Tuesday 26 April 2011

Ride Easter Ride

You may think that spending weekends and holidays in the same place for 29 years could become monotinous. Not for this happy cyclist! There is always something interesting to do in this tiny Central Otago town. http://www.naseby.co.nz/
Having the opportunity to chill out, read books, enjoy the company of my wife Mary and ride every day keeps me returning to Naseby. That and the fact we have crib there!
The development of new single track and the re-opening of some tracks from 20 years ago keeps the riding fresh.
Over Easter visitor numbers swell and the bike mountain bike tracks fill up with families of riders. It was good to spend time in a cycling community. The next major MTB event is here - http://keepcalm-rideon.blogspot.com/  I think I may have to do that one, thanks Kela!

Pictures tell the story:
Mary rides.

Visitors abound.



Why Easter in Nasbey?
Here's why!

The boss.

New take on helmet hair!

Single track in foreground. Hours of it.

Wet forest produces interest.

Great riding without leaving the road.

So, after 26 days of http://www.30daysofbiking.com/ I can feel my knees and my smile. Naseby is a great place to ride!

Great news the mast head photo for this blog has been selected to appear in the 'hump day pics choice' on http://www.suburbanassault.org/. Thanks for this guys.
I like this photo and it is pleasing to note that others do as well.
Cheers.


Sunday 17 April 2011

Biked all week. News update.

Firstly, the news update.
Local paper Otago Daily Times had a recumbent cycle on the front page during the week. A good news story with an excellent photo. http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/156122/turning-heads-trike
Their second piece of good news was an update on the Maia to Portobello cycleway and the difficulty brought about by the building of the Dunedin Stadium. The upshot is that some car parks are to go to make way for the cycleway which will link the two already developed sections of cycleway. http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/156470/losing-parking-gaining-cycleway
This is great news as last November we cycled this section around the stadium and had great fear and difficulty getting across the road sections.
Good to see that some carparks will be gone to make way for the cycleway. There is parking available around the rear of the nearby flats.

This was achieved without resorting to the late night troll up and down the road with the headlight on. Positively enjoying the paper delivery, daily commute and errands. Roll on the next two weeks which are term holidays!

Fellow rider I met out on a straight section of windy road. Unfortunately motorists expect us cyclists to be dressed in this industrial manner. Excellent to share some ride talk as we both wheezed along.


Couldn't resist stopping down town to catch this photo. It's on SH1 where the road branches off towards the Catlins scenic area. Cheers.

Saturday 9 April 2011

Naughty and Nice (motorists) and a beer issue.

Rolled out today in the autumn sunshine to deliver some digital photos, go for a ride and run some more errands.
Immediately down town I ran into two of the naughty motorists, you know, those ones who slowly roll forward at the Give Way sign. First one came from the right and just keep slowly rolling forward into my path. A quick knock on the car roof had him in a panic!
"Didn't see you". Not likely! (No we didn't get to speak.)
I locked eyesballs at the first sign of the roll forward, he knew I was there and just kept coming. Knocking on the roof did the job as he braked like mad, I guess he thought he'd hit me. Motorist bully #1.
Motorist bully #2 came up from the left about 400m later. A wide Give Way this time and she snuck under the car going straight ahead and kept on coming. She got the international stop signal and the pleasant waggled finger, naughty, naughty! Bit of a worry when this driver is now behing me!

Me worried about naught motorists.

Pictures delivered, blown down to Kaitangata by sw wind with no naughty motorists. Infact the opposite like 99% of fellow road users. Polite and careful drivers.
Just love going over this pride over the Matau branch of the Clutha River.

The banana bridge at Kaitangata.

Over the bridge and into the quiet often gravel riding. Great place to enjoy a Saturday ride.

Time to stop and drink in the local sights.

Speaking of drinking, the cyclists drink  . . . . . . . beer is under going some issues here in NZ.
Two breweries are arguing over the naming of their light 'radler' style beer. Radler is German for cyclist, apparently and as the photo below shows:
Monteiths a brewery which once only brewed on the West Coast came out with this beer a few years ago and recently objected when the Green Man brewery from nearest city Dunedin also brought out a named Radler beer. This brew is not sold locally so you will need to goto:
http://www.greenmanbrewery.co.nz/index.php?p=shop_ListProduct&id=472
to have a look at their now re-named Cyclist beer.
At present they are having to place a 'Cyclist' sticker over all of the radler labels until the breweries or more likely their lawyers get together.
Have tried the Monteiths Radler and found it very pleasant. Will try some Green Man 'Radler' come 'Cyclist' when I can.
In the mean time riding towards tasting these beers in the neighbourhood pubs chiller.

