Bike tour 2020. New Zealand's North Island.

[PTRSAK]

After the successful trip from Christchurch to Queenstown in the South Island of New Zealand in March 2019 I have been planning a followup tour of the North Island beginning in Wellington 21 March 2020 and heading "up" the island to Auckland where I have a 40th reunion of my 1980 apprentice intake from Air New Zealand.
I'm originally a Kiwi but moved to Brisbane Australia in mid 1995 and have lived here ever since with half a dozen trips "home" for various holidays (or vacations in Ameri-speak).

Link to last year's trip post https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,77412.0.html

Flights are booked, a rough route plan has been done, a new and (hopefully) improved bike has been built and being refined.
Lessons learned from the 2019 trip are being processed, prioritised and acted upon with fitness being the only concern with under two months to go. A case of the 'flu followed by bronchitis during the winter here saw me off the bike(s) for three months losing fitness and gaining weight (too much comfort food when I was ill).

Oh well, just one thing to do, fix the diet and get stuck in and do the milage...  okay, TWO things.

More photos and info to come, I just thought I would start a thread off with a "He's at it again!" post.

[SirVicaLot]

That looks like a great tour!  Wish I could visit New Zealand myself one of these days 

Bookmarked and looking forward to your updates! 

[Syncop8r]

Missing out the Central Plateau?

[Top-Gear-24]

Topic Bookmarked  .

Picked out a good seat and all I have to do now is wait for the stories and pics to be posted here...

[moonweasel]

Looks like you're going over the Rimutaka's, rather you than me, pedal powered at least.

[Syncop8r]

Missing out the Central Plateau?

[comis]

Wow, that looks epic! 


Best of luck!  Will be cheering right in this thread here! 

[ToolJoe]

Best of luck on your journey! 

[PTRSAK]

Well, with the Xmas and New Year shenanigans out of the way I guess I should get into a bit more detail here.

First off, a couple of answers,
No I'm not going "straight up the guts" via Highway 1 over the central plateau.
I have been that way many times, driving admittedly, and wanted to see some different parts of the country.

and Yes, I'll be over the Rimutakas on day two.

The first part of the route I'm planning follows (or parallels) highway 2 to Napier. Then Hwy 5 through Rotorua to Tirau, on to Matamata (can't miss Hobbiton) then to Paeroa and rejoining Hwy 2 and toward Auckland.
There are places along this route that I've heard of but never visited.
In fact that whole south-east part of the North Island is the only major region of NZ I've never visited.

The first stage of the journey will be north from Wellington up the Hutt Valley, initially a gentle 40km climb to Upper Hutt, only 64m above sea level, After this the gradient steepens over the next 22km to the Rimutaka summit at 560m above sea level followed by a 10km long 506m descent into Featherston. I think I'll be glad I'm running disc brakes for that.
A predominantly flat run from there to Masterton should be night two.

Not far from Upper Hutt is the filming location for Rivendell from LoTR, there is a DoC camp close to that (Dept of Conservation) which are basic but cheap or I may stay at the commercial motor camp in Upper Hutt.
Part of the planned route from here is the Rimutaka Rail Trail which follows the old Wairarapa line including the Rimutaka Incline Fell railway. One of only three and the longest serving Fell railway in the world.

Looking to be in Napier by night six.
Napier was devastated by an earthquake in 1931 and much of the city was rebuilt in the '30s Art Deco period. Today Napier is possibly the most Art Deco city in the world with over 140 buildings in the city centre.

Napier to Rotorua would "normally" be via Taupo being 220km and 2000m of climbing so a comfortable three days, but there is a "silly" option of heading a day north from Napier and then inland via Hwy 38 over the Urewera range. This would make it 360km and 3700m climbing. About 90km of this route would be gravel roads. This could add three days.
I think this will be a call I make "on the day" depending on several factors. How I'm feeling, weather, schedule, etc. It is spectacular scenery through that part of the country but fairly remote.
One advantage it does have is actually more a disadvantage of the Napier-Taupo road which is THE road through that part of the country and as such carries a lot of traffic including heavy trucks. Unpleasant and dangerous to have them wizzing past your elbow at highway speeds for two days straight. There will be a LOT less traffic on Hwy 38.

