I finished work on September 25 2021 with the intention of cycling New Zealand over the summer months, to be dubbed my “Time Out NZ 2021 – 2022” trip. The initial plan was to revisit Northland, then head South to explore trails between Auckland and Wellington before returning to Auckland for the Christmas/New Year break. Later in January, after the peak holiday season crowds (and prices) had subsided, I would head to the South Island for a few months.
When I got my Abarth I kept my 20-year-old Fiat Bravo HGT ‘as a spare car’. It runs OK, good condition, but had done 270,000km so not worth trading or selling. It's also rare, maybe ten left in NZ?, so parts availability meant a newer daily was needed. For this trip It would be an asset as I planned to drive South, with two bikes inside, and leave it there flying back to Auckland between regional legs.
It is a bit bigger than the Abarth, although not as much as you'd think, and better suited to 'touring': The GT part of the label is no lie. The two-litre five-cylinder engine likes to rev, some say 'Hasn't Got Torque', but sounds great. It spins at 3000rpm doing 100km/h in fifth gear and averages ~8l/100km (38mpg) on the open road.
The (refurbished) air conditioning and sunroof are great for summer. Even though the ride is far more forgiving than the Abarth Essseesse it handles OK, if a bit front biased thanks to all that engine. Another touring advantage is a proper, albeit space-saver, spare wheel as the Abarth just relies on sealant and hope!
Going nowhere
My initial challenge was the inability to go anywhere. Auckland was still in the middle of a COVID-19 lockdown which had started as a strict national Level 4 lockdown on 19th August, the middle of my eight-week notice period. That meant home isolation, only essential services and food stores trading and no travel. I hoped it might finish by the end of September and for much of NZ it did, to a degree.
On 1st September all of NZ except Auckland and Northland relaxed to Level 3 which was still restricted but more businesses could open. On 8th September, the rest of the country was relaxed to Level 2 which would have allowed regional travel, were I not in the Level 4 Auckland/Northland zone. On 22 September Auckland & Northland relaxed to Level 3 which meant I could ride within ‘walking home’ distance. For me that was a a self-imposed ~5km radius which still opened quite a variety of riding.
Planning to go somewhere
I spent the first week after finishing work scoping a possible itinerary based on the lockdown easing in October (ha!). I always planned to do day, or maybe overnight, rides from a base and drive between regions. This meant I could leave the bulk of gear at the accommodation and ride from there or perhaps a short drive away. It meant less gear in the car, to tempt thieves, and saved the unpack/repack tedium of daily moves. It also meant I could flex plans around weather and cycle with just day ride gear.
I used MindManager as a planning tool. It’s ability to simply marshal details like dates, web links, costs, resources (bikes mainly) and display it in map or timeline (Schedule/Gantt) form was brilliant. I worked in the simple map view (below) massaging dates, adding estimated costs and juggling around fixed times like public holidays.
In the background MindManager was reflecting this information as Schedule or Gantt views which were great for planning.
The initial plan
I was looking to attend a conference in Wellington in November so planned to cover the md-lower North Island before Xmas. I didn’t want to travel at all over the Xmas/New Year time as everyone else is. Prices, traffic, accommodation all become premium around then. I would leave the big ‘away leg’, the South Island, until after the January School Holidays finished.
The initial plan looked like this:
- North Island
- Northland (October)
- Home 1 week | Northland <> Wellington
- Wellington (November) | Cycling & NZ Skeptics Conference
- Home 1 week | Wellington <> Waikato
- Waikato/Central (Nov-Dec)
- Home 1 week | Waikato <> Hawkes Bay
- Motu & Hawkes Bay (December)
- Home 3 weeks | Xmas & New Year
- Coromandel road and trail (Mid January)
- Home 1 week | Coromandel <> Upper South
- South Island (drive down in Fiat Bravo)
- Upper South | Nelson & Golden Bay (Late Jan-February)
- Return Trip Home 1 Week | Leave Bravo in Christchurch
- Otago & Canterbury | Queenstown, Alexandra, Roxburgh, Otematata A2O leg (Feb)
- Return Trip Home 1 Week | Leave Bravo in Christchurch
- West Coast Trails | West Coast Wilderness, Paparoa & Old Ghost Road Trails (March-Early April)
- Drive to Picton, Cook Strait Ferry & Auckland
When I started looking at booking only the West Coast rides presented any real problems. Although September it was already getting hard to coordinate accommodation on the trails in March due to limited availability. I decided on joining organised tours for the West Coast Wilderness trail as it involved a bit of shuttling around (both bike and gear) and for the Old Ghost Road because of its remoteness. One other factor was the Hokitika Wild Food Festival coincided with the weekend I wanted to do the Wilderness Trail so Hokitika was already quite heavily booked.
Gearing up
I had much of the gear needed for most of this trip with my existing gravel and hardtail mountain bikes. I had them both serviced once the lockdown eased enough to allow that sort of work.
