Final Update From The Oddsmaker

I’m running about two weeks behind on this blog, but yesterday was a big day so it’s worth jumping ahead at least for one post. I am feeling pretty damn good about yesterday.

Last night I camped atop the Crown Range Summit, which at 1,076 meters (3,530’) is the highest point of the Tour Aotearoa. It’s also the tour’s last serious climb. There’s no such thing as “all downhill from here” in New Zealand—they just don’t do flat land around here—but of all the hills between me and Bluff, there’s only one you could really call a giant. From here to Bluff, the general trend is I’ll go to sleep at a lower elevation than where I woke up that morning.

Booster and I followed a hiking trail a little higher up the mountain to reach an even 1,100 meters (3,600’) and to slip out of view of the road. This was mostly because headlights spoil night vision, but I won’t lie to you, it’s also because where we camped wasn’t exactly what you’d call legal. I wouldn’t call it illegal either, but I’d need a lawyer to parse the finer points of my argument. We camped there for two reasons: to watch the stars and to savor the moment.

I now put my chances of finishing the TA “on schedule“ at 90%. I cannot rule out mechanical failures or car accidents, but finally I can say with confidence that my body can do this. Yesterday was the last major physical challenge*, and like I said, I’m feeling pretty damn good about it. Forty kilometers, all uphill, and I did it without any hike-a-biking. That’s a big deal for me. It means my knees and back felt good and my mind’s little games didn’t talk them out of it. Also, I reached the summit knowing I could have ridden a lot further. Another big deal. Queenstown was still another forty-five kilometers away and I could have reached it easily.

Biggest deal of them all: yesterday’s average speed doubled my hill-climbing speed in Tasmania. Double an ain’t-shit number still ain’t shit, but that’s the logic of the critic, not the man in the arena.

Simply put, I didn’t think I could do it. Even that morning I didn’t think I could do it. A month ago I couldn’t have done it, twenty-four hours ago I didn’t think I could, and twelve hours ago I did it.

I cannot believe how much stronger I am. I can’t believe how much my technique has improved. I never imagined how strategic I’ve become even when it comes to things like grocery shopping, to say nothing of packing, pacing, and taming what Zen practitioners call the monkey mind.

So I foresee finishing the TA in the next few days, but honestly it doesn’t matter what happens after this. I did what I came down here to do. Plus I got to spend a cold night under the stars celebrating it. More on that later—so, just to be clear, me saying mission accomplished doesn’t spell the end of the blog. I’m two weeks behind with another two weeks of travel ahead. I’ll catch you up eventually, I promise. For now just know Yours Truly is feeling good.

*ETA: Not! Holy shit, was I wrong about that. See “How Do You Feel” for just how wrong.

I Was Attacked By New Zealand’s Most Aggressive Predator

I have looked into the eye of evil and it is avian.

It is the New Zealand magpie, and it is more aggressive to bicyclists than any other animal in the country. (If I’m honest, the only aggressive one, unless you count douchebag drivers.)

For a few weeks a year—basically all the weeks I’m riding here—it has eggs or fledglings in the nest, and that makes it defensive as hell. These little bastards hang out in groups in the fields, watching for trouble, and when you see a squadron of them take to the air you could swear you hear them squawking “lock S-foils in attack positions.”

I have learned to scan pine trees in particular for these nasty little dive-bombers. That’s what they do: they follow you down the road, hovering menacingly, then stoop into a bombing run and peck you in the head. I have taken three shots to the helmet. Fortunately none to the ear—yet—though I’m told that happens.

There are two other birds for bikepackers (and campers in general) have to worry about here, but I like these ones. First is the kea. Isn’t it adorable?

The kea is a rarity: an endangered species that’s cute and charismatic, yet one the locals don’t really want to come back. They’re about the size of a macaw and just as loud. A kea’s beak is hooked and sharp, and I found this one standing on someone’s van trying to peel all the rubber bits off. They’re clever but quite destructive.

The danger to campers is they’re cheeky enough to steal your stuff. Same goes for the bigger, more prevalent, equally kleptomaniacal wēkā.

Wēkā are about the size of a small chicken. They’re flightless, and once you get to the South Island you learn they are anything but endangered. They’re also stealthy, unlike the noisy and clumsy kea, but like kea they’re interested in more than food. I met a three-year-old who lost her favorite stuffed animal to a wēkā.

I like kea, despite the fact that one of them kept waking me up one night messing around with Booster. I could hear it clumping around like a drunk trying to unlock the door to the wrong apartment. That bellowing squawk shouldn’t be endearing, but somehow it is. I like to they’re introducing themselves but they haven’t mastered English grammar: “I KEA!”

I like wēkā too. They’re thieves, but thieves with character. But magpies? Hell no. They’re hellspawn.

My Favorite Bit, Pt. II: Ikamathreea

Okay, so last time I said my favorite part of the TA so far is the ride to Ikamatua. Maybe it doesn’t sound like it should be, since apart from the navigation problems and running out of water, the mountain just straight up kicked my ass. But it is, and I’ll show you why.

(Words can’t do it justice, so get ready for lots of pictures. I’ll apologize in advance for the photo quality in some of these. The only camera I have with me is Advanced Alien Technology, aka my iPhone, and phone photography gets tricky when you’re so rain-soaked that you have no way to dry your hands, your lenses, or the touchscreen.)

We left off last time with my first attempt at an ascent, ending with me running short on water. This was a Monday. I rolled back into Reefton with my tail between my legs. Out of self-pity and a need for nurturing I splurged on dinner at Dawson‘s, a hotel and restaurant in operation since 1874. The veggie Madras curry is killer, the kumara chips really come to life when you dip them in plum sauce, and they have a nice crisp cider on tap. Comfort food for the win.

As I was stuffing my face with fried kumara, I saw three women walk in dressed for serious athletic activity, and on my way out I saw them again, checking out Booster. Turns out they’re part of the Reefton running club, but one of them is into cycle touring and another is thinking about getting into it. They were admiring Booster’s setup when I came outside.

It turns out the founder of the club, Emma, is a world record holder for running the entire length of New Zealand in 21 days. (Yes, that makes her three times faster on her feet than I am on wheels. And unlike me, she runs for charity. Worst Bikepacker in New Zealand at your service.) Emma also happens to be temporarily in charge of the best campsite in Reefton. The runners asked me where I’m staying tonight, I said I wasn’t sure, and one of them gave Emma the nod. Soon enough I was following her back to a quiet little glade where she hooked me up with a nice campsite.

So Tuesday morning, another run at Ikamatua, right? Wrong. I wake up to a very sore knee. Oh yeah, I think, the first thing I did yesterday morning was slam it into a rock at high speed. Suddenly today feels like a rest day.

On the one hand, that’s good. I could use the time to get some writing done. Booster’s shifter cable has been giving me some trouble too, and that could use some attention. Plus, as I’d learn later, there’s one pair of men’s size 11 shoes for sale in Reefton, and my current shoes are about as sturdy as the inside of a s’more.

On the other hand, there’s this amazing thing happening in the sky. I forget the word for it. It’s what happens when rain isn’t falling. Whatever it is, it means I could be riding and not wet at the same time. I barely remember what that even feels like. But no, my knee says today is a rest day.

In the knees lies wisdom. Listen to the knees. Not only did I get my work done, but the mountain got a lot of work done. This is yet another example of being careful of what you wish for. I thought I wanted to bike on a rain-free day, but no. Far better to bike the morning after a rain-free day.

Those meter-deep pools? Mere centimeters now. The mountain spent all of Tuesday draining, so Wednesday morning instead of pushing or dragging Booster through one swamp after another, I just rode the whole way up.

Navigation problems? Solved in advance. I’ve already been where I need to go. Steep as hell hike-a-bike? All right, I there was still some of that, but a much lower grade than Monday’s route, never so dire that I had to take the bags off the bike. Compared to last time, I felt like I was sprinting up the trail.

So on my third day I finally made it all 25 kilometers to Big River Hut. This by itself already nominates the path to Ikamatua for my favorite part of the TA, because I got my ass kicked so hard on Monday and came back in such fine form on Wednesday. The Rocky to Rocky II story arc is just so gratifying. But the ride is about to get better.

Just below the hut, after a couple of river crossings, you ride past relics of the gold rush era. That’s where you discover why they tell you not to drink the water or touch the soil: a byproduct of gold mining is cyanide.

But once you’re above the mines, you’re in the clear. Runoff doesn’t run uphill. So on I go, and this is where things get magical: the Waiuta Track.

The Waitua Track starts with a lookalike of the Dead Marshes, yes, that is their name. I did not follow the lights.

Then comes the emerald forest. Not its name but I don’t know what else to call it. Stones, branches, tree trunks, all of them draped in green.

Then comes the Girdle of Melian. Again, not its name. It’s an obnoxiously obscure Tolkien reference, but basically this is the part of the trail where I become convinced elvish sorcery is trying to get me lost. No doubt the same elf-witch is the one who clouded my mind and flummoxed my GPS two days earlier, sending me up the wrong mountain.

Having made that mistake, I was especially on guard for wrong turns and imprecise instructions. So it didn’t sit easily with me when it looked like I was supposed to ride off the trail and into the river. But I double-checked my guidebook, studied the (possibly bewitched) land, and decided leaving the track for the river was in fact correct.

And it was! Riding down the river, ducking under fallen trees, I’m smiling bigger than I’ve smiled this whole ride. This is officially the coolest bike trail ever.

How badass is that? This is where Galadriel and Yoda go mountain biking together. It can’t possibly get better than this.

