something about “cycling through the Hunuas”. Guy pointed out that I hadn’t really cycled through the Hunuas – I had cycled around them. Ok, I thought, fine I thought, I’ll show you who can ride through them. So on a rainy Saturday morning, I packed a couple of peanut butter & cheese sandwiches in to my bag, filled 3 waterbottles and got on the train. I disembarked in Papakura and rode off up the hill to Hunua, and then down towards the dams. I hung a left in to Moumoukai Rd and visited the Wairoa Dam.

After basking in the morning sunshine for a bit, I followed the gravel road to the scenic Upper Mangatawhiri Reservoir.

At the western end of the dam, I rode along the unexpectedly beautiful Waterline Rd.

As I puffed my way to the top of the hill, it started to rain. So I had a little break. I ate a sandwich, put my jacket on and then remounted my bike & turned right on to Keeney Rd, which was a much less pleasant grade of gravel.

If the rocks are the size of cricket balls, is it still gravel? I’m not sure if bicycles are really welcome on that road – I saw some signs with bikes on, some signs with bikes with lines through them. Also the native bush had turned in to pine plantation, so I suspect that some logging goes on here sometimes.

Eventually the road improved and I emerged from the forest in the artisanal Ness Valley. I could tell it was the Ness Valley because I saw some artisanal water buffalo. I also rode through a monkey’s wedding, and set a record for slowest ever Strava ride through the area (hurrah!).

Cycling from there to Papakura seemed like hard work, maybe there was a headwind, maybe I was just tired. But when I actually got to Papakura it felt too early to get on the train, so I thought I’d ride home. I’m not very familiar with that part of Auckland so I took the simplest route north – the Great South Rd. Which started off ok with some cycle lanes, but they disappeared around Te Mahia, and the local car drivers started to get a little too aggressive. So I ducked off to the Te Mahia railway station, which I think might be the horriblest railway station in Auckland.

After about 20 minutes a train arrived and took me safely north to Puhuniu, where I got off to go looking for a shortcut between McLaughlins Rd and Prices Rd. I had tried to find this before, searching from Puhunui Reserve, but without success. After circling the area for some time, going in all sorts of wrong directions, I finally found the entrance to a reserve off Aerovista Place.

My joy at finding it was somewhat tempered by the fact that it’s not a very nice reserve. There was a bundle of clothes in the bushes that I at first assumed was a dead body, then there was a scary bridge (that could easily have trolls living under) leading to a dead end.

I eventually got on the right path, that turned out to be signposted as part of the Te Araroa Trail(!). But after a few minutes the trail ended and the place where the shortcut should have been, turned out to be a big muddy field with sheep in that I had to push my bike across. At the other side of the field, I lifted my bike over a fence, climbed over myself and found a sign telling me I had just crossed some private property. So I give up, there’s no shortcut.

Prices Road was nice enough though, with it’s alpacas, horses and aeroplanes. And then I just had to ride the back way through the airport, and through Mangere & Onehunga back to town.

So I think that a) there’s definitely more exploring to be done in the Hunuas, and b) I really need to find a better route from Papakura in to town.

Route here.

The Cheese Run

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Tags

All-City, Auckland, cheese, Cycling, new zealand, Spacehorse

It was sunny in Pukekohe when we got off the train. Sunny and cold. Cold enough to put a layer of ice crystals on the handrails at the station, and for puddles to have frozen over. As Emilio and I rode off in the direction of Tuakau, I could hear him shivering behind me and cursing his own foolishness in not bringing any gloves. I wasn’t quite so cold inside my Buffalo jacket, but still keen to get moving and warm up a bit.

