Due to general fluffing around and my computer's clock being an hour slow, I didn't hit the road until 3pm. That left me five hours of daylight to complete my ride. I knew it would be tight to complete the ride before dark, so I had a strong motivation to ride fast! The first 11km were through the outer eastern burbs of Auckland. Some of the main roads were two laned in each direction and traffic kept me on my toes. Once I'd left the horrors of Ti Rakau Drive and Lobotomy Downs behind, things calmed down and the hilly countryside started in earnest. The road to Whitford follows a ridge, so there's a good climb followed by a few kilometres of rolling road then a good descent. Its similar when ridden in the opposite direction, as I would become quite familiar with in the next two days. At the bottom of the hill at Whitford I turned right and rode 5km up another hill. I decided to take the scenic route to Clevedon on Twilight Rd. This turned out to be the best part of the day's ride. I'd spied a gravel road branching off Twilight Rd which I thought I'd use in order to ride through some forest and bypass Clevedon. As it turned out when I rode to the end of the road there was a massive quarry with all manner of bulldozers, trucks and heavy machinery in action. I talked to a workman and asked him where the forestry roads were. He indicated on the other side of the fierce looking bulldozers. At that point I decided that I'd rejoin Twilight Rd instead. It turned out to be a good decision as there was a nice climb past a vineyard and into native bush. The descent on the other side was fantastic and full of swooping banked corners. Reminiscent of some of the roads on the West Coast part of the SINZ tour. I stopped a few km later for an icecream sandwich (made in Italy, curiously) in Clevedon. By this time it was 5pm and I'd ridden 31km. The next small town was Mareitai, 17km away. I aimed to get there in one hour which motivated me to keep the pace up. I stopped only once to take a photo and when 6pm rolled in I was in Mareitai. I didn't stop in Mareitai but headed on for Whitford, completing the loop. I started feeling a bit tired at about the 55km mark. I drank a Leppin at the bottom of a sizeable hill, and was glad that I had taken some with me on the ride. I rode through Whitford and back up the hill towards town that I'd descended some four hours ago. About halfway up as I grunted particularly loudly I turned around to see a two-wheeled cyclist behind me. I talked to him for a bit then dropped him hard. He didn't pass me until well after the road flattened out at the top. That was satisfying! As I got back to the urban sprawl I took a photo looking over the city at dusk in which the Sky Tower is visible. By this time I knew it would be near dark by the time I got home. I stopped on the bridge over the Tamaki River to take photo of the moon and boats on the river. I soon arrived home and made pizza to refuel myself for the next day's frivolities.
Ride distance: 74.7km Riding Time: 4:38:07 Total Time: 5 hours Average speed: 16.1km/hr Max speed: 28.7km/hr
3/17/2008
156
The plan for the day's ride was to do a similar but bigger loop on many of the same roads I'd ridden on yesterday. To avoid riding through the surburban traffic I drove to the edge of town and parked near the road to Whitford. I rode the up and down the ridge again but went straight though Whitford, starting a large loop in the opposite direction to yesterday's. I stopped in Mareitai and had an icecream and two Reeses peanut butter cups (I love those things!). The coastline just past Mareitai is particularly beautiful with the road just metres from the pohutakawa tree-lined beach. It continues like this until Umupuia, where, outside the marae (Maori traditional meeting house), some idiot threw a full bottle of water at me from a passing car. What a jerk! What kind of a twerp sees something a little different (ie me on my unicycle) and has the idea that it is an acceptable reaction to throw missiles at it? Luckily he missed me entirely. The next section of road to Clevedon was into head winds and quite hard work. I rewarded myself in Clevedon with another icecream (hey it was a hot day!) and a can of fizzy. From Clevedon I continued south and eventually found Sky High Road with some nifty map work. This interestingly named road start off innocently enough, but soon climbs and climbs some more. It must have taken a good 20 minutes to scale the heights of Sky High Road. The descent on the other side was pretty good too, and that's where I reached my day's maximum speed of 29.1km/hr. I had intended to go through Hunua, but ended up bypassing it and found myself heading west on the road to Papakura. This road eventually turned into another road which I've driven on many times on the way to the Hunua mountain bike area and had always thought how I'd like to ride it on my unicycle. It went through the Hunua Gorge which was pretty and covered in native bush. At the end of the gorge I turned north and rode through the industrial and residential edge of southeast Auckland for a kilometer or two. After this brief brush with civilisation I found my way, with a few wrong turns, on the way to the mysterious Brookby. I think I went through Brookby, or at least my road map says I did, but saw nothing of it. There was a charming roundabout there, but nothing else as far as I could tell. Shortly after the wonders of Brookby I descended a large hill to Whitford. By this stage I was feeling quite worn out, so I had, you guessed it, an icecream and a can of fizzy to revitalise myself. The final 5km back to the car went fairly quickly, as I had now become very familiar with that stretch of road.
Ride distance: 84.1km Riding time: 5:23:27 Total time: 6 hours Average speed: 15.6km/hr Maximum speed: 29.1km/hr