But the Waitua Track isn’t done. Not by a long shot. Next you get to the winding track hugging the serpentine curves of the mountain. On your right you’ve got a sheer wall, on your left a precipitous drop into the cloud forest.

As you can see, the trail is about double Booster’s width. She’s got some junk in the trunk, so double her big ol’ badonkadonk is plenty of room. It’s not a tightrope; you’re not going to fall. But don’t fall.

By this point I’ve made too much progress and the elf sorceress is displeased. The rain turns to sleet. Honestly, sleet! On a 60° day. The trail gets mushy. Those outside curves get scarier. I keep riding, and then she gives up all her elvish subtlety.

A sign and a fence: you shall go no further. Someone has taken down the fence, though, so Booster and I venture on to see what the fuss is about. 2D photography can’t really convey steepness at all, but I’ll give it a shot:

The trail has completely washed away. Those red lines trace where it’s supposed to be, and the red shaded area is now just empty space. Even a tightrope walker couldn’t inch along the inside edge, because there isn’t an edge. It’s just a sheer drop.

(Just parenthetically, if you think my photoshopping looks janky, I agree. But I’ll have you know, friends and family have commented on how dramatically my technological skills have improved. These shaky red lines aren’t just the best I can do, they far exceed all expectations anyone ever had of me. Worst Bikepacker, meet Worst Compooterer.)

The proper elvish way around this washout is to ride into this cave…

…then pedal exactly 13 times, which sends you 13 miles through impenetrable darkness. Then you reveal the magic password you have tattooed on your body in elvish, and this opens an exit for you through a magic tree:

But I can’t do that. I am untattooed and these photos are faked. Instead, I got to follow the brand new route laid down by the good people of the New Zealand Department of Conservation. The rangers sent some poor schmuck up here to find a way over the mountain and put up orange triangles along the way. I’ll tell you, these were a lot easier to spot than they were to get to.

So for the second time I had to strip Booster of all the gear I could, push her a ways up, then go back for her bags. Waiuta Track, you’re now officially steeper than anything I’ve ridden in the last three months. Which, come to think of it, is also steeper than anything in the preceding 49 years. Well done, you.

So here’s the last reason the ride to Ikamatua is my favorite leg of the TA. It’s entirely possible that no human being has ever camped where I camped Wednesday night. The schmuck who put up the orange triangles wouldn’t have needed to. He’d have just hiked back down to his DOC-issue pickup truck and driven home. It’s possible some intrepid Māori kid camped up here once, though it’s hard imagine why anyone would. It’s a pain in the ass to get to and the only thing up here is moss. The only reason I can think of for anyone to camp here is if the trail you were supposed to follow washed out, the brand new alternative route pushed you over the mountain, and you were too tired to ride down to a campsite that has, you know, flat ground and running water. Toilets. Maybe even a shower.

They have those at Big River Hut, which is why normal people camp there. But no one who camped there would make camp again just nine kilometers later, on this random pain-in-the-ass hill where camping is quasi-legal at best. No, a reasonable person just pushes on down to the trail and rides out.

But not the Worst Bikepacker in New Zealand. It took him three days to reach Big River Hut, and he thought I’ll be damned if I’m only going to ride 25 kilometers today. So big manly man that he is, he rode all of 34 kilometers, until he found himself where in all likelihood no one has ever camped in that exact spot. As of this writing, probably only a few dozen in human history have ever set foot up there. I just think that’s cool. Plus I was bloody tired.

So this was the view from my tent that night, and I’m willing to bet I’m the first person ever who could have taken this picture.

My Favorite Bit, Pt. I: Tasmanian Flashbacks

I think I’ve found my favorite leg of the TA: the ride to Ikamatua. I can’t speak for what’s coming down the road, of course, but I’ve only got five hundred kilometers to go (only!) so if the TA is going to top Ikamatua, it’ll have to pull out all the stops.

Because I’m the Worst Bikepacker in New Zealand, this is a two-parter. Part one starts in Reefton, a quaint, funky little town that played an important role in New Zealand’s nineteenth century gold rush. It’s half Deadwood, half Yellow Springs. Great food, too. For my money the Broadway Bakery is second only to the Wakey Bakey in Wakefield.

One of the great things about little towns like this is the weird places you can stay. I chose The Nurses’ Home, a seventy-year-old dormitory built for all the nurses of Reefton’s (then newly founded) medical center. A charming building, loads of character, but the best feature for me was the really hot bath. Nothing better for the post-ride legs.

I set out from Reefton early because I knew it would be a big climbing day.  Yet another gray, rainy day on the South Island, but it makes for cooler riding with less risk of sunburn, so I’ll take it. Farm roads gave way to gravel, then 4WD trail as the ride ascended into gold mining country. You’re warned not to drink the water here or even touch the soil. That’s how nasty the environmental footprint of mining can be.

But this is mountain biking, so it’s not always up to me whether I touch the soil. Sometimes the soil reaches up to touch me. My first hard fall was a river crossing, when Booster’s front tire found a pit and slammed sideways into the rock shelf on the far side. I did a fair impression of Javy Báez stealing home, but somehow came away with only a few cuts and no serious injuries. And hey, the soil didn’t melt my skin.

But as I climbed on, the mountain reminded me more and more of the Wellington Range on Tassie—specifically, the notorious Jeffries Track where I had my fateful night that ended with police helicopters. The terrain was steep and sharp like the TT, the rock as loose and given to slipping, the drizzle as persistent, and the trail as flooded in so many places. Even the water was the same color I saw on the Jeffries Track, like Thai iced tea.

In some places the water was over a meter deep. I went into my hips; Booster went into her handlebars. She’d have gone deeper if I’d let go; I had visions of Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing sinking into the swamp. To complete that dismal picture, my GPS compooter was beeping and whistling at me like a peevish R2 unit.

But my droid’s brain is scrambled. Yet another flashback to Tassie: navigational errors. I would later learn my mistake, one I humbly suggest would not have happened if my guidebook were to swap the order of two sentences. After the giant gold fields sign, it says to ignore all the offshoots and just skip to the main track. It needs to say that after you take one very important offshoot. Otherwise you follow—or at least Booster and I followed—the main track as it goes up the wrong mountain.

What followed was the steepest climbing I’ve seen yet. Even Tasmania never forced me to strip all the bags off of Booster, push her up the hill, then double back for the baggage. Triple the walking distance with half the weight. In hindsight, maybe I should have guessed that this was too hard a climb for the TA. The Kennett brothers, bless their hearts, would never sign me up for this misery when they put the tour together. Right?

Wrong. They sent me down the Kaiwhakauka-Mangapurura Track. They sent me over the Maungatapu Saddle. I can’t imagine anyone being able to pedal up the trail I followed from Reefton, but in all outdoor endeavors it behooves one to keep an important principle in mind: none of this was designed for you. You’re the one who came out here to give it a go. Success—or even fair odds of success—was never guaranteed.

Well, no one can say I didn’t give it a go. I followed that unbikeable track all the way to the top. That’s where I ran into a T intersection that’s not in the guidebook. That was my first indicator that I had done something wrong. The problem wasn’t only the one sentence I misinterpreted, but also that my compooter affirmed the guidebook’s ambiguous instruction. As I’ve mentioned before, my pooter is wrong more often than it’s right. What makes this one better than the last one is that its mistakes are predictable. I learned this right from the first day, on Ninety Mile Beach: it kept telling me I was going the wrong way, then self-correcting. That has been its pattern ever since.

Which is fine, considering I’m asking it to do something it’s not programmed to do. Any route over 200 kilometer is beyond its ability. I keep it around because in seven weeks of riding, there have been two or three times when it did alert me to a wrong turn. The day it does that, it justifies its continued existence. It did that on the Ikamatua ride too, but then incorrectly self-corrected. That’s why I didn’t catch the error.

Cut to the next Tassie flashback: the personal locator beacon. I didn’t hit the SOS button this time. I just remembered the beacon knows my exact latitude and longitude. Like, to five decimal points. And because navigation was such a struggle on the TT, I downloaded two nifty apps: incredibly fine-grained topographical maps, one of the North Island, one of the South. They’re accurate to five decimal points. So between the PLB and the map, I could work out exactly where I was and how to get back down to where I needed to be.

Not bad for a technophobe with no direction sense, eh? I was pretty proud of myself. But pride goeth before the fall. A precise map is an invaluable tool, but even the best maps only approximate the world. Roads change. Backwoods 4WD trails change faster. I followed my most promising path as far as it would go, and when it tapered to a dead end, my only recourse was to go all the way back down where I came from.

Which brings me to my final Tasmanian flashback: water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. I had planned to refill at Big River Hut, which my guidebook says is the lone source of uncontaminated water on that mountain. After my detour, I got back to the (correct) path to Big River Hut with one empty bottle and 200 mL left in the other. If the (correct) trail was anything like the first one, that just ain’t enough water.

From here it’s a fast twelve-kilometer downhill cruise back to Reefton. More like six to the nearest farmhouse, where I’m sure I can refill. That would have me start my ride to Ikamatua at about 4:00 PM, after 30 kilometers of the steepest riding and hike-a-biking I’ve done yet. Or I can retreat to that nice hot bathtub.

I chose neither, but this post is already overlong, so I’ll tell you about what happened next in the next post. There’s a world record runner involved, and Dr. Kate, plus an elf-witch of terrible power.

Not A Freudian Slip

An actual conversation I had:

Kiwi dude: “After dinner, if you want to come out you can sit on my dick.“

Me: “Uh… what?“

“If you feel like coming out, I have a nice big dick. My wife hates me going on and on about it, but I’m pretty proud of it.”

