Four Days Off - Back on the Bike

After pulling into Whangarei on Tuesday afternoon, the last thing on my mind was climbing back on a bike again for a while. My legs, back, shoulders and arms were weary and that area between me and my saddle had seen a bit too much action over the past six days. On arriving back in Wellington to a waiting family at the airport, I could only do two things for the first few days.. eat and rest. Even walking on Friday, down to the cable car and then back up the hill with Pam after lunch, was a chore. I now know why the Tour de France riders go out for a ride on their rest days, when the body comes to the end of a long period of intense physical stress, and it knows that you have turned off the motor, it shuts down all systems for a while, taking every gram of energy and using it for rebuilding. I've been exhausted for the last four days, horizontal on the couch, sipping some Savignon Blanc and catching up on my reading.

But, late this morning, after completing "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", I pulled out my cycling clothes, finished putting the Edge 305 GPS cycling computer back on my Griffen and headed off for a quick ride down to Makara Beach and back. After riding the big Cannondale with 20 kilos of full panniers, getting back on an 9 kg racing bike was like slipping behind the wheel of a Porsche after driving an SUV. With 40 knot winds whistling through the hills in Highbury and Karori, the bike felt very different and a bit unstable but by the climb up from Karori to the drop into Makara, it was familiar again.

The ride was short (1:26) with 3,120 feet of vertical climbing over 18.84 miles.

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Only five more days here in New Zealand, after six and a half months and we have begun the long process of packing up again. But first, we have friends coming over for pot-luck dinner this evening. Time to get the house ready for guests.