The road to Tuakau is a little too busy on a Saturday morning, but as soon as we got over the bridge, things were quieter. And mistier, and more mysterious and beautiful.
There was no wind and mist was sitting like polyester fill over the countryside.
We rode up the hill and then down another hill and across the river to Mercer. To the cheese shop. While we coasted down, the fog condensed in to droplets on my eyelashes.
The Mercer cheese shop is my favourite cheese shop. I like the modest signage, the obscure location, the honest staff (sample conversation – me: “Is the wasabi cheese nice?”, staff member: “Not really.”) and of course, the excellent cheese. As the character Della says in the TV series ‘Raised By Wolves’ – “In my book, if you can’t handle cheese, you can’t handle life.”
With the cheese purchased and stuffed in to my front bag, we went for a little ride down the road next to the river. I love the way the landscape looks in fog – things in the distance disappear, and things close up look like they’ve been clear cut. We saw some horses.
Some toilets made from concrete watertanks, marked “Wahine” and “Tane” looked beautiful.
So did this hill with a tall flagpole/cross on it.Then we rode up and over the highway toward Maramarua. The road rose taking us out of the mist, and the sun first pushed through gaps in the trees and then came out completely.It was a lovely day for riding up the Paparimu valley, through the Hunuas and on to Papakura. Where we caught the train back to town.And what kind of cheese did I buy? Mature Gouda, Nettle, and Goat Supreme. All of which were brilliant.Route here.
More pictures here.

The Twin Streams to Hendo

01 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Tags

All-City, Auckland, Cycling, Henderson, new zealand, Space Horse, Twin Streams

Recently, my fellow cyclist Emilio and I went for a Thursday evening ride along the Twin Streams Shared Path. I can’t really handle hot weather so I suggested that we go after the 5:30-7pm Tumeke shift, hoping it would be cooler then. When we met at the workshop, there was an ominously dark cloud bank looming out west, and light showers were wandering through Newton. It was still pretty warm though, and much too humid.

First, we rode along the Western Cycleway out to the Te Atatu interchange, then along Royal View Road to the Eastern end of the Twin Streams Trail. The WS is looking pretty good these days apart from the detour around Western Springs that’s been there so long it’s a Strava segment (called ‘Leightons Annoyance’, for some reason).

We were chatting the whole way, the kind of things men usually talk about when they get together – the Argentinian economy, awful bosses, how yoga classes in Auckland are way too expensive, Emilio’s father-in-law and his infuriating search for a flowering Pohutakawa tree, how I learned to really like birds, and my friend’s dodgy Peruvian ex-boyfriend. For this reason we were riding pretty slowly and by the time we got to Henderson it was dark, and we missed a turn off. We ended up off the Twin Streams and halfway up Henderson Valley Road. So we gave up and rode back (getting lost several times on the way).

I rode back out there the next evening by myself, and made it all the way to the end of the trail at Palm Heights while it was still light, and took some pictures. I thought it was a very nice ride – pleasant scenery, very flat, not too busy (at least in the evening). Would definitely ride again, perhaps with more people and a picnic.

More pictures here.

Route here.

Conversations with Auckland Motorists #2

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Auckland, Cycling

The scene: 3:30pm on a warm Thursday afternoon, I’m cycling down Carlton Gore Rd towards Newmarket. I’m approaching the intersection with Davis Crescent and I intend to turn right. I look behind, there’s a car but it’s some distance away, so I indicate by putting my right arm out to the side and start to move to the right. The car fails to slow down and breezes past me, very close. I look up, and through the back window I can see that the driver is looking down and to the left. When the motorist stops at the intersection I ride up next to him and look in the window, he’s doing something with his cellphone. I knock on the window, he rolls it down.

Me: You might want to look at the road instead of at your phone.

The Motorist: What’s it to you?

Me: You nearly ran me over back there.

The Motorist: Well… were you indicating?

Me (while riding away): Yes, which you would have seen if you WEREN’T LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE.

Conversations with Auckland Motorists #1

13 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Auckland, Cycling

The scene: an unspectacular Tuesday morning, I’m cycling to work heading west along K’Rd. I’m approaching the intersection with Ponsonby Rd, so I enter the right turn bay intending to turn right. A car coming in the opposite direction crosses the centreline and heads directly towards me. I stop and motion to the right, waving my hand to indicate to the driver that he should get back on his side of the road. The car stops, the driver waves at me to get out of the way.

Me (looking non-plussed): You’re on the wrong side of the road, the centre line’s over there.

The motorist (motions me again to move out of the way): …

Me (still non-plussed): FUCK YOU, YOU’RE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD.