“Your…”

“My dick. Come on, I’ll show you.” [motions toward the dining room, where his wife isn’t]

“Oh, no, that’s OK. I’m not really into—“

“What, dicks? I thought you Americans liked ‘em.”

“I… I don’t think it works that way.”

“Sure. You lot are famous for all your big houses with the big lawns. I just assumed you’d all have big dicks.“

“Oh, your deck.”

“Yis.”

“Sure. I’d be happy to come out with you and sit on your big deck.”

#TBT: People Who Were Nice To Me, North Island Edition

Apologies in advance for not having photos of most of these wonderful people. Somehow it feels rude to ask.

Jermo and Eline: A couple of Dutch climbers I met on the road to Arohena Landing. There was supposed to be a campsite right on Lake Arohena—indeed there is; see picture above—but the road to it terminated in a locked gate with a giant herd of cattle on the other side. You may remember this entire saga started with a detour circumventing the Tasmanian Trail’s official trailhead because an angry bull lives up there. Getting gored was a bad idea then and a bad idea now.

Plus, that time there was just the one bull, as compared to a mob of them here. I didn’t see what else to do other than ride back up the hill and find somewhere else to camp. Then I crossed paths with Jermo and Eline, whose GPS showed the Arohena Landing campsite was exactly where I thought it was. Unlike Booster and me, these two were bull-proof in their rental car. So they provided me with Secret Service protection and we all had a nice time eating dinner and enjoying a clear night of absolutely stunning stars.

I still had to ride past all the bulls the next morning, by the way. In my nervousness I forgot the words to the Litany Against Fear, but pleasedon’tgoremepleasedon’tgoremepleasedon’tgoreme worked well enough in its stead.

Maggie the Dog: Played fetch with me at my Airbnb in Matamata. She is a very good girl.

The University of Wellington Philosophy Department: They hosted me for a talk, fed me all too well, and served as the perfect anchor point for a highly productive week of research and writing. Special thanks to Sondra Bacharach, who coordinated the event, taught me the correct pronunciation of kumara, and also co-edited the fun, provocative, insightful LEGO and Philosophy, in which Yours Truly has a chapter on the Dao of LEGO.

Kiwi Steve: I met him on the Timber Trail at the same time we both met an Australian dude named Steve. I have to keep us straight somehow. Anyway, Kiwi Steve has a $10,000 e-bike and when he heard I’ve never ridden an e-bike before, he passed his over to me without question. Hot damn! It’s like being fired out of a slingshot. In Boost mode you can climb anything.

Heather and Case: A charming, down to earth couple I almost literally ran into on the Timber Trail. They were coming down the same hill I was coming up. Fortunately for all three of us, they were moving cautiously because the guy ahead of me had swerved right into their path. Case asked, “Are you the American?”

“That’s me.”

“Good on you staying to the left, then. The last idiot veered right.”

How he knew “the American” was riding this trail I didn’t know. Maybe he watches Tasmanian news? Turns out the dude ahead of me was none other than Kiwi Steve, and he warned Heather and Case that the American behind him might also veer the wrong way.

Case and his wife Heather are doing retirement the way it’s meant to be: on the road. They’ve been cycle touring together for close to fifty years, and now they’re slowing their pace just a bit. They put a bike rack on their kickass blue and white campervan, the only one of its kind because Case built it himself out of a Japanese bus. They insisted I stop by his creeation at the next campsite because they’d have some trail notes and a cup of tea for me.

In addition to tea, trail notes, and excellent conversation, I also got the healthiest camp dinner I’ve had yet, thanks to Heather raiding their camper for fruits, veggies, and protein. I left a few kilos heavier, I’m sure. She invited me for breakfast the next morning too, but we only had tea. Otherwise I’d never have been able to climb the next mountain.

Vicky the Chef: She runs the kitchen at Blue Duck Station, which in my head can only be a Lonesome Dove reference but in NZ apparently it’s a real bird. Blue Duck is the last stop before the feared Kaiwhakauka-Mangapurua Track, and it’s best to be well fortified before taking that on. When I got there, the station restaurant was closed for a private event, but I didn’t pick up on that. I saw one occupied table, figured the place was open, so I just wandered in and sat. The manager said it was up to her chef whether I would get food or not. Vicky not only served me but gave me the Wi-Fi password, told me the best place to camp, and told me what time to show up tomorrow morning if I wanted a bit of (still private function) breakfast before riding out.

It turns out Vicky is a kindred spirit—a runner more than a biker, but she rides too. She gets type-2 fun. Ready to retire but she’s still working because Whanganui National Park is a pretty damn cool commute. Her son challenged her to a marathon and she trounced him, not by finishing before him but by being able to walk for the rest of the weekend. Gotta love it when one of us old-timers puts a young’un in his place.

Gordon the Renegade: He’s the guy who gave me the intel on taking Highway 6 straight to Nelson instead of the obnoxious three-day detour in traffic. Best advice I’ve gotten on this whole ride, and that’s saying something.

Kate the Doc: this is the same Dr. Kate who keeps re-passing me at twice my speed. We first met at the bottom of the Kaiwhakauka Track. I had stopped to inflate my tires back up to gravel pressure and she stopped to see if I was okay. Then she rode with me for a few kilometers, which is an incredibly generous thing to do at the end of a riding day, breaking your natural pace. We were each pleased to hear the other had similar stories about how kind everyone is to bikepackers. The random gifts of food aren’t just for me; one Christmas she was biking in Iceland and someone gave her an entire stollen.

Nellie the Dog: Good girl! One reason the TA is so much easier than the TT is I rarely have to carry more than a liter of water. There’s almost always a farmhouse where someone is happy to top off a bottle. But on one particularly hot afternoon I struck out. Three houses in a row, nobody home. In a country that’s been so generous to me, the last thing I want to do is start climbing over fences to steal water.

At the fourth house I’m greeted by a dog but no person. Nellie barked and barked, ran halfway to the house, barked again, ran three-quarters of the way, barked again, in what was very clearly a Lassie moment. “What’s that, Nellie? Some random tourist is out here like a dumbass riding without water? Where is he, Nellie? You show me! Good girl!” I never did get the name of the woman who came out to give me water, but let’s face it, she and I are only secondary characters in this scene.

Tim the Economist: Met him on warmshowers, a gross name for a cool thing (a couch-surfing network for bikers). We met when I was at the University of Wellington; then, when I had a mechanical failure on the Rimutaka Rail Trail, I texted Tim and he put me up for a couple of days. I love economists. They think like philosophers but they ask very different questions. My reason for being on this earth is good conversation, and Tim provides that in spades. Plus he’s a damn good cook.

Petra and I Am So Sorry Dude But I Forget Your Name: Also good cooks. She’s Petra. I have his name in my journal, but journals are heavy and I mailed that volume home already. It’s a Czech name and I’m pretty sure it starts with V. Sorry, man.

Anyway, Petra and her beau pulled up beside me in their campervan to offer me cookies. Then we crossed paths again in a parking lot near Tane Mahuta and they invited me to join them for lunch. After lunch they actually tracked me down to apologize and because they didn’t give me Czech candies for dessert.

The Gilchrists: Lovely, lovely, lovely people. I met them at Booklovers B&B in Wellington, three generations (mum and dad, their son, his daughter) where at first sight they invited me to play cards. We shared a couple of meals together over the next few days, and some deep philosophical conversations too. Somehow I have the strongest feeling we will cross paths again.

Honorable Mention: The Douchebag Bus Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless: One of those guys who exalts in the petty abuse of power. You know the type. He had no intention of letting Booster on his bus from Auckland to Bay of Islands. (That’s the first half of the way to Cape Reinga, a very important leg of this journey!) He gets to make that decision because the rules say luggage is a matter of the driver’s discretion. I give him an honorable mention not because he was nice to me but because after I reasoned, begged, and pleaded with him, his boss, and anyone in the office who would listen, he relented. Doesn’t count as being nice exactly, but hey, it’s something.

Speed Matters Not

I’ve been at this for six weeks straight and have yet to overtake a single rider. Those who pass me usually blow by as if I’m standing still. But this weird thing keeps happening. I get re-passed by the same riders, which means somehow I’m getting ahead of people who are faster than me. Some of them waaaaay faster.

Kate is a British emergency room doc who’s here for the opposite reason I am. I needed something to push me harder than life has pushed me lately. (Yes, I know that’s an incredibly privileged thing to say.) Dr. Kate has too much work stress and needs to ride it all out. I cannot believe how strong she is. I know I suck at this, but even so, she’s a dynamo. She leaves me in the dust in seconds. Yet the other day she saw Booster outside a restaurant and came in to say hi. Somehow I got ahead of her.

Eva and Henning are the only riders I’ve met who pack heavier than I do. With good reason: they’re going around the world. 18 months so far, 18,000 kilometers, and they’re only halfway through. Even on heavier bikes they’re faster than me, yet lately we pass each other daily, which I’m thoroughly enjoying. I get to knock the rust off my German and also spend time with people who know how to live life so well that death will tremble to take them.

Except they should be miles ahead, right? They’re faster. What gives?

With Dr. Kate I had a one-time advantage: I rode straight over the Maungatapu Saddle while she took the long detour. Yet the other day she passed me a third time. How?

With ze Germans my one advantage should be weight, but it’s no help at all. They’re faster than me with all the extra baggage. So what’s going on?

Well, sometimes Dr. Kate hops off the trail to visit friends and see cool stuff. She can do this for days. Then she jumps back on and overtakes my slow ass. Ze Germans are a different case. The second time I met them, they were stopped at a café where I’d also planned to grab a bite. We got to talking and then we decided to ride together. As the first mile melted away I got to watch them blast ahead of me. Half an hour later they were barely in sight.