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‘Giro Rob’ my Avanti Giro AR C1 gravel bike & ‘Rapid Rob’ Giant Talon 1 hardtail Mountain Bike However, a full suspension bike was strongly recommended for the Old Ghost Rd Trail. I looked at renting one but the cost, needed for a week, versus cost of a mid-range bike with staff discount at T7 meant it made sense to buy one. While not a big mountain biker there are plenty opportunities to use a bike with a bit more capability than the hardtail. OK, so buying wasn’t a tough decision but finding something suitable, in stock, in my size, took a while but eventually got one at Torpedo 7 Newmarket. The new bouncy bikeI settled on a 2021 Giant Trance trail bike with 27.5 wheels. They were standard on the small frame I need, and I like them on ‘'Rapid Rob’, my older Giant Talon Hardtail. I placed the order on-line with a few standard accessories (bottle cage, basic Cateye wireless odometer, a removeable Topeak front guard) to build it out. Once the order availability was confirmed I dropped my Abarth for a scheduled service at Andrew Sims, Newmarket, walked down Broadway, picked up the bike and went for a ride until the car was ready. Cue a bemused service manager, who now knew why I didn’t need a loan car, watching me fit the bike (after removing both wheels) into the Abarth before heading home!
Emergency GearAs would be riding solo often and in some remote places, even though just day rides, I got a Personal Locator Beacon. The Acrartex ResQLinkTM 400 GPS PLB requires no subscription and relays your position to a worldwide network of search and rescue satellites. Additionally, a built-in strobe and infrared strobe facilitate night or other low visibility rescues. In the bag with that I added basic emergency first aid and survival kit. Hoped never to need any of it! Although not gear I also managed to get COVID travel insurance from Cover-More. Had used them in the past for more extreme travel, in the Himalaya & Antarctica, but they offered domestic cover should you be stranded by COVID. Triggered by a positive test it would cover extra expenses for accommodation, travel etc incurred by isolation requirements in addition to the standard travel insurance luggage cover Bags and bitsI wanted to carry enough gear for a remote day ride without using a backpack. The gravel/road bike was fine but I added an AeroPack Bag for my existing Tailfin Carbon Rack. It is better sized and more trail friendly than a single side pannier but took them too if needed. It covers the seat post but Tailfin had ‘Seat Post Mimic’ light mount which took my Cycliq rear camera/light perfectly.
That rack, or my other Topeak Beam rack/bag, would not work on the bouncy bike. I tried a more conventional bikepacking bag but it compromised suspension travel too much. While looking at handlebar bags found the Aeroe Spider/Front Bag combo. It proved to be perfectly sized for a day ride and the firm mount meant it didn’t impact handling. If anything, I found having a bit more weight over the front wheel a benefit on climbs.
Car(s)The Abarth was staying in Auckland and the Bravo was good to go, serviced and years WOF in July, but this trip would take it close to needing a new cambelt on both kilometres and time. That is not a trivial exercise, in theory an engine out job, but decided could wait (hopefully) until I got back!
The Bravo easily swallowed two bikes and my (too much) gear. Wheels off both and, vertically, on each side of the load bay with foam noodles to avoid rattles. Mountain bike frame on the bottom with a flattened bike box to protect it. Soft bag with gear and the (carbon) gravel bike frame layered on top. The blue tarp was used to protect the car trim and under bikes if stored (with permission) in the accommodation. Turned out all the places I stayed were happy to accommodate bikes, some had dedicated storage or didn't mind in room overnight.
Finding my way and keeping in touchI already use Strava to log rides and although it has planning tools they are more useful for road riding. The official ‘NZ Cycle Trails (Great Rides), and many other popular ones nearby, are superbly supported by Gary’s free Great Rides App. For other trails I subscribed to Trailforks as it covers more remote bikepacking type trails and mountain bike parks. It would prove to be very valuable in the South Island with information on trail conditions informing several day rides. I dabbled with Kmoot but didn’t end up using it much, seems more designed for proper touring than my day ride strategy. I would just use my phone (Samsung S21 Ultra) for photos, and they upload automatically, once on wifi, daily to backup photo storage on both OneDrive and Flickr. I decided not to blog the trip live, it takes a lot of time, but would use Facebook and Twitter for updates. I still wanted a way to record/share the less technical aspects of the rides than Strava, where I was and a few photos etc. Before I set out someone shared an Auckland Cycle Group ride captured with Relive.cc. I had used it before but kind of forgotten about. It combines a ride track, their app or imported from other trackers, and combines photos or short video clips into a brief summary video. You can share as a link or embed in a web page (example below). I reactivated my Relive account and from September 25th onwards numbered Strava and Relive rides TO2122-## to make them easy to find. I also had a spreadsheet to track costs and ride summary distances, although still use an outdated version of Quicken to track my actual finances. Hardware
Many of the places I stayed only had budget TV's which didn't support streaming. Plugging the computer into the TV HDMI (controlling it from the couch with wireless mouse) and using the Bose speaker was a good combination, often better than TV sound! For late night, early morning, Formula One, streamed on Spark Sport, I used the headphones. COVID Traffic Lights on RedSeptember became October, November and there was little change in the COVID lockdown status. The October plans were scrapped and I enjoyed the combined Australian/NZ Skeptics conference on-line, the Wellington event being cancelled. Our Level 3 relaxed a bit, known as Level 3 Step 1 & 2, but there was no chance of travel beyond the Auckland region until after December 3. Then all of New Zealand moved to the COVID-19 Protection Framework, also known as the traffic lights, at 11:59pm on 2 December 2021. I decided not to travel out of the Auckland Region until after Christmas but planned some Auckland regional riding before then. More on that in a future post… Previous < TO2122 Index > Next |