The motorist (winds down his window so I ride up next to the car): Fuckwit.

The motorist then drives off.

Waikaraka to Ihumatao

28 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Auckland, Cycling, Ihumatao, new zealand, Waikaraka

Come with me now, on a journey through time and space. Or more specifically, a super-fantastic ride through a beautiful part of Auckland. For the full experience, make your way (preferably by bike) to Hugo Johnston Drive in Penrose. Being a predominantly industrial area, the traffic is pretty gruesome during the week, but it’s fairly quiet evenings and weekends. If you want to travel there in a stylish new electric vehicle – the nearest railway station is Penrose. You could also ride there via Cornwall Park (as I usually do).

At the end of Hugo Johnston Drive is factory. It was built to manufacture teen vampire fiction. But since the demand has now moved to dystopian future romance novels, or anything written, read or even sounding like John Green, this factory is about to be mothballed. To the right of it is the entrance to the cycleway. Don’t worry if you see lost or furtive looking individuals wandering around, they’re probably just buying & selling drugs, or dogging. Or doing something else that is perfectly innocent. Pretend you haven’t seen them and follow the path.
Welcome to the Waikaraka Cycleway – let it be your guide to the wonders of the Mangere waterfront. Sights like…

One of the Ports of Auckland’s other container storage facilities.

The building where the Auckland City Council stores crashed UFOs and performs alien autopsies.

The lovely Manukau Harbour.

Did you ever wonder what happened to all the beautiful historic buildings that were knocked down during the 1980s Ugly Glass Tower Building Boom? Well here they are being carefully stored for future archaeologists to sift through and wonder what the fuck people were thinking.

I think this used to be His Majesty’s Theatre.

The Lovely New Mangere Bridge.

After you ride under the New Mangere Bridge, hang a left and ride over the Old Mangere Bridge. This is a very popular fishing spot, and apparently seals are seen here occasionally (when they are released from their contractual obligations to promote Papakura car washes). Over the bridge, turn right on to Kiwi Esplanade. This is a pleasant road that follows the waterfront, and will take you all the way Ambury Park. If you ride along there on a Saturday or Sunday morning you may be lucky enough to see flocks of brightly coloured roadies. At the end of the road, go through the gate and follow the gravel.

In Ambury park you will find pukekos, sheep, Clydesdale horses, chickens, rabbits (both wild and domesticated) and small children (both wild and domesticated). After pausing here to admire the forbearance of the animals, you can go through the two gates, turn left and ride south to explore the coastal wonderland (that will start to smell like poo after a kilometre or so).

You can ride around the Mangere Basin, and all the way out to Puketutu Island. In fact I encourage you to ride out to Puketutu Island – it is beautiful and quiet. There are tracks that run halfway around each side of the island, both sides are worth exploring.

There is also a track that goes around to Oruarangi Rd and the carpark next to the wharf. Be aware that these tracks are shared with people walking, so be nice to any you come across. Once I was trapped giving way to a large group or tired & sweaty teenagers who kept asking me if “the bus” was nearby. I told them it was just around the corner. And it may well have been.

I usually ride to the Oruarangi Rd wharf and then along a track leading through the Otuataua Stonefields.
From there I cut across a field (where there are sometimes actual cows) to meet up with the end of Ihumatao Quarry Road, and then back to Mangere on sealed roads.

I’m honestly a little reluctant to share this ride, I’m afraid that if too many people use it then I won’t be able to enjoy my selfish solitude. But recently I’ve seen a (ludicrous) proposal to stick a motorway through the Mangere waterfront, and there’s a plan to put 500 townhouses at Ihumatao. So maybe we should all just go and enjoy the place now, before it’s all ruined.

Route here that will take you on a loop starting & finishing in Newmarket.

To Helensville & Back

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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All-City, Auckland, cycle, Helensville, new zealand, Space Horse, touring

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good touring bike and a set of panniers, must be in want of a tour.” to paraphrase Jane Austen.

I don’t have much cycle touring experience. I’ve done a couple of overnight trips one 3 day tour, and I’m planning to do a 5 day ride soon. On all my rides to date, I had stayed in bricks & mortar accommodation. So I though it was time to try camping – it would save me some money, and give me more freedom to perhaps camp in other places should the need arise (like it did back in Omakau in February). It would also mean carrying more stuff.