So I did the math. (Not my favorite subject but I have a lot of time on my hands.) Turns out they don’t have to be much faster than me to seem uncatchable. Think about it. If you’re one mile per hour faster than I am, then in half an hour I’m looking at your taillight half a mile ahead. Barely in sight. You gain 88 feet on me each minute, or about 18 inches every second. Right from the start I see you surge ahead. In ten minutes you will be 880 feet ahead of me, which means one curve in the road and I’ll never see you again. I feel left in the dust.

But if the next café is ten miles down the road, you can order me a sandwich and I’ll get to your table before it does. At bikepacking speeds, a difference of one mile per hour amounts to five or six minutes. If we were racing, I’d lose every time. It won’t even be close. But this isn’t a race. What Eva and Henning “gain” on the road they “lose” in the grocery store. (I never discuss what I’m in the mood for.)

They’re faster than me, but the fact that I can still see them half an hour later means they’re not much faster. I keep passing and re-passing them because I’m not slower, I’m just a slower rider. Weird, but there’s a difference.

There’s one lesson from this to pass on to anyone who likes trekking or biking with friends who travel at different speeds. If you all start out together and the fast ones take the occasional break for the slower ones to catch up, it creates a vicious cycle. The fastest will always be the most rested, which perpetuates their speed advantage indefinitely. Instead, do it the other way around. When the tortoises feel rested, they get to lead the charge, and all the hares just hang out for ten minutes. Much better for the tortoises’ morale, and it costs the hares nothing in travel time. Everyone’s ending up at the same place anyway.

Acceptance

When you’re on a bike tour, conversations with strangers are a metaphysical certainty, and they always cover familiar territory. First comes “where you headed?” Then, “aw, some big hills that way” or “hope it doesn’t rain on ya.” Usually I’m happy to stop and chat longer, but If I’m in a hurry I have a pat response: if I didn’t like hills and rain, I picked the wrong hobby.

Rain makes life harder, sure. Hills usually make life harder, but you can’t say they make it harder in New Zealand because the alternatives don’t exist here. Today’s ride from Harihari to Franz Josef is a case in point. My host last night described it this way: “After Mount Hercules it’s flat all the way to Franz.”

I doubt there’s a flat half-mile anywhere in there. Apparently “flat” is kiwi for “not the steepest part.” But hills are just a thing you have to accept if you want to do this. Same goes for rain, snow, mud, flooding, scary rides, boring rides (which do exist elsewhere, though not on the TA), reckless drivers, mechanical failures, muscle strains, bug bites, and shops that sell everything kind of M&M except peanut.

The one thing it’s really hard to accept is wind. After the third day riding west into a westerly, I do start taking personally.

There are some things I’ve had to learn to accept about myself too, things I would have found surprising before the ride. On day one I discovered the limit of my environmentalism. In the past, whenever I’ve been out hiking, when I see a discarded wrapper or something I pick it up and put it in my pocket. My favorite backpack has a hip pocket just for this. But on Ninety Mile Beach, my first thought about seeing plastic trash was “nope.”

I’m running too heavy already. I just got started. I can’t stop every hundred meters to pick up every single piece. I have nowhere to put them all. I have nowhere to put thatone. All perfectly legitimate excuses, all trampling each other in their haste to get out of my subconscious and into the mainstream of conscious thought. Their ultimate expression was a heartfelt FUCK THAT so I could keep riding. I’ve never felt so actively anti-environmental.

Worse was the first time my own plastic wrapper blew away. I never let that happen. Unless I’m tired and biking into a headwind on a beach littered with plastic. Maybe it matters that in that wind I’d never have recaptured it. It definitely matters that I gave only a moment’s thought to turning around.

This latent sentiment popped up again a month later on the South Island. Day three of my westward slog into those ceaseless westerly winds, something had to go. I needed to get more aerodynamic. I pulled my old man chair and my ukulele off the side bags and into my draft. But the ukulele is a wriggly piece of equipment. Anything other than vertical with a horizontal strap around its waist and it does a contortionist act. So I did what I could never have predicted: I gave it away. A cleaner in my hotel told me her grandson wants to learn the ukulele too. I said “that’s a great idea” and left, feeling very much like I had abandoned a puppy.

I fully intend to buy the same model when I get back home— fully intend, that is, to put another unnecessary piece of plastic into the ground someday. I like that one because unlike my wooden one I can play it in the pool. Next summer there will come a day when I’ve been sitting in the pool too long and I feel bored. That’s the day I’m going to buy the exact same ukulele I just abandoned. It’s a waste of fifty bucks, but after three days of the wind blowing right down my throat, it was worth fifty bucks for me to get even a little bit trimmer.

The scheming mind comes back and says “yes, but you could have been driving this whole thing instead of biking it. That’s green enough.” The environmentalist mind retorts, “the flight down here had the same carbon footprint as the rest of your year combined. Green would have been bikepacking at home.” These two can argue ad nauseam, like the two wolves in that proverb, but the fact is I’m not as green as I hoped. I can accept that or I can feed the other wolf.

Perhaps the hardest thing to accept about myself, the one I dread most, is that I really like being out on the bike every day. That stands in sharp contrast to my deep-seated ice cold hatred of cardio. Biking to get somewhere is great. Biking just to bike? Ehhhhhh.

It doesn’t make sense. I spend as much time as possible here trying to live in the present. Forget the speedometer, forget the odometer. I’m so committed to this that I’ve given up planning where I’m going to sleep. I sort that out at the end of the day, sometimes only a minute or two before unpacking the tent. If I can do that here, why not on a loop near my house?

Because cardio sucks, that’s why. But I might have to accept that I like it. If I do, it will throw my life into chaos. At least I assume it will. Surely that’s the reason I’ve so assiduously avoided exercise until now. Surely there are good reasons beyond sleeping in or playing boardgames. There have to be.

This Is What You Get When You Go Soft

After eight or nine days of rainy weather on the South Island, I was sick and tired of being cold and wet, so this one night I decided not to camp. I’d wimp out and get a hotel room. But since I’m on an adventure, not a vacation, I don’t have a reservation anywhere. On any given morning, I have no idea where I’m going to sleep that night. Which, by the way, is a wonderfully freeing way to live. This vagabond existence is so simple: ride, cook, write, sleep. Same order every day. It’s a hard life but a simple life.

But some days you don’t want life to be any harder, and on this particular day I decided being dry and warm would be a nice change of pace. So I stopped in a tiny town and looked for a room. I won’t say which town, because there are only so many places to stay there, and I think running a small business is hard enough without some tourist douchebag giving you bad press.

Not one room is available in the whole town, but bicycle karma was with me: a hotel owner said she’d open a disused room for me. They call it the backpackers room and they used to use it for overflow. It’s in the back of a defunct café. A small room with a toilet but no shower, with one of these weird New Zealand bunkbeds with a queen mattress on the bottom and twin on top. Most importantly for my purposes, it had a ceiling, so for once I wouldn’t be rained on all night. I said perfect. The owner offered me a discount because she didn’t have time to get the room cleaned up. I had rolled into town too late and she was already getting dinner together for her kids. I said no problem, do your thing. So long as there’s no risk of bedbugs, I’ll just lay out my sleeping bag on the mattress.

Oh no, she says, we don’t rent to the kind of people who bring bed bugs. Oh yes you do, I thought. I’m renting an uncleaned room for the US equivalent of $15. Because she’s a nice person, she hooks me up with a fresh, clean pillowcase. Because this place is worth exactly $15, the fresh, clean pillowcase has blood stains on it.

But it ain’t cold and ain’t wet. Winner winner vegetarian dinner. And, as this is the back room of what used to be a café, I can even cook on a proper stove. I whip up my pot of mac & cheese and then I start eyeing the oven.

I have two pairs of socks, the wet pair and the dry pair. The wet pair hasn’t been dry in a week because my shoes haven’t been dry in a week. Too much rain, too many river crossings, never a sunny evening to lay everything out. So now the wrong thought comes bubbling up from my subconscious: what temperature would you bake shoes at to dry them?

This raises a host of other pressing questions. Is there a fire extinguisher handy? Is it ethical to use somebody’s oven to bake your shoes? Will the oven still be food-safe if someone were to use it to roast shoes and socks? Does it matter that nobody cooks food in there anymore?*

The oven‘s lowest setting is 100°. That’s Celsius, of course, so 212° Fahrenheit. Is 212° the melting point of a Hoka One One sneaker? No. My shoes are made of sterner stuff. But it is hot enough to cause all the water in the shoe to boil, which swells up the cushiony bit like a marshmallow. And it is above the melting point of the glue that holds those rubber grippy things on the bottom of the cushiony bit.

See, this is what happens. This is what you deserve when you get soft and you don’t want to camp in the rain anymore. This is your just desserts if you manage to make it to the age of 49 with so little knowledge of footwear and bakery. The glue of your shoes becomes gooey, and when the cushiony part rises like a beautiful soufflé, the rubber grippy bits peel off.

There is a silver lining: my socks dried nice and crisp without catching fire. And there were no bed bugs, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. As for my footwear, it was dry for all of ten or twelve hours before the rain came down the next day.

*Answer Key:

Yes

Depends on the answer to the next question

Yes if you crank the heat up afterward

No

I’m In The Fives!

I loaded a new map on my GPS compooter: “5.1 Greymouth to Queenstown.” Six weeks ago in Cape Reinga I started on map 1.1, “Cape Reinga to Rangiora Ferry Terminal,” and a couple weeks from now I hope to finish map 6.2, “Walter Peak to Bluff.”

