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Auckland Bike Slob

~ Cycling aimlessly around New Zealand – so you don't have to.

Auckland Bike Slob

Tag Archives: Bike

Riding the Hutt River Trail

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Tags

Bike, Cotic, Cycling, Hutt River Trail, new zealand, Rimutaka, Roadrat, Wellington

Coup and I flew down to Wellington in February this year, for Nicolai and Jaenine’s wedding. I took the Off-Roadrat with me, with the intention of riding up the Hutt River Trail. As usual my plan was pretty vague – to ride from our (honestly pretty average) hotel in the central city, to the Hutt and then up the trail, maybe to the top of the Rimutakas, maybe down the other side to Featherston.
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Riding to The Hutt was unexpectedly terrifying. You see it started off as a typical urban road, but as I followed the signs pointing to Lower Hutt, the roads got busier, and the speed limits got higher, until eventually I realised I was on a motorway. An actual motorway with 4 lanes of cars doing 100km/hr next to me, and nothing but a painted green stripe on the road to protect me. Jeebus, I thought, these Wellington cyclists are a bunch of hard-bastards.
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So I was very relieved to make it safely to Petone. Having forgotten to bring a map, I just headed for the river assuming that the trail would be next to it. And it totally was. I hadn’t considered however that a river has two sides – so which side should I be on? There were signs indicating that there were trails on both sides, so having arrived on the western side, I rode up there. It was very pleasant – there were people walking dogs, people picking some kind of berry, even some people managing to do both of those things at the same time.
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Eventually, in a place called Manor Park, the trail ran out and became a golf course. I’m sure one of the trail signs showed a crossing there, but it turned out to be a railway bridge only. I discovered this after bushwacking for a while, trying to find a way across. I gave up eventually and rode back down to Avalon Park and crossed there. This side of the river seemed more developed, the trail was wider and gravellier, the dogs were waggier. In fact I saw what I believe to be the waggiest thing in the world – six golden retrievers going for a walk together.
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Eventually, around …Birchville (I think?) I got lost. The trail had become quite haphazard and after following markers that pointed over a bridge, the path just got smaller and smaller. It led through some trees and across someone’s front yard, down a hill, behind a row of houses and then ended at deserted children’s playground.
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I was starting to think that local hillbillies had moved the trail markers so they could lure unwary cyclists to the playground of damnation to be… dismembered? Taught to play the banjo? I wasn’t staying to find out. Suppressing my panic, I blundered up to the nearest road and circled back to where it had all gone wrong. I guessed that the safest thing to do was head north, so I did, eventually emerging at a dairy where I was delighted to find my favourite thing – liquorice toffee. Unfortunately, this stuff is impossible to eat in public due to it’s extreme toughness. So I stuffed it in to my bag with the intention of devouring it later.
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I was starting to think that I was never going to make it up the Rimutakas, but after a couple of lucky turns, somewhere between a Devonshire Tea place and the local Naturist society, the road started to head steeply upward. I followed, and sure enough there was the start of the Rimutaka Hill Trail.
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Which was beautiful. It starts off a bit steep, but gets gentler as it goes on. It runs through a forest, there’s a tunnel, what more could you want?
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When I got to this gate, I decided it was probably the top, or close too, and that this would be a good place to stop. So I turned around and started the ride back. This turned out to be very similar to the ride there, except;
a) the gradients were all reversed
b) I didn’t get lost as much
c) I stopped at the Lower Hutt Pizza Hutt
d) I Strava’d it here
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And the wedding? Well that was lovely.

The State of the Roadrat

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Mr Slob in Bicycle Build

≈ 2 Comments

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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Dual

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Auckland, Bicycle, Bike, Cotic, Cycling, Mototapu, new zealand, race, Rangitoto, Roadrat, The Dual

I’m not an especially competitive cyclist, but I do like an interesting ride. So when I heard about this race called The Dual, taking place on Mototapu and Rangitoto Island, I was keen. Not because I wanted to race other people, but it just looked like a chance to ride around a beautiful place that you aren’t usually allowed to ride around. In the weeks before the race I turned The Roadrat into The Offroad Rat and tried riding further more frequently (I believe this is called training).

I thought I was feeling reasonably prepared, but in the last few days prior to the event, I had trouble sleeping and had nightmares that my ex-girlfriend was trying to smother me with a pillow. I don’t think it was the actual ride I was worried about, so much as the logistics – dropping my bike off at this place, picking up this stuff from from there, remembering to bring these things on the day, and very importantly – getting down to the ferry in time. But as it turned out, all that stuff all went quite smoothly, so by the time the ferry left downtown at 7am on the Saturday morning, all I had to do was follow everybody else.

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After we all arrived at Home Bay on Mototapu Island, there was plenty of time to retrieve our bikes and watch the triatheletes swim up and down. At about 8:30 we were summoned to our pre-race briefing where we heard about the bird trust and were told to be careful. There was an interruption to this – a loud bang. When we all turned to look, we could see a very non-plussed looking man holding a bike with the tyre hanging off the front wheel along with some shreds of recently-expoloded inner tube. It was at this point that I noticed everyone else had brought their bikes to the briefing, while I had just wandered over by myself. Why? I thought. The answer was provided when the briefing concluded and we were informed that the race would start in 2 minutes. By the time I had fetched the Roadrat and packed my stuff, everybody else had gone. So I cut through between a couple of tents and started the race third to last.