Rotorua to Auckland by the route I'm thinking of taking is about 270km and while it has 1000m of climbing it also has 1300m descent so another four days.

I have to be in Auckland for the reunion on the 14th March but would prefer to be there by the 11th to scope out the old home town and catch up with two or three old friends. Even getting there by the 11th should give me a couple of "spare" days.
If the worst comes to the worst I can always grab a rental car and throw the bike in the back.

Had the rear set of panniers arrive on Friday so was able to fully kit up the bike yesterday and go for 20km loop as a "shake down" ride.
All seems good and next post will be some details of the bike setup and gear.

[PTRSAK]

The bike.

Having sold the bike I rode last year, for a profit I might add, I needed to build a new horse for the coming trip.
I definitely wanted to go with disc brakes so kept my eyes open for something suitable. Decided to go with drop bars this time.
Not long before I spotted a Reid CX 2nd hand for $200 which I bought with the intent of swapping out just about everything.

Removed the existing 700c cyclocross wheels and replaced them with a set of 29er mountain bike wheels to handle the weight better shod with the ubiquitous Schwalbe Marathon tyres in 29x1.5. These are the actual tyres that did the South Island trip last year.

Upgraded the brake calipers from Avid BB5 to BB7s which are arguably the best cable actuated disc brakes around.
Removed the Claris 2x8 drivetrain and fitted 2x10 Shimano 105 with a "super compact" 38-28 chainset. I'm not going to spin out 38x11 gearing with a fully laden touring bike but will be grateful of the 28-36 low gear when dragging all that gear and my bulk up gradients of 20% in some places.

My nicely worn in Brookes B17 saddle sits atop a Giant carbon seat post. I have aluminium pannier racks fitted front and rear, Tri aero bars with the elbow pads cut off for extra luggage space and three water bottle cages.

Front Panniers are RideSportz welded PVC about 6 or 7 L per side and rear are Ortlieb back roller City rated as 20L but if you want to close them more like 16 per side.
In short, much more space than I had last time without having multiple loose dry bags velcroed all over the bike. Not planning on filling them up but the convenience factor will be much better.

[PTRSAK]

Well, short time now...

This time next week I will have everything packed and be doing a final check around the house to make sure there is nothing that can't be left for three weeks without attention. Don't want to leave a bunch of perishable food in the fridge or anything.

Will be a slightly convoluted trip to the airport. Don't really want to pay for three weeks parking or the far side of $100 for a taxi from my place.
Best option is to bring everything in to work and get one of the guys here to drop me at the airport. I can leave the ute in our warehouse while I'm away.

My flight home gets in a little late to get someone from work to pick me up so I'll just have to throw the bike back together at the airport and ride to my workplace, only 28km so not really a problem. I start back the next morning so might even just sleep on the floor and go home the next day. Should have taken an extra day or two off I guess  :-)

I will be doing a practice pack over the weekend to sort out what goes in which pannier for best combination of convenience and weight balance. Be taking the fully laden bike for a ride too... no doubt then going home and trying to decide what I can leave behind.

Would really like to take my Canon 70D for some "real" photography rather than phone camera stuff but it's quite a bit of both volume and weight.

Fitness is well below where it should be and weight is well above, but I guess I'll deal with that when I get there. I've only budgeted on a modest milage per day (or should I say kilometer-age) so should be right. All day to do 50-60Km is a doddle.

Starting to get into the reach of the weather forecasts now and it's looking like the first couple of days could be a little wet. Oh well, nothing I can do about that other than take a decent rain jacket.

Have to take a good look and see if I can fit the bigger tent in, It's the poles that will be the problem. Still only a relatively small tent (cozy 2 man) but the extra room over my lightweight single might be worth the extra weight. The tent I took last year is a good quality lightweight backpacking tent but it fits my sleeping mat and not much else inside and I can barely sit up inside it at the highest point.

I've spent many many hours poring over Google maps looking at route options. Searching out alternatives to major highways and have decided (subject to weather) not to take the road and rail trail path over the Rimutaka range but to follow the coast road and cycle path around the bottom of the North Island and into the Wairarapa region. It does add quite some distance and probably an extra day compared to the original plan but I think the scenery and mostly flat terrain combined win out. Especially being in the first days of the trip.