There’s no rhyme or reason (or at least none I can see) as to why the Ones go from 1.1 to 1.7 while the Twos go up to 2.3 and the Threes go up to 3.5. The maps are not all the same file size, not all the same mileage, not all the same elevation gain, nothing like that. So I guess it would make more sense to say I’m in the Twenty-Ones (somewhere between 2,100-2,199 kilometers from Reinga) or the Fifteens (1,500-1,599 miles from Reinga).

Better yet, I could say I’m in the Dead Marshes. That’s where Frodo and Sam are when they’re in the Fifteens: following Gollum through the muck, mostly heeding his advice about not following the lights. By that measurement I can have elevensies here in the Fifteens and also stay on brand.

However you measure it, I’m pretty far. About a third of the way down the South Island, with about 800 kilometers to go. That’s 300 kilometers longer than the Tasmanian Trail, which, lest we forget, kicked my ass just three months ago. The fact that Bluff seems reachable is just mind-boggling.

So count me happily boggled. The weather on the South Island has been a real challenge, but this is still beautiful country. If you love the rainforest, you better love the rain. Overall I’m feeling good and Booster is taking all of this in stride. We lost a taillight (rain killed it) and maybe a dumbphone (ditto; it’s in the RICU* right now), but those have been the only mechanical failures. Her new brakes totally kick ass. So mind boggled, body fueled, blog posted.

*RICU: Rice ICU

#TBT: When Do Right, No Can Defend

Booster’s jiujitsu is better than mine. She’s had several opportunities to demonstrate this, and I’m happy to say I’ve countered her countless attempts she’s made to trip me with her pedals while hike-a-biking. But I also have to give credit where credit is due: she’s scored three takedowns fair and square.

It’s the sweep of her handlebars that makes her such a cunning opponent. I replaced the factory-issue straight bar with a Jones H-Bar, which is shaped like a short bow, the kind orcs use around here to stick you full of poisoned arrows. It gives me multiple hand positions and doubles my real estate when it comes to mounting stuff. I love love love my H-Bar, but Booster can be pretty tricksy with it.

Her first takedown caught me unawares. The second time I should have known better, because it was the same technique. In both cases I stopped to take a photo and didn’t dismount the bike. She leans over a little, her front wheel turns, and she catches me behind the knee with the end of her handlebar. Her falling weight collapses my knee, and from there she does a thing—twice now—a thing I never imagined a bicycle could do: she rolls me up into an X-guard takedown.

I wish I could show you a photo of exactly how a bicycle does this, because she’s hit me with this twice and hell, I want to see how she does it. But in both cases she planted my weight so far forward that even if I could have reached my camera I wouldn’t have been able to capture the shot. She keeps her handlebar so close to her frame that I can’t bend my leg to slide it out, and since she’s a good BJJ player she knows how to stay heavy. She hangs on me like dead weight, which means I can’t straighten my leg either.

The first time she nailed me with this, I had a nearby tree to push off against to get back to standing. The second time we were on a dirt road, with no mechanical advantage to avail myself of. With her guard locked in I cannot stand, cannot sit back, cannot pull forward. I’m sure I’d have found an escape eventually, but as it happened, two newfound friends drove by and found me helplessly entangled. Embarrassing, yes, but not so embarrassing that I won’t tell you about it.

Booster’s third takedown was very nearly a moment of glory for me. It was one of my crashes on the Timber Trail. We took a curve too fast, hit loose gravel, and as we were going down I remembered the legendary story of my good friend Misty. She used to race mountain bikes and once crossed the finish line in mid-crash. (Misty, let me know if if I’m getting the details wrong.) As I remember it, she pushed the handlebars straight down and just walked off over the front of the crashing bike.

So I thought I would attempt a Magnificent Misty Mountain Maneuver. Booster is crashing. Hard. I shift forward and start my pass over the handlebars. I’d have made it too, if they were the original straight bar. But no, I had to upgrade to the one handlebar Booster could use to hook the top of my foot.

So down I went. Point, Booster. I bet I could take her if we were wearing gis, though. I was never worth a damn as a no-gi fighter.

ETA: I landed the Magnificent Misty Mountain Maneuver! Today Booster slid out from under me on the muddy Waiuta Track (of which more later; it’s now my favorite part of the TA, and not just because of my MMMM). Bike goes down, I control both ends of the handlebar this time, and I walk right out of the crash. Score one for Steve!

The Road Less Traveled

This is already almost two weeks overdue, but better late than never. In the actual order of my travels, it comes a couple of days before Thanksgiving. Right in the middle of this particular story is the motorcyclist who said, “I admire your lack of judgment.”

I like to think my lack of judgment started with good judgment: I don’t really do the Facebook. Ten years ago my publisher told me I need a social media presence, so I made an account. I imagine I must have posted 100 times by now. To me Facebook is like synchronized swimming: I’m happy for people who get something out of it, and for short periods I can pretend to be interested. That’s the best I can do.

Every once in a while this has negative consequences for me. In this case, I’m not on the Facebook TA page, so I didn’t get the memo: Highway 6 is closed. That’s the main artery connecting Picton (deep in Marlborough Sound, where the ferry from Wellington lands) to Nelson (the next major city on the TA). Damaged from torrential rains and flooding earlier in the year, it’s closed to all but local traffic at first, then to all traffic. As the ferry was pulling in to Picton, the other TAers on board asked me, “How are you going to get to Nelson?”

“I’m gonna bike there.”

“The roads are all closed.”

“Oh,” said the Worst Bikepacker in New Zealand.

They share their plans with me, clearly hoping I’ll pick one. The Sounds To Sounds Track sounds soundest. It connects Marlborough Sound in the northeast with Milford Sound in the southwest. A beautiful ride, if only I knew how to find the route. But I don’t own that guidebook, and despite the efforts of kindly strangers, we cannot get it loaded onto my phone. So that’s a resounding no to knowing Sounds To Sounds.

If we can’t load that route, obviously we won’t be able to load anyone else’s, because why would we be able to do that? I only have one biking-specific nav compooter, three biking-specific navigation apps, and the combined expertise of two other riders who report no trouble with their route-finding. Clearly insufficient resources to get this done.

I do have one resource in reserve, though, one these other riders don’t have: my man Gordon. I met Gordon a few weeks earlier in Taumarunui, in a motel close enough to the tracks that trains rattle the walls Elwood Blues-style. Until a nasty injury knocked Gordon off the track and into the hospital, he had been riding the Renegade Muster, an 840-kilometer deathball that makes the TA look like a kiddie rollercoaster. Seriously. Every Renegade I met thinks the TA is cute. But Gordon rode the first-ever TA in 2016, he has a near-photographic memory when it comes to biking, and he lives one kilometer off the TA in Nelson. He knows this ride. We stop to chat and he gives me the most important piece of intel I’ll need in Picton: ignore all the road closures.

If you obey the closures, he tells me, you’ll add a three-day detour on the one highway that is open, which is now the catch basin for all the traffic in the North End. Three days of heavy traffic, or one roll of the dice. I’ve never met Gordon before, but he seems pretty badass. Then again, I’m easily impressed. Worst Bikepacker and all that.

So I roll the dice. (Choose luck, remember?) I follow the Queen Charlotte Scenic Trail along the coast as far as it will take me. Then it’s onto Highway 6. At the first road closure, I keep riding. At the second, a construction worker stops me. “You’re not riding to Nelson, are you,” she asks. Her tone is exactly the same a kindergarten teacher uses when asking, “We don’t play with matches, do we.” I say I’m riding to Pelorus Bridge, which is absolutely true. It just so happens to be the next town before Nelson, but let no one say Steve Bein, ethics professor, is a liar. (You can also omit calling me a liar by omission.)

It turns out these road closures are no joke. On the mauka (inland) side of the road they’re rockfalls and landslides big enough to fill the lane. On the makai (seaward) side they’re, what, roadslides? In some places the entire lane has fallen off the cliff. They reduce car traffic to a long, single-lane, 20 mph speed zone, but guess what? That makes them biking heaven. No one to pass me for miles at a time. No one to pass me at high speed ever.

The Pelorus River is gorgeous, by the way. Crystal clear water, no sign of civilization except the bridge. If you jump in for a swim, you turn into 8mm black-and-white film footage. No reason for her to believe I was lying to her, which I totally was not.

From Pelorus Bridge I left Highway 6—see? not lying!—for the Maungatapu Saddle trail. According to Gordon’s intel, this too is not closed, all DOT reports to the contrary. And he’s right! Laughing at the odds worked. The DOT’s website is wrong, therefore Facebook is wrong. But if you leave the interwebs and actually ride to the trail, you see the signs barring everyone except trampers, motorcycles, and mountain bikes.

It’s open, but it ain’t easy. My guidebook says the Maungatapu Saddle is 12.5 kilometers ahead and the last two are unrideable. You’ll have to get off and push. Which is true, but Yours Truly pushed the seven or eight kilometers before that too. Booster always seems to enjoy these stretches, like a dog sticking her face out the car window, but I was sweating up a storm.

The last two kilometers really were the equal of anything I saw on Tassie. The TT was harder only because I’d face ten Ks of that calamitous climbing, sometimes more. The Kaiwhakauka was harder because of the terrain, but even that didn’t have the rain ruts I saw on Maungatapu. This one isn’t the deepest one I saw, just the deepest I was willing to drag Booster back out of. The biggest ruts were eight feet deep and five feet wide.

