I met some other cyclists on the route today and told them I was enjoying seeing the country the slow way. They laughed and told me that 130km in a day is not that slow and that I should try 50 a day. This got me thinking about what the record for Cape Reinga to Bluff would be. I figured 300km per day sounded about right and there would probably be someone who could knock a day off that so put it at 9 days.
The correct answer? 4 days and 10 hours. 4! Some people are just made of something else. It looks like the current record holder slacked off a bit and did a 2100km route but even so, that’s 464km per day.
I found today’s 142km (I miscalculated yesterday) relatively tiring, I have no idea what 464km would feel like. I don’t suppose he stopped to admire the scenery too much though, which I did a fair bit of today. But when you wake up, get on your bike and the first 15km look like this, it’s hard not to:
The first half of the ride really was stunning. Mountains giving way to huge sand dunes and a coast to die for, followed by forests with trees that were seedlings over 2000 years ago. It was quite something.
It’s hard to show the scale in the picture but this tree is pretty bloody big. It’s 51.5m tall but what’s incredible is that it’s 13.8m wide! It’s the largest tree in terms of volume in New Zealand.
Anyway at half way I decided I needed to get my head down a bit and punched it along the relatively flat road from Kaihu to Dargaville. I found it fairly easy to eat up the miles and started to think that maybe the Velominati rule about only ever discussing your ride in metres of elevating rather than distance might be pretty well grounded.
I was relieved that Dargaville to 7km short of my destination was also pancake flat although to be honest it was a little boring. I found myself challenging myself to see how quickly I could do 5km in. 13 minutes was as good as I got in those last few km.
It proved a good distraction as by this stage my ass was in pain and I was weighing up chucking a second pair of bib shorts on. Not sure how that would have faired but probably not that well.
The final 7km of my ride got extremely pretty again but meant back into hill country, and this time I was laden with a bunch of shopping I had to do before getting to my accommodation for the night because there was no restaurants nearby. My spot for the night is very pretty though and I’m going to bed with a stomach extremely full of tuna pasta. Yum!
Bish on a Bike 