Waitakere Classic

[zaq]

When you need to take a mid-week break from the rat race, your daily commute, sedentary office job, mind twisting weekly craziness.... whatever... the Waitakere Classic may be just the medicine for you.

Start at the top of One Tree Hill.
Head out along Hillsborough Road (Coastal Hillsborough if you feel a bit fancy)
Get to Titirangi and fuel up with a coffee and a pie
Travel all the way along Scenic Drive towards Bethells Beach
Eventually get to Waimauku (via horse paddocks and some place near Muriwai)
Ride back to Auckland along the motorways and hit the coffee shops at Mt. Eden for a top up and then get back to yer regular life
110kms and about 2.5hrs is bound to brighten the rest of your week - and if not, do it again in reverse till it does

One Tree Hill to Titirangi is nothing much. It's kinda boring, but you have to get there somehow. If, like me, you stick to the speed limit, vehicles around you will make you think that you speedo is about a gazzilion kms off the mark. Well, actually that's an exaggeration because everyone was very well behaved and sensible today. The ride becomes nicer once you get past Green Bay - and you may see a couple of ducks waddling about the place.

Titirangi roundabout sculpture



Stop at Titirangi for a bite... and see if that statue has been painted in psychedelic colours again. Then head off along Scenic Drive. Grab some photos if you are touristically inclined - dams and lakes to one side, sea, suburbs and farms to the other. Fantastic cloud formations above. And the road below you - it is one long serpentine twisting ribbon of gear mashing joy. A pleasure to traverse, and brilliant in all the lower gears.

Sea, Suburbs n Sky to the right


Rated A for Awesome


Fluffy cotton balls


Once you get through the twisty bits, the landscape opens out a bit. Don't miss the ostrich and miniature horse near your turn off on Bethells Road. The road becomes a bit wider now, and there are a lot of horse yards on either side. There was even a sign for Alpacas on sale.

Other bikers enjoying the evening


Cattle in the paddock - after a whole bunch of horses


Eventually, you get to an intersection along Muriwai Road - left turn to the beach or right turn to get to Waimauku. Then ride along SH16 for a bit, past our Honourable Prime Minister's electorate office (wasn't there a giant jandal on the roof?), and then go past Whenupai onto the new motorways. Trundle along the motorway and get off at Shelly beach road, go thru Ponsonby and get to Mt. Eden. Grab another nice strong coffee there (I recommend Olaf's if it's open, and Frasers - Circus Circus is pretty good too, but I don't like their seating), and then carry on home.

Right before the Muriwai intersection


It feels like some of the romanticism of riding out in the country has worn off now that the "Auckland Council" has taken over everything. Hard to explain - everything is still awesome, just not quite the same. Oh, and it's a pain in the proverbial to take photos: Stop bike. Stand down. Engine off. Jump off. Remove gloves. Open pocket. Retrieve camera. Snap pic (2 seconds). Repeat everything in reverse. 5 mins later, ride off. There has got to be a quicker way (that does not involve sticking cameras onto helmets).

Some words of caution - while you are bashing through gears in all your biker glory, don't be dumb and hop across the center line. MAKE SURE you stick to the very far left of the road. Vehicles are always right on the dividing line along scenic drive, and you don't want to get clipped or worse. And try to hang in the center lane on Ponsonby road... the lane along the footpath always has taxis pulling u-turns and people reversing in so they can rush off to their favourite Ponsonby bars.

Well, hope you enjoyed this little ride along. Here's a map - couldn't figure out how to embed it, but you can click on the link
Map: http://g.co/maps/5ajzs

[Bender]

Well done.