I looked at various destinations around Auckland and chose Helensville. It’s only about 50km each way and there’s a camp ground (and a hot pool) in nearby Parakai. I was also somewhat familiar with the area having ridden the NW cycleway at least a million times, and out to Woodhill twice. The route was easy to plan, just ride all the way down the previously mentioned cycleway, through Swanson and then other people on The Internet had recommended taking the Old North Rd as a quieter alternative to highway 16.

When it came to packing the Space Horse on Sunday morning I was a little surprised to discover that my old sleeping bag weighed a thousand tonnes and took up an entire pannier. Must be the old-school insulation it contains (a mixture of mammoth hair and dodo feathers I believe). This excess weight was offset a little by my choice of svelte shelter – a Hennessey Hammock. Now I’d never actually slept in the hammock (despite owning it for a couple of years) so that was going to be interesting too.

The ride out to Swanson was nice, it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the cycleway was looking different to the last time I rode it. I must ride out there about once every 3 weeks or so, and each time it changes. Sometimes it’s a new bridge, sometimes there’s a moved fence, other times a vast concrete flyover rising out of a swamp and across the sky, stopping abruptly in a tangle of steel rods hanging there like arteries in a severed limb.

Triangle Rd seemed to take forever to traverse and it was a relief to finally get “out in the country” in Taupaki. The roads and the scenery on the way to Helensville were nice enough, but there was too much traffic for me. Like I didn’t have the road to myself for more than 30 seconds at a stretch. I coasted down the last hill and then along a short stretch of highway to Parakai, in the middle of the afternoon.

I was the only one camping at the campground but there were a bunch of caravans, some of which looked pretty permanent. There were also quite a lot of cats around. I set up the hammock (all wrong). Then I set it up again (a bit better). Before darkness fell, I rode down to the (very friendly) Grand Hotel for a drink and after it got dark, I had a (very nice) dinner at The Curry Leaf restaurant. Full of food & drink I cycled back to Parakai and my hammock. Which turned out to be quite comfortable, except that getting in to a sleeping bag in a hammock is actually really hard. And don’t even ask about getting up in the middle of the night to pee.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I was surprised at how much traffic noise there was, but the mist over the estuary was quite beautiful, and I had a nice chat to a guy who was smoking a cigarette in between mowing lawns.

Riding back to Auckland was very much like the ride out there, but with more donkeys.

Route here

Stoney Battered

04 Monday May 2015

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All-City, Auckland, Cycling, new zealand, Space Horse, Waiheke

I had some fascinating yet secret business to conduct on Waiheke Island the other day and I thought it would be nice to go for a ride down to Stoney Batter while I was over there. I used to live on Waiheke years ago, and I had walked the road to Stoney Batter once. I remembered it being a long walk on a hot day. Back in those days, if you wanted to go there you pretty much had to walk it, because the local land owner had dumped a huge mound of earth in the middle of the road to stop people driving down it. The mound remained there for a few years making lots of other Waiheke residents quite angry, until a pitchfork-wielding mob bulldozed it away. Or the local council did, I can’t remember which.

The ferry trip over was nice, and so was the ride down to Onetangi. The hill up behind Onetangi seemed like hard work, so I stopped at the top to have a drink and eat the extraordinarily expensive vegetable pie I had purchased from a cafe in Oneroa. The view was lovely from up there and it reminded me of time spent lying in the grass and talking to friends up here, back when I lived nearby.

My new bike is an All-City Space Horse frame, built up with various components, some of which I transferred from the Off-Roadrat, and some purchased specially. Why a new bike? Because I want to do more touring, and although the Off-Roadrat had done a fine job carrying me to some out of the way places, it wasn’t quite right. Mostly, it was the wrong size. A little too long in the top tube, which made the handlebars too far away, even with a really short stem. It was also not really stiff enough to carry much of a load. The steel which was pleasantly springy unladen, became a bit wobbly with a few bags on (especially the front). I was sold on the Space Horse when I saw this one. It could take fat tyres and a front load – awesome. I found a frame at Human Powered Cycles in Melbourne, bought it over the phone, and my friend Steve happened to be visiting NZ and was kind enough to bring it over with him. After finishing building it up, I’d done a few rides around town, but this was my first real outing and I wanted to see if I had everything set up properly.

