Personal entry

Life is a struggle….and that’s why we divert our attention from the daily grind by taking up sports and hobbies….but sometimes that can be a struggle too! The 24th Grand Challenge (my 5th) was one of those times, but I persevered and finished.

I’ve done relatively little riding over the past year, partly due to weather, but mainly just circumstances because weather isn’t really a problem when one has a good bike and gear. Anyway, over the last year I’ve only done 20,000Kms instead ...

When planning the current rides, we couldn’t think of anything for today so decided to leave it to the fates and announced a Coin Toss Ride, whereby the toss would decide the direction and therefore destination. In preparation I created a flowchart, which listed a range of route options and junctions at which the route would be determined and scraped together a selection of coins, being an American quarter, a 2 Euro, a Mexican 10 Pesos and an Aussy 50 cent.

With not expecting a long ...

I’m certainly racking-up plenty of wet weather riding in preparation for this year’s Grand Challenge and hopefully this will be a good omen that we are in for a dry ride this year….or not! It’s certainly not doing much for turnouts on club rides though and today was no exception.

The program was set for gravel and road options, with the dirt-trackers to nip up the Waiohine Gorge, then Mt Dick before heading for lunch at Wild Oats in Carterton, while the roadies would get there via ...

Another weekend with predicted foul weather, but that didn’t stop us riding today….again, although I was most surprised at how many ‘us’ was?! I had to work all of Saturday so I did the usual pre-lim’s, except for cleaning the bike and it could have done with a bit of a spruce up. ‘Oh well’, I thought, ‘it doesn’t matter, I’ll turn up, wait for a bit then decide whether to go straight home or perhaps enjoy a little detour.’

After monitoring the weather forecasts, I was fully kitted ...

Today was scheduled with a short ride to Lake Ferry for lunch, but with a marginal forecast predicting rain by midday and gusty winds up to 130kph, it was unlikely anyone would turn up.

In preparation, yersterday I purchased a 12V Compressor to allow me to do the tyres at home from now on and once I’ve fitted an outlet to the bike, I will be able to retire the foot pump as the emergency source of air on rides. That done I was up early and topped up the tyres before heading out on ...

It’s been quite a busy month and since the last blog we had a local ride around the Wellington Bays in marginal weather, spent 10 days on the Gold Coast and today we had a long Ulysses ride…and I’ve had little sleep with watching Le Tour de France.

The usual pre-ride prep’ had the tyres checked yesterday and gear ready for this morning, as even though the weather wasn’t looking too good I trusted the forecast and sure enough, there was a hint of blue, so I was down at the bike by ...

Last weekend, Ann & I headed down to Christchurch as she had never been there and ‘Mu was flying out to Melbourne on Sunday. It was a bit of a lottery to take the bike but come Friday, it was mint and we had a smooth Ferry crossing and easy ride down.

Saturday was another primo day for sightseeing so we scooted around Hagley Park, out to Brighton for a coffee and to venture onto the pier, then around through Sumner, up Evans Pass to Godley Head, then along the Port Hill, down through ...

A short Ulysses ride was on the plan for today and I decided to turn up, even though the weather was looking like crap.

After getting up late, I was still ready and down at the bike by 0900, but then had to put the wets on and check the tyres. I nearly didn’t bother as they have just been fitted but since the bike has been sitting for over a week and the weather is rather cool, luckily I did as they were both down around 40psi.

That done I popped down to Shell Crofton ...