Toward the summit I met two guys on muddy motorcycles. We got to talking, as cyclists do. One of them is riding a Suzuki V-Strom, which is what I ride back home (though I think I would’ve had a hell of a time getting up this mountain even on that). We compare notes: what we’ve got in our packs (mostly the same stuff), how far we’ve ridden (38 kilometers for me, 380 for them), that kind of thing. I’m the first bicyclist they’ve seen in these hills, and the fellow Stromtrooper says, “I admire your lack of judgment.”

So there you have it. Hardest climbing award on the South Island goes to my first climb. Best conversation on the North Island goes retroactively to Gordon Sloane, Renegade, genuine badass, and really nice guy. On the far side of the Maungatapu Saddle, he rode up to meet me and escorted me home, where his wife Sharon (also a hardcore biker) made us a delightful vegetarian dinner and they put me up for the night.

Oh, and I did get on Facebook after all. Gordon took me through Nelson on a little tour of the town. I was exhausted but it’s a cool city, named for Lord Nelson, with all kinds of street names and buildings referring to naval history. (Halifax, Trafalgar, etc. No Nemo or Namor, though. I checked.) I’ve been re-reading my beloved Aubrey-Maturin novels on this ride, so a historical tour of Nelson was apropos even if I was too tired to stand.

As we rode through the central mall, a couple of guys— obviously bicyclists— waved us over. They asked if Gordon was riding the TA. Hmpf! My bike had all the bags on it. But he’s the one who looks like a badass. So Gordon says, “No, but this guy is, and they ask me how I got to Nelson.

“I just rode here.”

“On Highway 6?”

“And the Maungatapu, yeah.”

“No troubles?”

“No,” said the Lucky Bastard/Worst Bikepacker.

And so I ended up on Facebook after all. One of the first to cross, true to the true route, opening the floodgates to all those FBing TAers behind me. Thank you, Gordon! And thanks to Facebook for giving me too little interest to buy what it was selling.

Update From The Oddsmaker

“We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us.”

—Charles Bukowski

I ran across this quote at the Lazy Cow, a funky little backpackers in Murchison where I stayed on Friday to do some laundry, writing, and route planning. It was an easy riding day, only 33 km, but with plenty of fun little moments. Four river crossings, and six more on Saturday.

Nothing major, certainly nothing that warrants taking all the baggage off and walking it across. (That did happen in Tasmania.) On these narrow winding mountain trails, the fords are fast and narrow too. You get a good head of steam on the downhill leading into them, then lose all that momentum to the water and you have to slog up the hill on the other side. If you want to keep your shoes from getting soaked, you can take your chances and hold your feet way up high off the pedals like you’re on one of those saucer sleds.

Ten childish careening river crossings in two days is living life so well that death will tremble to take us. So is staying at a backpackers where the rooms don’t have numbers, they have named cows. (I stayed in Clover.) So is eating an entire pizza in one sitting at the Cow Shed, the warm and cozy restaurant next to the Lazy Cow.

Now, having run across that Bukowski quote, I wonder if the whole point of this odyssey is to laugh at the odds. That said, I’ve got to give you new odds on whether I finish. A month or so ago I told you to bet everything you’ve got against me. Now I think it’s 50/50, maybe even 51/49 in my favor.

At no point did I think I could make it all the way to Bluff, and in fact I deliberately put any thought of that out of my mind. But then I set foot on the South Island. At that moment it hit me: maybe I can do this. I’m more than halfway. I’m standing on the same land Bluff is on. I just have to get to the other end.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s still a big job. Booster’s getting parts replaced left and right, and of course I have yet to receive replacements or repairs myself. I’ve had maybe six or seven falls bad enough to draw blood, and not a single serious injury. That’s a lucky streak that can’t last—or maybe it can, if I laugh at it and keep living well.

Every mile of the road ahead is an unknown. That’s why you have to laugh at the odds: because otherwise you don’t go. I place my odds at 51/49 because while I finally believe I’m physically and psychologically capable of this, the proof is still in the pudding. I think the possibility of an adventure-ending injury is still out there. I’ll keep laughing, though, and keep trying to make death tremble.

Scavenger Hunt: North Island Edition

My Tour Aotearoa guidebooks give me a list of photos to collect as I ride. “Checkpoints,” they call them, though that seems a bit stern to me. Maybe for official racers it’s the right term, but I prefer scavenger hunt.

1. Cape Reinga.

2. Ninety Mile Beach. Only sixty miles long.

2 1/2. The Bluff, halfway along Ninety Mile Beach. Not on the official list but wild horses can’t be held back.

3. Tane Mahuta. That’s one big-ass tree. Easy to believe it belongs to a god.

4. Matakohe Post Office and Telegraph Station. The alternate route photo point when the Pouto Point ferry is closed.

5. Mount Eden, Auckland. Believe it or not, this is the nicest photo I got. The summit was a rainy, foggy miasma.

6. Waikato cows. In this case, kattle kindergarten.

7. Matamata iSITE. An iSITE is a tourist information center, and this one is in the neighboring town to Hobbiton. As it’s above ground, it’s not a hobbit hole. Very important to get that straight. Hobbits build more than just holes.

8. Centrepoint of the North Island. Not centerpoint.

9. Ongarue Spiral, Timber Trail.

10. The Bridge To Nowhere. This is as close as I could get to the Bridge, because of the trail closing. (Still thanking my lucky stars for that. Today I met a rider who was there on the 2020 ride when someone crashed and punctured a lung. Not the way I want to spend my sabbatical!)

11. Durie Hill Elevator Lookout, Whanganui. Another lookout spoiled by a dreary, rainy day.

12. Totara Reserve. Not a particularly scenic part of the ride. I’d have chosen Whanganui National Park myself.

12 1/2. Whanganui National Park. See?

13. Giant Kiwi, Eketahuna. As a philosopher it troubles me that Eketahuna’s slogan is “Real Kiwi Country” yet its most iconic landmark is a fake kiwi.

14. Summit Tunnel on Rimutaka Rail Trail. First commissioned by Elrond Halfelven, 3,000 years before the invention of the railroad.

15. Cook Strait from the ferry. Yet another dismal day for legendary lookouts. The weather did clear a little once I was off the ferry:

Fifteen more to come! South Island, here we go.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Philosophically speaking, I think Thanksgiving is my country‘s best holiday. Historically speaking we all know there are problems, but the idea of celebrating gratitude—and taking time to be mindful of what to be grateful for—is lovely.

I had a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. The day started as one of those it’s hard to appreciate: cold, rainy, strong westerly winds when I had to ride west. Destination: Lake Rotoroa, which is famous for being infested by sandflies. I looked them up, wondering if that’s what kiwis call sand fleas. Nope. Worse. It’s the kiwi name for blackflies. If you aren’t familiar with blackflies, they are reason enough to believe in Satan and Hell. Worse than mosquitoes. And I’m supposed to spend my Thanksgiving biking down the barrel of a strong, rainy westerly, straight to Sandfly Mecca.

But there’s no day so bad that a compooter can’t make it worse. My GPS has been behaving like a reliable ally for a while now, lulling me into a false sense of security. Thursday morning I made the mistake of trusting it. 16 kilometers later, I had ridden 15 kilometers up the wrong valley.

On any other day, this would have been annoying. Riding into a cold rainy headwind, it was a kick in the nuts. But what could I do other than ride back where I started from?

Where I started from was the little town of Tapawera, aka “Tap.” I was told not to camp in Tap because meth heads have a habit of stealing locked bikes from the campgrounds. So Wednesday night I’d booked a room in kind of a dump, with neighbors so obnoxious I had to switch to a room at the opposite end of the parking lot car park. Now, back in Tap after 32 pointless kilometers through the hills, I had to choose: push on or quit.

Quitting had a certain appeal. I’d done it a few days before, when I took the train to Wellington. My saddle had failed mightily: in just five months, less than 1,500 miles, I wore out not just the cushioning but also the steel itself. See that gel padding? It’s not supposed to have thumb-sized depressions in it. See those steel rails? They’re supposed to be straight.

So my ass has been putting up with one uncomfortable seat for who knows how long. I quit outside Wellington because I could feel my femur rolling over my sciatic nerve. I found a seat cushion in Wellie, but no new saddle until 60 miles later in Richmond. My sciatic nerve is glowing red at this point; a rest day will do it some good. Even a rest day in Tap.

So that’s option one: quit. Take the same ride tomorrow, extra vigilant this time. Option two: retry today’s ride right now. Oh hell no. Not even gonna think about it. Only the Worst Bikepacker in New Zealand can fret about tacking a mere 32 km onto a day’s ride, especially if the goal that day is a modest 66 km. But I’m slow. My all-time record is 83. I sure as hell don’t want to shoot for 98 on a day like this.

Option three: go to the campground and see about this crystal meth situation. I’ve never tried it. Maybe it’s good for sciatic pain.

Option four: go to the grocery store to buy some ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner. There, discover it is oddly full of young, smiling Dutch  women. Ask them what they’re doing here and watch them point to the giant green hop-on/hop-off intercity tour bus. Then meet Fraser, driver of said bus, which can seat 55 and Fraser has 54 passengers. Is he going anywhere near Lake Rotoroa? Kinda sorta. He can get me within 30 km. Does he have room for a bicycle too? Barely, if we pull the wheels off and carefully lay it and them atop a bunch of Dutch luggage. Or, far easier, just park it in the stairwell.

So there I am in a front row seat on a bus headed south, Booster tucked away as securely as if the stairwell was built for her, with a horde of happy Dutch women admiring her and asking me all about my ride. It warms a middle-aged heart to get such attention.

Better still, I got no attention at all from the sandflies. There was a time when I’d have said this is blasphemy, claiming indifferent insects are better than affectionate women with foreign accents, but I stand by it. Fawning women are a young man’s game. I’ll take a zipped tent with a cooked dinner inside and all the bitey bugs outside.

