Railroads make for epic cycle tracks, there’s no two ways about it, and most of today was spent on a little trail that used to be the Te Aroha Railway.
I actually skipped the first off road section for today, partly because I was nervous about doing 80km on gravel paths, but a slightly more honest reason was that I had spotted an awesome side road caf I wanted to stop by at for breaky. Boy was it good! Hash brown, bacon, egg and hollandaise muffin… I’ll have two thanks.
So obviously my day was off to a strong start and turning on the trail things just got better. The pesky southerly wind could do nothing to dampen the beautiful scenery as I bobbled along for almost 50km of car free cycling.
Not much else to report really other than it just being a lovely ride and given the success of today I’ve made the decision to keep going with the trail action. Tomorrow things get a wee bit harder but should be fine. By the following day I’m looking at over 1000m of ascent, a 2 days trail, and apparently a significant amount of bike pushing. There are also no outs on that route.
This off road stuff might not be mine or my bike’s sweetspot but worst case scenario it should make for some entertaining reading.
Bish on a Bike 
Wow – fabulous weather too and just our sort of cycling. Note the Freudian slip – worst case scenery! Mx
Corrected, thanks! And yes it was beautiful out