But if there is a southerly blowing that can be a pretty inhospitable piece of coastline.
The advantage of a completely flexible itinerary other than flight in and out dates is that I can make it up day to day. If the smurf really hits the fan I can always hop a train or bus and leapfrog forward a few days to make up time.

One section I'm thinking of doing that anyway is Napier to Taupo. There is only one road, it's a bitch of a climb, long enough to be two days ride and would be a rough camp for the night. Don't really want to have cars, trucks and everything else whipping past my elbow at 100km/h for two whole days and the bus fare is $18 plus $10 for the bike if I don't disassemble it.
Crazy not to.

Updates should be coming more frequently from now on and pic's once I'm "in country"

[SirVicaLot]

Looking forward to your updates! 

Talking about the camera: For situations like these, where every gram counts, I go with a Sony DSC RX 100. I still have the first one, but I think by now they are at V or VI. It is small and lighter than a DSLR, yet still has a crop sensor with a Zeiss lens. Maybe an alternative for you 

[moonweasel]

Good call on dodging the Rimutaka's, drove over them a couple weeks back for work, winding steep narrow road and large truck trailer units, the road sections don't mix well with bikes

[PTRSAK]

Good call on dodging the Rimutaka's, drove over them a couple weeks back for work, winding steep narrow road and large truck trailer units, the road sections don't mix well with bikes

It shouldn't be too bad if I have to go that way. There is a cycle path along the Hutt river all the way to Upper Hutt, then there is only a stretch of about 3km above there where I would need to ride on the highway before the turnoff to the road that goes to the end of the Rail trail, which then follows the old train line all the way over the top and down the other side coming out about 9km south of Featherston.

[PTRSAK]

Talking about the camera: For situations like these, where every gram counts, I go with a Sony DSC RX 100. I still have the first one, but I think by now they are at V or VI. It is small and lighter than a DSLR, yet still has a crop sensor with a Zeiss lens. Maybe an alternative for you 

I do have a Canon IXUS 500HS which, while not up to the specs of the Sony is still pretty well featured and takes , to my eye, better shots than my phone which is only a Galaxy S7. The Samsung's camera is not bad but that 12x optical zoom on the little Canon is pretty handy sometimes.

Seeing I already have the IXUC 500HS, EOS 70D, EOS 400D and a Xiaomi Yi (GoPro killer in it's day) I don't really need any other cameras.

Maybe I'll just take the 400D and my 24mm pancake lens. The 400D has a plastic chassis and is pretty light unlike to 70D with real metal in there.
In fact, the 400D and 24mm lens is lighter than the 70D body.

I'll work something out...   I haven't even started to decide what SAK I'm taking yet. 

[SirVicaLot]

The 24mm pancake might a be a bit on the wide angle though. Even with the 1.6 crop you end up with a roughly 40mm on full frame. Maybe a small zoom to give you more options? 35-70mm, something in that area? 

[styx]

ok this is turning up interesting

[Storm]

Ill be looking forward to seeing your updates chap, all the best for a smooth trip

[PTRSAK]

Only on my phone but now 2 days into the trip and some interesting stuff happening.
Google maps told me there was a cycle route around the coast from Wellington as an alternative to climbing the Rimutaka range. It was a lot longer, 2 days to Featherston rather than one but promised some pretty special scenery and a seal colony.
Google lied to me. Unless their idea of a rideable bike route includes a couple of km of pushing the bike through sand along a beach, deep gravel paths that were equally unrideable and 7 swift creek crossings with a couple of them knee deep.
If you want to follow along I'm posting several pic's a day on Instagram peter.j.thorpe

[Syncop8r]

... I have been planning a followup tour of the North Island beginning in Wellington 21 March 2020 and heading "up" the island to Auckland...

Oh, you've started already.... I hope the rest of your trip goes better.

