We just had a holiday... but not a holiday from training!
We weren't going far - just out onto Banks Peninsula for 5 nights, but when you have to pack your training gear you may as well be going to the moon.
I was hoping to be able to bring the wetsuit and do some swimming in Akaroa Harbour but I looked up the water temperature before I left... 12°C, not my cup of tea thanks. I still have memories of spending 5 minutes hyperventilating in the 14° water in Wanaka back in January.
So with swimming out, my coach left it out of my training programme for the days I'd be away. I can't really do any extra with my running right now given I'm still in rehab-mode from my stress fracture, so some extra bike work was what I ended up with.
Travelling With The Bike
I've travelled with the bike a few times and it's not as easy as it looks. One of the things I've decided now is to either buy or make a couple of wheel bags because wheels are a major pain to deal with in the back of the car. They take up a lot of room, they have to sit on top of everything and it's almost guaranteed that you'll either get a rattle from a spoke or rim hitting something plastic, or a tyre will squeak as it rubs against something.
Just putting the wheels in loose pretty much means I'm limited to only one wheelset as well. Most of the time that's not an issue but if I'm going to a race I might want to carry my training wheels as well as the race wheels.
I'm also thinking about either a bike bag or maybe just a cover that I can stick over the drivetrain to keep the oily bits covered. I'm thinking a simple drawstring bag made of something oil-resistant that isn't going to leave fluff in my chain... perhaps an old tarpaulin would make a suitable material. As it was I just threw a plastic supermarket bag over the rear derailleur.
Given that I'm trying not to hit the budget too hard I'll probably start by pricing up the materials to make what I need. How hard could it be? (Famous last words!)
Once we got to Akaroa I put the bike together then wheeled it into the motel. Then I read the booklet which said no bikes in the units... I decided to put it outside where there was little chance of it being stolen as it's not really visible from anywhere. It was in a recessed porch so pretty well out of the weather, too.
Nutrition
I knew that keeping up my nutrition while travelling would be difficult as adding extra meals could become expensive very quickly. Because of that I packed our Tupperware container full of rolled oats, as well as some sultanas (I use them to sweeten the porridge). Other than that I didn't really need to do anything too special. Akaroa has a 4-Square supermarket which carried pretty much everything we needed, although their bananas didn't look too good (I'm a bit fussy with bananas).
Riding in Akaroa
The bike session in Akaroa was quite simple on paper... climb up to the Summit Road, come back down then ride around the area until you've filled in 2 hours.
The climb up to the Summit Rd was actually not too bad - I enjoy a good climb and was blessed with a tail wind. The only issue being one shortcut road I was going to take was unsealed so I had to go a different way.
I started to get a bit concerned near the top where the gradient approached vertical and I found that I barely needed to pedal. That wind at 600m altitude was really bloody strong.
So strong in fact that when I turned around to come back down I decided I'd better just walk that first section. I ended up walking 3 times on the descent - massively strong gusty winds threatening to either blow me into the ditch or simply topple me over were bad enough, but in a few places the gradients were getting to the point where I was struggling to control my speed. Without the wind I might have coped OK but it was just a bit much for my liking.
I got back to sea level with about an hour to fill in. I'd originally thought I could maybe hit the hill a second time but after that descent I decided it wasn't such a great idea. I ended up sticking to the plan and riding pretty much every side street in Akaroa, plus out to Onuku Marae and back. The road out to the Marae is very pleasant and the place itself is quite pretty on a nice day.
Riding In Okains Bay
My next ride was a couple of days later when we were over in Okains Bay. The programme said to go up and down the road that climbs to the Summit Rd and see how much you can climb in 2 hours.
After the Akaroa experience I had taken a very good look at that Okains Bay road on the way in. Hmm, super steep gradient running right into a hairpin corner. Hmm, quite a few sticks on the road here. Patches of gravel. And so on. I was still a bit too frazzled after my previous ride to take that on so I switched to plan b.
When we arrived in Okains Bay I saw a road that heads up over one of the spurs towards Little Akaloa. It looked to be maybe 150-200m of climbing at a fairly constant gradient which didn't look too steep. Nice. I'd looked at a few maps and it looked like that climb was sealed, but I wasn't 100% sure about the rest of the way to Little Akaloa.
My initial plan was to just repeat that first climb for the two hours (which is what I was meant do). But I got curious - I decided to ride either until the tarseal runs out or until I get to Little Akaloa, then come back and just repeat that first climb until my two hours were up.
It turned out that the road is sealed all the way through, and it's one of the best rides I've ever done. It drops into one or two bays on the way around and has plenty of good climbing, mostly 100-200m at a time. And on a nice day, as I had, it's stunning. Actually it was about the most perfect riding weather you could hope for.
I arrived back with about 25 mins to spare so I did two reps of the first hill to finish. The first one I did fairly easy, the second I did quite hard as I wanted to get to the summit before the watch hit 2 hours. I got there at 1:59:55!
I'm now intending to find out if the roads through to Pigeon Bay and Port Levy are sealed all the way. If so, this could make an epic ride all the way from Christchurch without any highways...
