On 12 March, it was three years since we started this biking adventure, when we bought my first folding bike – a Giant Expressway (John had bought his a few weeks earlier). By this time last year, I had ridden nearly 2,500 km on it. But since then, we have used our e-bikes more, so the Giant’s mileage has increased by only about 200 km.
On the other hand, our SmartMotion folding e-bikes, which we bought in November 2014, have had a lot of use, and I have just reached my 3,000 km milestone at the end of March. They have been wonderful, and have allowed us to do some great rides, without having to worry about hills or headwinds.
We had two major trips since the last anniversary. One up north in July – a total of just over 200 km during a holiday which included a day’s cycling in Auckland, riding parts of the Hauraki Rail Trail, and an exploration of Tauranga’s cycle trails. The other down south in November – the “Lupin Trip”. The object of this trip was to see the famous flowering lupins in the Mackenzie Country. We biked over 300 km near Lakes Tekapo, Pukaki, Alexandrina, Ohau, Wanaka and Hawea, including some sections of the A2O Trail, as well as the Little River Trail near Christchurch.
Right now we are itching to get away on another extended trip with the bikes – the West Coast Wilderness Trail is calling – but circumstances are preventing us from going. Maybe some time soon …
Of course we have also biked lots of shorter trips in the Wellington Region, not all of which I have written up as blogs. Many rides were to places I have described several times before.
One interesting event we took part in was the Martinborough Charity Fun Ride. We chose to do the shortest cicuit – 48 km – which was an achievement for us, as it was the longest stretch we had done without any stops. We were the only people not wearing lycra and using e-bikes (allowed), so we got some funny looks and a few snide comments from other cyclists, but we really enjoyed the experience. Biking on Wairarapa backroads was a revelation for us – so lovely and quiet. We have since biked there twice, clocking up over 70 km both times.
Recently I have done some tweaking to my blog. To make it easier for readers to home in on some specific areas where we have biked, I have added pages (with tabs along the top of the blog) to summarise my blogs into “Major Trips”, “Other Stuff”, and sorting Wellington Region rides into Wellington City, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Kapiti and Wairarapa. I’m hoping that this will be useful to other cyclists (at least those who are in our age bracket, and cycling for recreation) or to visitors to our country to get ideas from for interesting places to bike.
John has done more biking than me. He takes off on his own sometimes – to keep up his fitness, or because he gets “stir-crazy”, or to experiment with his camera. He has improved the bracket that holds his camera on his handlebar, so he can take photos without having to stop (which resulted in lots of photos of my backview). And just lately he has been experimenting with mounting his iPhone on the back of his bike so he can take time-lapses or photos of what is happening behind him (including some front-on photos of me, when I bike behind him). This is a work in progress and no doubt will be decribed further in future blogs.
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| Cycling along Lake Pukaki in November 2015 |
Very good! John was saying today that it was partly the fact that I used to cycle to Johnsonville SCD Club (on my previous bike) that got you both thinking about cycling again. If so, I feel quite chuffed. Of course, I got lazy and started driving instead of pedalling to dancing. But now the wheel has turned full circle, as it were, and you've inspired me to buy a folding bike.
ReplyDeleteNice pun about the (bicycle?) wheel turning full circle ... Thanks Pat. Keep biking and dancing. They will keep us young (or at least not aging too quickly).
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