How and Why?

 My Bike and a bit history of leading up to this LEJOG tour of UK

Although I made my mind up to do LEJOG  in 2023, I started to train for it from Jan 2024 and below are  facts about my bike, a bit of history and some stats of my training.

All the training was done on my touring bike , a "surly karate monkey", who thinks up these bike names 😀. 

For those note familiar with bikes, Surly are a boutique US bike manufacturer. I bought one after advice that this was best suited to me for what I wanted to do  and my quirks.

One of those quirks is that it copes with people who are rough on their gear, like me whose goal was to not breakdown if possible,

                              Front suspension forks were fitted along with other small changes

                                        On the Waikato River trail during the 2022 TA-fully loaded

This is it above, without front fork bags that generally carried my  food and cooking gear.

 It's steel bike and therefore heavier, however it is therefore a bit more bullet proof, than say an aluminium or carbon fibre  bike. 

In my 3 yrs doing this touring stuff, I  have both seen and heard of some sad stories, including friends having to pull out of events, due to major breakages. In the sounds to sounds a friend who I cycled with from relatively early on, had to withdraw a few days from the finish as his brand new aluminium bike, had a hole in the rear of the frame, and was about to literally break off above the rear wheel ! In fairness to the bike he carried huge weights in his pannier bags, which probably did the damage. 

Fortunately my "girl"  is still in one piece, a few scars, and has had various replacement parts fitted, however still   in pretty good condition .

She booked in for a "birthday"  when I get home from the UK, including a whole new back cassette, new chain, brake pads, one pedal change at least, and maybe some cable upgrades, and will ask for  general  service as well. 

Over the last three campaigns it  has coped with approx 30,000km of training and touring, since I got it in  Oct 2021. It arrived in NZ  after a 6 month delay, as was ordered during the pandemic and parts shortages were significant at that time.

Over that three year  time frame my training has mainly been done in quiet roads around Gisborne, Much of it in the very early hours of the morning or latter in the evenings.

About 4 km from home is Sponge bay-and this start of sunrise. A turn around at the carpark where this photo is take as its a headend road and popular surfing spot called the "Island"

On approx 90 % of my rides I pop into sponge bay from home on my outward journey training from home and again do the same on my return journey to home. It adds a few KMs and you are often rewarded with wonderful sea views. On a bad day its also full force into a southerly breeze and a fast race back up the road 

Not my photo-but I liked it so much I included it. Sunrise up over wainui Beach

This photo as well is not mine, but is taken on a stretch of the beach I often train on. 

This is Kaiti Beach on a road that has been abandoned and is failing into the sea. Again its comes to a headend and can be a bit slippery in places do to slopes from the hill on the left of the track. I love this little stretch and again do this on 90 % of my rides both into Gisborne and back home. Its adds variety of surface and is quite with no traffic, although the port about 600 m away is busy with logging trucks dropping off loads to go on off mainly to china.

This is another of my deadend loop routes called Shelley road which goes to the Te Kurt walkway.  I love this 1 km section each way  that has a little bit of gravel, some potholes and some water. It also has a gentle rise ascent of probably 20 m . I have a course that I call the six peaks, that takes in Kaiti hill (I do on outward and return journey-2 X), barkers Hill (over going to this track) which I do at least each way 2 X, and the final 2 ascents are of hositipal hill about 1.5 km up the road from this which I do the ascent from either side(2 ascents) . All for a total of 6 pecks and hence the handle.  When I do this road in winter my bike gets pretty dirty quickly. when I want to get some km and some easy climbs in I have done many laps this campaign up this stretch. Often 10 in a session(i.e 20km) Again this is a quiet road most of the time.

This is the Oneroa cycleway between Waikanae and midway beaches in Gisborne. This is a sunset and normally I am coming and going up here before walkers start or when they are finished. It's a lovely safe ride and amazing views. We are blessed. Again I would incorporate a ride at on least outward in the direction of the sun as in this photo on most of my rides  but come home on another trail these days.  

Trainings  included an aborted short tour weekend in Rotorua area (I pulled out after suffering hyperthermia-another story);

This track high in the Rotorua Hills was turned into a torrent of a river with heavy rain and cold temps (6 degrees)-Was Ok at this point but 6 hrs on made decision to retreat from a remote and return to safety and daylight

 -a ride with family through the timber trail; 

-a solo trip from Motu to Opotki via the Pakehi Track

 -and a  few solo  rides around Hamilton paths and trails. 