Friday 8 April 2011

April 8 days of riding.

Having joined http://www.30daysofbiking/ I have ridden daily to at least go out to mail boxes and pick up the daily papers to deliver in the neighbourhood. This means windstopper top, lights and sprinting between the showers.
Commuted to work each morning and ground my way back home on each day. Managed to do a number of errands by bicycle which is much more pleasurable than sitting in the car.
Today was a great example. Out on BELTA the chainless wonder to pick up the papers. Front light off and the 2km run down to work. Students used BELTA in a maths lesson to work on timing things. Quick traffic negotiating trip downtown another 2km to have a Friday after work coffee with Mary. This required parking Belta up against a fence with rails and recalling the code on the bike chain. Tootled from their off to the library packed library books into the courier bag.
Uphill sprint to Ben's front shed to put his clipless pedals back on his bike. Forgot that a set of allan keys would be needed ,so off up hill home and a job still to do by bike.
After tea visited shed number one and appreciated the number of bikes which are not used very often due to needing minor repairs. Speaking of repairs, put an old saddle onto a new seat post and fitted this lot to Clem's ten year old mountain bike. Fixed a pair of flat pedals to it, taped on front white and rear red lights and zipped off for a full kilometer to deliver the bike to him.
Friday chat caught up with his week while I swapped the flat pedals from his bike to my rigid single speed he borrowed last week to get home. With his cages re-installed on his mountain bike and the flats back on the NISS (Naseby Independant Single Speed) I back tracked and wrote this in my head in the time it took to rotate the cranks back home.
All in all a successful week riding every day. Cheers.

Sunday 3 April 2011

Great Cycling April Fools from Otago Daily Times

Local paper 'Otago Daily Times' usually has a giggle on the front page.
This year it was re-sharing the Central Otago Rail Trail with the trains! Not very funny for we cyclists unless we could afford to buy the 'Kingston Flyer' and some how have rail-trailers cycle and ride the steam train. Now! There's an idea.
See: http://www.kingstonflyer.co.nz/
Great giggle. Have a look here http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/central-otago/154257/putting-rail-back-trailge

Saturday 2 April 2011

Will this photo do?

Working on how best to show off the eclectic side. Otago Mountain Bike Club Single Speed Champs the bike and the 'get up'. Very enjoyable day.

Got to start somewhere.

"Oh! Your a roadie!" she said as I ground past her on the second day of  Central Otago Rail Trail Duathalon.
Almost insulted, I thought  . . .  'no I am not a roadie, I'm an eclectic cyclist!' I ride lots of different sorts of bikes in many different places.
Of the 17 comments I recieved during this predominantly mountain bike event 13 as I left them behind and 4 as they passed by me, 3 comments did have a snarky tone to them.  Most comments celebrated the fact that I was riding something different. If you can call a Surely Long Hall Tucker different. Some comments made me feel stightly guilty to be lucky enough to be riding a touring bike in a gravel race. Silly me!
I used the LHT because I hoped it would be faster that my Giant MTB. I will just have to ride this event next year to find out!
As the second day of this ride worked it's way past Hyde towards Middlemarch I amused myself by confirming I was an 'Electic Cyclist' and that I would blog about anything that interests me to do with wheels and pedals and the world we live in.
I would like to learn to ride that class of bike without handle bars and two wheels, one day.
Sad news to note that a 62 year old Japanese cyclist remains in Dunedin hospital with severe injuries two weeks after being run over by a visiting English tourist in the Bannockburn area. He enters my consciousness when I swing off down the road.
Lets try and take more care of each other out on the roads, like the milk truck driver did of me on the Balclutha bridge this morning. Thanks very much.
I have joined an online group celebrating cycling which will help me ride more this month! You might wish to view 30daysofbiking. http://30daysofbiking.com/
The birthday present Brooks B17 Narrow saddle up grade for the LHT looks like it may need a different seat post to allow the saddle to fit. Back to the drawing board or at least the old plastic saddle.
Cheers - ECNZ  Eclectic Cyclist NZ