I don’t know how to account for my apparent truce with the sandflies. Wild Man Chizo recommended vitamin B1 against mosquitoes, and I’ve been taking that ever since. Maybe it works. Or maybe it was the head net, winter gloves, pant legs tucked into the socks, bug spray, and seething waves of hatred for mozzies and all their kin. I don’t know. I just know to be thankful.

The rest of the ride wasn’t too bad. I was slated for 66 km on the day and I rode 66. Not the right 66, but I started and ended just where I intended to. And I got out of the rain for about a mile, in NZ’s longest bikeable railway tunnel. (Fifth longest in the world!)

As for dinner, I did pretty well for a guy who subsists mostly on peanut M&Ms. Kumara isn’t exactly a Thanksgiving staple but it’s close: a sweet potato brought to NZ by the Māori 800 years ago. (Did you know they sailed all the way to South America? Wild.) Sweet potato plus some cranberries and a couple of churkey legs* sounds pretty Thanksgivingy to me.

*Cheddar carved up to look like turkey.

THANKSGIVING DINNER MENU

• Pan-seared chili cinnamon kumara

• Garlic smashed other half of kumara

• Dried cranberries

• Pumpkin soup

• Churkey legs

• Deconstructed French silk pie (i.e. candy bar with no silk, pie crust, or Frenchmen added)

Halfway, Baby!

I made it to Wellington! Southernmost port of the North Island, 1,494 km (928 miles) from the Cape Reinga lighthouse, hometown of Sir Peter Jackson, only airport in the world with giant eagles. I didn’t hitch a ride with any feathered, overgrown deus ex machina to get this far, but I did cheat a teeny bit and take the train after a mechanical failure.

But please don’t hold the cheating against me, because I rode 1,591 km (988 miles) to get here. Two detours extended my ride beyond the official TA route: I rode the long way around Kaipara Harbor (the ferry wasn’t running) and I took the please-don’t-kill-me Kaiwhakauka Track instead of the would-have-killed-me Mangapurua Track (trail closed due to washout). Those more than offset my train ride and my hot springs hitchhike of three weeks ago.

Three weeks ago! Yeesh, has it been that long? It feels like I just started, and yet it feels like I haven’t been home in forever. But yeah, looking back, I started in Reinga on October 21, did my hitchhiking stint about a week after that, and reached Wellington on November 20. That’s about half the speed of the other TAers I’ve met, but nearly twice the speed I was managing on Tasmania.

My uncle Tim asked me if New Zealand really is that much more benign than Tassie, since nothing has really tried to kill me here. I’ve been thinking ever since about how to account for the difference, because he’s right: the TT kicked my ass every day, and the TA hasn’t. Here’s my best guess as to what’s different:

• I’m a stronger rider. I didn’t train nearly hard enough for this whole adventure, but the TT was good training for the TA.

• There’s pavement. I saw almost no sealed roads on the TT until the final two days, whereas the TA has me on sealed roads almost every day. Gravel is an energy vampire. I reckon the difference in efficiency is somewhere around 25% (meaning the resources I spend to ride 20 miles on gravel get me about 25 miles on pavement).

• No hypothermia. When you take that off the table, everything gets more efficient. Taking breaks on Tassie often meant changing from wet clothes into dry clothes to mitigate heat loss. Intellectually I understand it doesn’t take that much time to change shirts, but somehow psychologically it just seems like one more hassle, which makes me want to take fewer breaks, which gets me to…

• I quit. Way earlier now than I did on Tassie, way more often. I still hear that little voice that says, come on, one more push, just to the top of that next hill, but now I’m much more willing to tell it to shut up.

• One does not simply bike into Mordor. Tasmania is a lot more like Mordor than the North Island. The land itself is harsher. The slopes are steeper, the wind bites deeper, there is evil there that does not sleep. Booster actually weighs more there, because here in NZ there’s almost always a farmhouse within a few kilometers and I’m not shy about knocking on doors to ask if I can top up a water bottle. Water is bloody heavy and here I never carry more than a liter.

• I’m no longer harboring the enemy. My old GPS compooter was an active hindrance. There were days it doubled how far I had to ride. Even the compass was off. My new compooter is almost always wrong, but I can tell what it’s trying to do. It can’t find my route, but once I find it myself, it tends to stay on it. When it says I’m headed the wrong direction, I push on a few hundred meters and it self-corrects. In short, it’s terrible at what it’s supposed to do but it doesn’t sabotage the whole mission.

• I’m better at this. Tassie was a baptism by fire. There were a lot of hard lessons there, right from day one. The GPS problems, the flat tire, little hiccups about things like food shopping or fuel rationing, details I didn’t know to pay attention to then that I’m always cognizant of now. Even packing more intelligently is a big advantage.

The fact is, the TT would kick my ass again if I rode it today, as the Kaiwhakauka Track proved a few days ago. (Was it a week already? Jeez.) But I’d recover from the ass-kickings better, and the TA just isn’t the ass-kicker the TT was. In truth is it’s more dangerous, inasmuch as I’m in traffic a lot more here than I was there. But inattentive drivers are nothing to write home about—so far! fingers crossed—so they’re not making it onto the blog.

I Saw My Girl!

Last week I stopped through “Palmy,” full name Palmerston North, which sounds less like a city and more like someone Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity would hang out with. "Excuse me, Palmerston, could you hand me my MAGA hat?" seems like a thing one could say. But Palmy is not a man in a bow tie and boat shoes. It's a little city in the lower North Island, home to an excellent bike shop (shout-out to Central Bicycle Studio) that just so happens to have a cavernous five bedroom, two bath Airbnb right around the corner. So I got me a hot shower and Goldilocksed my way through the flat, deciding which bed was just right, while Booster got some serious upgrades.

Embiggened rotors for better stopping power, new brake pads to go with them, a new feedbag to replace the torn one that's been holding on for dear life, a replacement chain, a replacement for the Voile strap that tangled itself around my rear axle and snapped, a new phone holder that (I hope) won't lose its grip on my Advanced Alien Technology whenever it rains, new grips (the old ones slip loose when it rains), and a pair of cycling gloves (the new grips aren't paddy enough). $800 all told, but the New Zealand dollar is still getting crushed by the US dollar, so this whole country is basically on a 40% off sale for me. Most importantly, I found the one bike shop that had almost everything in stock and somehow got all the rest by 9:00 the following morning. (Double shout-out to Central Bike Studio.)

The other great thing about Palmy was the wifi was good enough that I could see my sweet girl Cocoa, who I haven't seen since August. A couple of days before she and I left Dayton, she was attacked by a neighbor's dog. She had already torn a cruciate ligament in her knee, and this fight cost her the other one. (My knees are purple with scars too, from rolling around in the street fighting to get her free.) ACL surgery on a dog runs about $7000, and even if I had $14K to spare, I can't see spending it on an aging dog's knees. The recommendation from the emergency room vet was to put her down, which gutted me. So thank you, lucky stars, for the second vet, who saw a path forward for Cocoa. With a lot of care and an incremental recovery plan, she might be able to chase rabbits again—though not catch them, which suits me fine. I'm vegetarian, dammit! I did not sign up to carry all the dead animals Cocoa leaves in her murderous wake.

Anyway, the last I saw her, Cocoa could barely stand. I could carry her outside and gingerly set her down to pee, and that's all the physical activity she could handle. Ever since then, I’ve been bracing myself for the worst: coming home to find her permanently hobbling in pain. So you can imagine my relief when I saw her on FaceTime for the first time in two months, tail wagging at full speed, walking around as if nothing happened. I'm told she has a little trouble sitting down—she kind of hovers her butt a bit before getting settled—but what I saw was a happy and healthy dog.

It's so much more than I dared hope for. It was nice to see family too, of course, and to walk them around my luxurious flat, catch them up on my ride, blah blah blah. But seeing Cocoa is definitely the highlight of my week. (And this week includes a giant kiwi, so that's saying something!)

A Shortcut To Strawberries

Here's one of the little moments you can't have when you're traveling by tour bus and don't often take advantage of when traveling by car. I'm riding along today, ahead of schedule and wondering what I'll do with my day, when I see a farm with a sign advertising fresh eggs. Hard boiled eggs are my new favorite camp food, and I have a gas canister that's nearly empty. So I stop and ask them if there's anywhere I could set up to cook.

Sure enough, the young woman working the counter takes me around the barn to the arbor, where there's a well crafted, little used picnic table in the shade. She shows me the hose tap right there on the side of the barn, where I can top off my water bottle and fill my pot to boil my eggs. I buy half a dozen and also a little tub of the most beautiful strawberries you'll ever see. We’re talking the Platonic form of strawberriness.

It turns out I still have half my dinner from last night (a box mix of Moroccan couscous with a little cucumber and tomato chopped in there), so today for lunch I have couscous, a lovely farm-fresh egg, and a small mountain of perfect strawberries. Pretty damn good for a guy who usually eats peanut M&Ms for lunch, eh?

It turns out the rest of the strawberries fit perfectly in the egg container, which, if I turn it upside down, snuggles in pretty nicely under the bungee cord over Booster's rump. Obviously storage would have been much easier in a car, but when I'm traveling by car I almost never stop for moments like this. Not at highway speed, anyway. I think I need to reconsider that.

#TBT: Learning Bicyclese

I've been meaning to write about this one ever since the first week on the Tasmanian Trail, when I first started learning the language of the bicycle. As a bike commuter I thought I knew a fair bit of it, but as with any foreign language, you can't really become fluent without daily immersion.

