Quien Es Mas Macho?

To kick-off our 14-day self-guided bike touring odyssey around the top of the south island, we took the Tranz Alpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth – with our rented tour bikes safely stowed in the baggage car. This is a great way to start a cycling trip. You can wear skin-tight bicycling outfits on the train; enhancing your swagger as you step on board, and ensuring that your fellow train travelers make comments like “Wow, are you touring NZ on bicycle?” and “You must be very fit!”

The map above shows the train route to Greymouth. After disembarking in Greymouth we pedaled around the top of the island and back to Christchurch – about 740K. You probably can’t read the little text blocks in the map inserted along the train route. They say things like “it’s good you’re not trying to ride over these mountains on a bicycle,” “130K cycling in one day is OK, but get a rest day before and after,” and “a sore butt during your tour is a sign you should have spent more time in the saddle prior to starting the trip,” and my favorite: “I pity the fool who doesn’t bring sand fly repellant on a NZ bike tour.”

While the Tranz Alpine isn’t as high end as the E&O railroad (table linen and four course meal were curiously absent), the scenery is top notch, and the conductor provides hilarious commentary. Note the water bottle on the table next to that sweet mountain scene – keeping this water bottle full would soon become my purpose in life.

Obviously the photo of our two cycling heroes was taken at the beginning of the trip. Note the pale skin, broad smiles, lack of scars, and panniers full of energy bars – all dead giveaways that no actual cycling has yet occurred.

After three days of pedaling hard we took a break and went surfing on the west coast – this was absolutely the highlight of the trip. We were at a beach with a wonderful break for beginners. It rained that day, and we stopped at the beach en-route on our pedal-tour from one hostel to the next. Rolling up to the surf instructor on bicycles laden with gear, then slipping into wetsuits and hitting the waves for two hours is a great way to engender the admiration of the locals – this is when we clinched the “Quien es mas macho?” title from the NZ tourism association.

Unfortunately, we were freeeezing cold by the end of the surf session, and immediately got back on the bikes pedaling hard to the next hostel on our itinerary (the lure of a hot shower can be very strong). This meant no lunch at the restaurant overlooking the surf spot; sadly we were not able to parlay our macho title into hearty back slapping from the waiters, obligatory requests for autographs, and free extra large helpings of NZ green-lipped mussels.

At one point my legs and butt were so sore that I tried to charter this sweet NZ cargo airplane. Because of the current exchange rate in the little island nation of New Zealand I made a competitive bid of USD$74.63 plus a couple of Obama T-shirts and a used Britney Spears album. My offer included a clause requiring the co-pilot to massage my quadriceps during at least half the flight time. Andrea threatened to call me a “lily livered wimp” on the blog if I chartered the plane, so I called the deal off. Wimp, sure… but lily livered? My liver is stewed in prunes, not lilies; get it straight.

OK, just kidding about that cargo plane - but my butt was hurting by day four. Realizing that my macho title might be at risk, I suggested crazy things like swimming with the seals in Kaikoura (which included a boat ride out to the icy cold ocean and the chance for me to do a seated backsplash entry off the Lloyd Bridges Sea Hunt-style zodiac). Also I proposed more sane things like joining our hosts on a 10pm walk into the river valley near a small town to look at glowworms (impressive!). The glowworm excursion happened on a crystal-clear night in a place with very few electric lights (small town about a 10 min walk away), which gave us a top-notch view of the Milky Way.

We stayed in the Waiau hotel near the end of the trip. It's a historic building that was purchased 5 years ago and renovated by a couple with real passion and attention to detail. It has big rooms with high ceilings and little sinks – bathrooms are down the hall (apropos in a building that originally used outhouses). My request for a vintage chamber pot was not taken seriously. This location was halfway along a 150K+ portion of the bike trip from Kaikoura to Waipara and one of my favorites – an inland road that up until 2 years ago had been gravel. The roadway was recently sealed by the Kiwis in an effort to capitalize on the beautiful route as a bicycle and motorcycle touring destination.

The only reason to select this road is to get to a couple little towns along the way – since the main highway is an easy option for the trips south, there are almost no cars and absolutely no trucks along the route. Glorious scenery. Combining the recently sealed road with gentle rolling hills, no vehicle traffic (except motorbikes who give you a wide berth) and beautiful weather (well, one of the days was rain-free) creates a great ride. The NZ:USD exchange rate means we paid USD$40 to stay in that beautiful historic place.

To help us appreciate the historic hotel a little more, we stayed at Waipara Sleepers the next day. Most of the rooms are ancient railroad cars that have been converted into rooms. This facility gets the award from Andrea and me as the dirtiest lodging ever. As a silver lining, a pub nearby featured a group of drunk rugby enthusiast Kiwis at around 1pm (that's 1pm, not 1am), including one particularly festive guy who was dressed in pink fishnet from chest to ankles (some tearing was evident – he had to squeeze into the outfit). The pub also proudly (and loudly) played “Cracklin Rose” by Neil Diamond over and over again which an elderly, red-nosed native danced herky-jerky to on the patio with the pub dog.

At times during the bike odyssey I thought we might have been overtraining – I was first introduced to the concept of overtraining when I was studying to be an aerobics instructor. There weren’t any bike touring fans at my aerobics instructor school, which is probably why my definition of “overtraining” differs with the bike touring aficionados I’ve met.

My thinking on overtraining: If a) your muscles are soaked with lactic acid from the last workout, and b) you push them hard again while they are still sore, then c) not only are you are at significant risk of injury, but also the workout while sore will likely not build muscle mass. Good recovery is as important as a good workout; intense sessions without adequate recovery can be counter-productive.

Contrast this with the bike touring aficionados thinking on overtraining: If we do 130K for 5 days in a row instead of 65K 5 days in a row, we can eat 24 platters of nachos instead of 12.

We made it back to Christchurch 14 days later (on schedule!) after only two punctures, two spills (Andrea’s got some impressive gouges on her right calf that look like a tiger mauled her – rhoowar!) and one much compromised derailleur. Overall exhausted, but very healthy and hearty – so all’s well that ends well. Despite rumors to the contrary I’m now a big fan of bike touring, provided I get to spend at least half the trip driving the support van and leading the team through exercises on recovery days ;)