[SirVicaLot]

Looking forward to some photos of the scenery 

[PTRSAK]

I've been slack with posting here but there's a reason.
The terrain here is vastly different to the south island. There the hills go up up up up with long relatively even grades. Here there go up up down up. It's constant undulations. Your grind up a hill only to go back down most of it on the other side and then start back up again only to immediately waste that too.
It makes for very hard days then to stick to a modest 60km daily target. (36 freedom miles).  I'm shattered most nights. Just want to set up camp, shower, eat and sleep.
I will do a decent recap when I get to a keyboard but the big thing is that I managed to damage the bike about 4 day's ride short of Auckland so limped to the next town and grabbed a rental car. My bike trip has become a road trip.
I'm not too dad about that, I'll admit that I was way under fit for this one. Also the traffic here in the North Island is terrible of you're on a bike. So many logging trucks, even on the back roads.

Still, today was a BIG day... Hobbiton.
If I can manage to edit some pics on my phone I'll put them here, otherwise there's a few on insta

[Don Pablo]

Sorry to hear that it isn't going as well as you hoped for. 

But you're visiting Hobbiton today? Awesome!

[moonweasel]

Bugger about the bike. But on the bright side, you're now  a bit more mobile.
Now you're in the Waipa/ Waikato, may I suggest Waitomo, sort of, but not really near you.

[PTRSAK]

Yeah, I'm not stressed about any of it. The whole thing is an adventure. To some people having that bike trouble 40km from anywhere would be the end of the world, I just looked at it as a challenge and was only worried whether of brought enough multitool firepower with only a Fuse and a Farmer. Was beginning to think the extra weight of the Swisstool would have been worth it.
I'm having a blast (not the Leatherman one) and now have a full week to play tourist in my own home town and see what's changed in quarter of a century.

To quote Bilbo Baggins... "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

But you might end up having an adventure.

[PTRSAK]

Well it's been an interesting week with the escalating COVID-19 dramas.
The endgame story is that I'm back home in Brisbane but a day too late to avoid the mandatory 14 day self isolation quarantine period so now have two weeks sitting at home to fill in.
No doubt I will be looking for things to keep me occupied and going through my photos from the trip and writing a bit of a blurb will help there, so I'll probably be adding words and pictures here.

Hope all of you and your families are safe and well in these crazy times.

[pfrsantos]

Well it's been an interesting week with the escalating COVID-19 dramas.
The endgame story is that I'm back home in Brisbane but a day too late to avoid the mandatory 14 day self isolation quarantine period so now have two weeks sitting at home to fill in.
No doubt I will be looking for things to keep me occupied and going through my photos from the trip and writing a bit of a blurb will help there, so I'll probably be adding words and pictures here.

Hope all of you and your families are safe and well in these crazy times.

Same to you, man!

Keep safe!

 

[Don Pablo]

Great trip.
Pity that it happened at the same time as COVID-19.

[Syncop8r]

On the bright side you got out before the four week lockdown here and as far as the self-isolation goes you're probably in a lockdown there as well anyway?

[PTRSAK]

I had the initial 2 week self isolation but after that I've been at work every day. I'm a medical instrument technician and we have had work to do. Not a job that can be "work from home".
As with New Zealand, we are being allowed out to play a bit more from this coming weekend. Allowed to travel up to 50km for recreation and be in the company of one other person not from your household. i.e. legally go for a picnic with your non cohabitating g/f or b/f.
The Qld govt released the "heat maps" and statistics by local council areas last week. Ipswich City where I live has a population of 200k, there have been 4, yes four, cases of community transmission of the virus. All other cases (23 giving a total of 27) have been people returning from overseas. Mostly cruise ship passengers.
The chance of getting it here at the local shops is essentially nil. But everything has been closed for a month. I know they had little data to go on and pretty much had to plan for a worst case but as hindsight slowly kicks in it appears there's been a bit of an over reaction.
It will sure be interesting to look back a year from now and see the cost.

One thing that has been spoken about is them opening up travel between Australia and New Zealand before any other overseas destinations are added. So if I can manage to afford it I might be able to do another trip next year. Or maybe I could look at doing somewhere here in Aus. Canberra to Melbourne or Melbourne to Adelaide are both in that 700-800ish km range. I'd prefer to do another part of the South Island again but I guess beggers can't be choosers.
Certainly won't be North Island again. Doubt I'll ever return there.