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When people see Booster fully loaded, lots of them want to talk. Many of the questions are predictable: where are you from, where are you headed, how long will it take you, yadda yadda yadda. If the conversation goes longer, we get to the second-tier questions: do you have a repair kit, do you listen to music, what do you mean you don't listen to music, and so on.

I don't listen to music—or podcasts, or my usual go-to, standup comedy—for three reasons. Most important is mindfulness. I came down here to pare away the distractions of Normal Life in order to learn a thing or two about myself. Second is I don't know any of the birds down here and sans phone I get to listen to them sing all day. (Kookaburra laughter is bananas.) Third—which I'm sure my family would like to put first—is safety. I need to hear the cars coming.

A big perk of not hitting the play button is learning Booster's language. It's a part of the mindfulness bit, just being with the bike. The easiest to learn are her complaints. Clicking in the drivetrain is worth looking at later, crunching down there is worrisome now, squeaking shouldn’t happen because she ought to be waxed up. Squeaking from the pedals, no big deal. Sometimes it's just my shoe against the crank arm. (Bad foot placement, a rookie mistake. Worst Bikepacker coming right up.) Sometimes it’s one well-placed bird that sounds exactly like a squeaking pedal. I haven’t identified the species yet, but the resemblance is uncanny.

Then there’s her rhythmic speech. A continual ting-ting-ting is the brake rotor speaking up. Give the lever a light squeeze. If the ting-tinging goes away, there was something on the rotor. (Happens a lot on singletrack, after rain, or anywhere there are livestock—which has been surprisingly common on this ride.) Problem solved: you just knocked it loose. If it doesn't go away, give it a look-see the next time you stop. You might have bent the rotor, usually not a major problem but one worth addressing eventually. It’s not hard to fix.

A rhythmic vubbavubbavubbavubba means something’s rubbing on the tire. Stop immediately and find it, otherwise whatever it is, you’ll wear a hole in it. On Booster, the usual suspects are either the little loop on my Nalgene bottle (no biggie; I’ll just have to buy a new lid a little sooner) or my tent pole bag (yes biggie; poles won’t fall out of a tire-width hole, but stakes will).

A rhythmic whap-whap-whap means something's dangling loose and hitting the tire. Stop right now. A strap or drawstring lassoing a spoke could be real trouble.

A rhythmic whiff-whiff-whiff is a homophone, and it could mean a couple of things. Sometimes the little tool boxes I've got in the bottom of the frame bag don't sit quite right, creating a bulge. When that rubs a crank arm, it goes whiff. When groceries settle oddly, it’ll be higher up in the frame bag, making a bulge that goes whiff when it hits a pant leg. Frame bag versus pant leg is no big deal; you just wear out your pants a little faster. But frame bag versus metal crank arm wears a hole in the bag, and that’s a real pain in the ass to patch. (Especially since whatever you patch it with is next up to get worn down by the crank arm.)

Fortunately, whiff-whiff-whiff is easy to parse. Just bow your legs out and see if it goes away. Much harder to translate—the most perplexing riddle so far—was her high-pitched rhythmic squeaking coming from somewhere right in front of me. It wasn’t the brakes, wasn’t the tire, wasn’t any of her straps, clips, or buckles. It matched the rhythm of my pedaling but had no relationship to the wheel’s RPMs. That’s damned odd, because usually pedaling and speed are besties. They go together.

Turns out it was the handlebar bag squeaking against the headtube. (That’s the vertical bit right below the handlebars.) I don’t know how it’s possible for me not to have known this, but in all the years I’ve been riding, I just assumed my handlebars stayed pretty even. After all, I stay pretty even. I’m not wobbling down the road. But as any good Daoist can tell you, balance is not a fixed state. It’s dynamic, ever-changing, and so are the handlebars. They roll left and right as I pedal, just the teeniest bit, but enough to make an overstuffed handlebar bag squeak.

I never noticed this on my commuter bike because, well, it doesn’t have a handlebar bag. Neither has any bike I’ve ever owned prior to Booster. Like I said, daily immersion is the key.

Another thing I’m not sure I ever noticed is how swiftly and completely I become deaf to her language at speed. As slow as I am, usually I don’t have to worry about that, but starting around 25 miles per hour the wind gets loud enough to drown out everything Booster has to say. I also can’t hear cars even when they’re right on my ass.

Which happens a lot at high speed, because my slow ass only tops 20 mph on a good downhill. In NZ “a good downhill” is usually a long string of serpentine curves where I can hit 30 or 35 mph if I don’t chicken out. At those speeds I don’t stay on the shoulder and hope no one clips me. I take the whole lane. You want to pass me, you pass me like I’m a car.

I know I shouldn’t be astonished by repeated behavior, but to this day it still surprises me how many people cannot figure out how to get their motorcar to pass a bicycle. If that’s you, I suggest using the neighboring empty lane and your gas pedal. You might even consider your turn signal. Any driver who can’t figure that out deserves to be stuck behind me.

Still, it would be better if I could hear them back there when I’m leaning into those curves at top speed. Or if not hear them, then at least see them. I gotta get me one of those mirrors I’ve been hearing so much about.

The Uncontested Life Is Not Worth Living

I’m finally starting to see other TAers on the trail! So far all of them have slowed a little to chat before blowing right past me. As well they should, if they want to reach Bluff within the unofficial 30-day time limit that makes you “count” as having finished. To do that, they need to average 100 km a day; my average is 60.

If this were a competition, I would look at their lighter loads and figure out what I need to cut. (Most are equipped for touring, not bikepacking—i.e. hotels, not tents. Not one of them has a ukulele.) If it were a serious competition, I’d have trained for it. But doing that would miss the entire point of riding the TA.

Plan A for this trip was to buy a campervan, then sell it when I left. Had I done that, the point of coming down here would have been to see New Zealand. Then I struck upon Plan B: Booster. With her, the point of this adventure is to find my limits and blow right past them. So if I’d trained adequately for the TA, I couldn’t ride it. I would have to find something harder.

This has been plenty hard. I’ve crossed the three week mark and the 1,200 km mark.(Only 1,800 to go!) I’m happy to say it took three weeks to find three hours where I didn’t enjoy the ride. Of my 1,200 km thus far, there’s a 40 km zig-zag of steep climbs and slippery switchbacks called the Kaiwhakauka-Mangapurua Trail. (If you can say that five times fast, you deserve a gold star.) It was on the Kaiwhakauka that I found the absolute upper limit of my ability.

The Kaiwhakauka is, shockingly, the less perilous half. The Department of Conservation has closed the Mangapurua section. Too dangerous, too many washouts. They’re both grade 4 MTB tracks, and as you may remember, the grade 3 Timber Trail threw me from the saddle twice. I wrote in my journal afterward “Do not even attempt grade 4.” But the only alternative is just as death-defying: 55 km on a busy highway with no shoulder. I figured at least I could hike-a-bike the Kaiwhakauka.

Right at the beginning there’s a stretch of 11 km—six miles—that’s as hard as anything I rode in Tasmania. It took me three hours to hike-a-bike that six miles.

Usually when you hike-a-bike you and your steed are walking abreast, but most of this trail is too narrow for that. Instead I’m directly behind her, my right arm at maximum extension so I can use her rear brake to keep her from rolling back down on me. Here’s an example of why: a patch of trail so washed out it’s not even as wide as my handlebars.

When I took this photo, I had no idea this would be one of the wider portions of those first six miles. I also hadn’t foreseen a twenty-foot stretch so daunting it would take five minutes to cross. Sorry, no picture for you there. Photos don’t convey steepness at all. I’ll sum it up this way: imagine trying to put your bike on top of a picnic table but you have to do it while sitting on the ground.

A big part of the trouble was that it rained all evening the day before. My trusty guidebook specifically says the first 11 km are especially dangerous after a heavy rain. Nice for rainbows but it turns that track into a Slip N Slide.

In fact, the guidebook undersells it. When you reach this particular 11 km stretch, you get new warning labels. In 2020, the last time they ran the TA as an official race, three riders got helicoptered off the mountain with broken bones. In 2019, more helicopters, more broken bones, and one fatality. Hence “Do not even attempt grade 4.”

Fast-forward to me, Booster, and the mud-slicked, picnic-table-sized boulder smack in the middle of the trail. We can’t go side by side. The trail is too narrow for that. And I can’t push her any higher because there’s not a single decent foothold to be found.

This twenty feet was so slick and so steep that if I’d brought a longer rope, I would have rigged a pulley to hoist Booster up. But my rope is just for hanging clothes and tying tourniquets, so no work-smarter-not-harder for me. In the end I pushed her straight up the mountain, where at least we could gain some purchase on the underbrush.

The Kaiwhakauka beat me. The only way to press on was to abandon it. Maybe that was working smarter, not harder, but it was still pretty fucking hard.

And that gets me back to the earlier point: why my training rides were for perfecting Booster’s gear load-out, not conditioning my legs and lungs to average 100 km a day. The reason I came down here was not to live up to my potential. It was to increase the upper limit of that potential. Better cardio can’t do that. The mud-slicked boulder did that. That whole miserable six-mile stretch did that. Three hours, half of it spent resting, marshaling energy for the next push. When I finally got past it, I unfurled my tent’s groundsheet and slept.

Yes, I know, Worst Bikepacker here. I suck at this. If I were good at it, this would be a vacation, not an adventure. The only thing I can really say for myself is I’m getting better. A little. Back in Tasmania, on the Wellington range, I didn’t quit early enough. That’s why I needed police helicopters. This time I did quit, at least long enough to catch a nap before attempting the next 30 km of trail. And look ma, no helicopters! So yeah, Worst Bikepacker in New Zealand, but a little better than I was before.