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The first part of the course was up and down gravel roads on Mototapu, where I learned that a) the Off-Roadrat is pretty happy on those roads, b) I’m faster than some people riding up hills, and c) I’m slower than almost everyone riding down hills. Then it was across to Rangitoto and what became quite a steep ascent. Coming down the other side was, frankly, terrifying. It was a loose gravel “road” surrounded by nasty-looking volcanic rocks. Crashing on your way down there would be very unpleasant. This is probably why an ambulance was placed there. Part way down, I came across a guy carrying his bike, so I asked him what was up. He told me he had just gotten his second flat tyre and didn’t have a second spare tube. I hesitated for a bit, then caved in to my own good nature and gave him my spare tube, after soliciting a promise from him to give the tube back to me, if he found me by the side of the trail with a flat tyre of my own.

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Now up until this point I had, I must admit, found myself unexpectedly caught up in, well, racing. But after stopping for a few minutes, and then being alone back on the track, I remembered that I was just here for a nice ride. So I slowed down even more, started taking pictures and enjoying myself. Fortunately that descision coincided with a really beautiful section of the course that took us back across Rangitoto to Mototapu. From there it was more gravel roads back to Home Bay where we started, then back up & down some more hills, followed by a turn off to the extra loop for the 50k’ers that the 30km course didn’t take. This section started off fairly innocuously as a left turn on to some grass.

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But it soon became clear that this section was a tour through Mototapu’s armpit. It’s a beautiful armpit I’ll grant you, but the surface alternated between cowpat-ridden long grass, and fields so dry and sunbaked, it was like riding over lumps of smashed concrete. The un-suspensioned Off-Roadrat was not so happy in these conditions. One real bright spot was an aid station we came to. I was coasting gracefully down the side of a hill (like a chimp on a skateboard coasts gracefully down a sheet of corrugated iron) when I spotted a secret military training base  Well that’s what it looked like, except that the buildings all had solar panels on their roofs – a secret GreenPeace para-military training camp perhaps? That would also have explained why the aid-station there, was staffed by the nicest and most enthusiastic children I have ever met. One of them said to me “You can have water or some energy drink.” While I was deciding, she added “It’s not really energy drink, it’s just water with a bit of cordial in.” which was fine with me. Fortified with cordial, enthusiasm and a barley-sugar, I continued.

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And then there was more grass and more cowshit and more fences, and then every few kilometers there would be a person directing us where to go. Finally we made it back on to the gravel roads – I was very relieved. They had told us at the briefing that the very last leg was all downhill, so everytime the road went down, I thought, is this it? Is this the last downhill?

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But none of them were. Eventually I arrived at an intersection and was directed, along with a whole lot of runners, to a grass path heading up a hill. This turned out to be the least enjoyable part of the course. It was more rock-hard uneven ground, but now with a million runners and another million walkers. At times there was a relatively smooth path, but it was jammed with walkers, so I was constantly saying “excuse me” so they would step aside and I could stay on the path. This didn’t work on one guy who told me he couldn’t move sideways because he had snapped his achilles tendon.

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Finally I made to the home stretch – the descent to the finish line in Home Bay. This turned out to be not much fun at all – steep hill, lumpy surface etc. Fortunately it didn’t last too long and I was able to totter across the finish line and collapse under a tree. I got up after a while and had a beer. Then I had a second beer – I believe this is acceptable post race hydrating.

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For a first race, I thought it went well. I managed to finish, I wasn’t injured and apparently I didn’t come (quite) last. Would I do it again? Hmm, not sure. I’m leaning towards riding The Contact Epic around Lake Hawea next year though…

An Austrian Rain Bike

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by Mr Slob in Bicycle Build

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Tags

Alpine, Auckland, Bicycle, Bike, new zealand, Puch

In a previous post, I referred to my Cotic Roadrat as my “Everyday Bicycle”. I also mentioned it’s lack of mudguards. So when it scarcely stopped raining in Auckland – “The Seattle of the South Pacific” – for a couple of weeks, I assembled a different “Everyday Bicycle”. One with mudguards. Let me introduce The Puch.

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It’s not an especially pretty bike, although it probably was back in the 1970s when it came out of the Puch factory in Austria. I spotted this particular vehicle on a well-known local Internet auction site and arranged to purchase it for the very reasonable sum of $10. There was some work required – I replaced the handlebars, wheels, front brake, brake levers and derailleur.

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As a general purpose bike it has some shortcomings – the chain has a tendency to fall off if I change too quickly in to a higher gear, and the actual levers are placed, not very conveniently, at arms-length. And then there’s all that.. ahem.. rust.

 Puch in the Park

But The Puch also has some excellent qualities – the aforementioned mudguards, a surprisingly comfortable riding position and a pair of very nice Schwalbe Marathon Racer tyres.

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And… a dynamo powered headlamp.

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The lights were also an addition of mine. They are made by Busch+Muller. The headlight has a facility called a standlight – meaning that it stores a bit of charge from the dynamo, so that when you are stopped at traffic lights, the headlight stays on for a few minutes. It doesn’t produce an enormous amount of light, but it’s enough to see by if I find myself in an area without streetlights. Thanks to the dynamo, I don’t have to worry my pretty little head about batteries, and it makes a pleasantly loud whirring noise that warns pedestrians and frightens dogs.

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