From the top of the hill, the route wound mostly down before turning left on to Man O’War Bay Road. The first few kilometers of this gravel road were untiringly flat, but then the hills started, and then continued all the rest of the way. Friends of mine had warned me about the chronic washboarding on the road – they were right, it’s pretty bad at times. I had to stop about halfway there, to adjust the front derailleur so that it would shift the chain to the inner ring. Somehow I had failed to check that when I put it on.

After finally making it to Stoney Batter, I wandered around for a bit, looked at the small concrete building surrounded by broken plastic chairs, mops and other detritus that was labelled something like “Visitors Centre” and was menaced by a sheep.

Riding back down that gravel road was much easier (which confused me at the time, but made sense when I looked at the elevation profile later). Although I did have to stop once to fix up my handlebars which had slipped round to face downward after one severe section of downhill washboarding.

Now, I don’t think I cut an exceptionally athletic figure when I’m out riding – not so much greyhound, more old spaniel. But at one stage during my return journey, when I was slogging up a long hill toward Onetangi, a guy leaned out the window of a passing car and yelled at me – “You can do it! You’re nearly there! Good on you maaate!”. What? I thought. Of course I can make it – I do this all the time – dammit.
On my way back through the habited part of The Island, I stopped at the Waiheke skateboard park and had a quintessential Waiheke encounter – a couple of the local youth were trying to light a joint on the gas-powered public barbeque. They weren’t successful and asked if I happened to have a lighter on me.

The Bike performed well, and I just need to tweak a few things like the front brake & the saddle to make it ready for a new trip I have in mind.

Route here http://ridewithgps.com/trips/4310540

The State of the Roadrat

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Mr Slob in Bicycle Build

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Tags

Auckland, Bicycle, Bike, Cotic, Cycling, new zealand, Roadrat

This is how my Cotic Roadrat (or Off-Roadrat as I refer to it) is looking these days. It’s set up for on and off-road riding, can carry a fair amount of gear, and is really fun to ride.

The brakes are a weird combo of Tektro cantilevers at the front and an Avid BB5 on the back. It used to have an Avid BB7 at the front, but I had to change to rim brakes when I wanted a dyno-hub on the front. I was intending to build a new front wheel using a Shimano hub with a disc brake mount, but when the hub arrived I noticed that because the Roadrat fork puts the disc brake on the right-front of the fork rather than the rear-left, the hub would be running backwards. I have emailed Shimano tech support to ask if this is a problem, but haven’t heard back yet.

The front wheel (Shimano DH-3N80 dynamo hub on a Mavic A319 rim) is one I bought fully built from Rose Bikes in Germany, and the rear is a Shimano Deore hub on a Velocity Dyad rim, which I built myself. The tyres are the excellent Bruce Gordon Rock n’ Roads. They’re surprisingly fast on the road and fantastic on gravel, grass and mud, providing lots of grip and a smooth ride.

The crankset is a Stronglight Impact. I bought this from XXCycle in France. I like the Stronglights because they are simple, good quality, fairly cheap, and they have a great selection of sizes. You can choose singles, doubles, triples, and with all different combinations of teeth & crank length. And, they’re silver (I really don’t like black bicycle components).

The handlebars are Salsa Cowbell 3s. These are fairly wide, have a shallow drop, and flare slightly outwards. Not especially aerodynamic but very comfortable. The front derailleur is a Shimano 105 and the rear is a Shimano Deore, both secondhand. They are operated by Shimano Ultegra bar-end shifters. The brake levers are Tektro.

The saddle is a Brooks Flyer and the front rack is a Nitto M-12. On the back is a Planet-Bike Versa Rack Disc. Hanging off the front of the Nitto is a B&M Eyc light.

The bag on the front? Made that myself (hence the dodgy sewing). There is a padded compartment on the left for my camera, and a map pocket on the lid.