AND two great NZ tours;

-The Tour Aotearoa(TA) in 2022 - 3000km journey from Cape Reinga to Bluff 

-The Sounds 2 Sounds (S2S) in 2023- tour of the South Island in March 2023 at approx 1500 km 

These tours are what are called Brevits. You start with a whole bunch of people (often about 100 a day) who then set off on  a predetermined  route, and a deadline to finish. For example a max of 30 days for the TA was the deadline. For the speedy ones, there is also  minimum time period. This is set for safety reasons, to avoid people cycling day and night to exhaustion and then making  bad decisions. There are stories are people falling asleep on their bikes and just collapsing. 

Some people do race a time or their mates, others tour slowly  and take in the scenery and have no regards to the days limit. Most riders are somewhere in between. It a personal journey and achievement, not a race.

You are often in  isolated places and so need to carry food, medical gear, tents and sleeping gear and spares so you can pretty independent. I carried probably 4-5 kgs of food and water at all times as an example. Having said that NZ has some great accommodation and you can stay in the Hilton Hotel  if you want (I never did !) , or in a ditch by the roadside(I never did that either !), it's all up to you. 

We did generally try and find places that had a bed and where we could get replacement food and a good meal. Campgrounds, motels, and a few times sleeping rough.

This is me sleeping outside in the open with a yellow bag lined with silver to retain the heat. Stars were out all night but still was cold. This is hours from anyways on the close to the Bridge to nowhere in the Wanganui Area in 2022 TA, I didn't do this much but was great experience. The other 4 or so riders arrived earlier in evening whilst there was still daylight and put up tents. I arrived to this area as darkness fell and I saw their lights so stopped to join them. Unfortunately we had no water at this site.

And that brings me to the genius for this tour and particularly for the nature of this tour.

I was at small farmlet outside of Christchurch during the 2023 S2S which was owned by a cycling family and they hosted us. Great hosts, neat evening sharing stories  and what great meal. I sleeping in a three sided barn unlike the others with me, who were in tents.  I didn't want to put up this crazy small tent I was carrying. It was pretty cool with a breeze blowing in. I was sleeping on these hay bales and I thought "Lyall you are too old for this 😀".

                              My bed in the hay bales open to cool breeze. 🥶

 I was dreaming of a warm bed  and it was a pretty cold and  uncomfortable sleepless night. 

This was amplied further on about 5 or 6 days latter. 

We had gotten up early to head to the mountains and to the infamous Nevis valley.  

This is my mates as we leave town to go into the hills, the snow was clearing but the forecast was wrong as we learnt the hard way. yes that is snow at the tops and Nevis is higher than them at 1300m.

We had climbed to near the summit as a snow storm was coming through. Riders in front of us, were coming back down the Mountain, as a couple  were suffering from Hyperthermia. So after a huge effort to ride and then push our heavily laden bikes up the mountain track towards the  Nevis summit, we made the decision to retreat backdown. Disappointed to turn around but a wise decision. That night we camped in a small private campground without showers and it was cool and I was in this tinny bivy  tent. 

See that hooped green tent in the photo above. Try getting out of that in the dark in a hurry on a cold night.

A bivy and it was freezing cold and I was up and down all night to the toilet (a nearby group of trees). The job of getting out of my tinny tent, from my sleeping bag with a warm liner was 5 to 10 minute ordeal, involving  being a contortionist to get out and avoid taking out your eyes from a sharp tent pegs. Un-showered and still in my all cycling gear and then all my warm clothes over the top to keep warm, and my mind was made up. 

MY next tour will have warm beds and washing facilities. This LEJOG(Lands End to John O'Groats) tour in the UK  that I am on with Cycle Britian,  involves just that. 

All nights are in hotels !!!!!!!. You don't carry all your gear and to top it off I have hired from them an electric bike !!!!!

Why then all the training and why do all this.

The why is because it generally is a lot of fun and you get to go places which are just awesome and meet fabulous people and test yourself. They rank fun into type 1,2,3.

Click the blue link below to go to a YouTube video I did during climbing a hill before dusk in the 2022 Tour Aotearoa.

Example of type 1 Fun o TA 2022  

That ride in the video was definite type 1 fun, although it was really hard at the time, especially that climb up over the mangatapu track, but I will remember it  all my life, I was on an emotional high. It was a long day, starting to ride from Petone into Wellington to catch the ferry to Picton before 6 am in the morning and finishing riding into a camp ground in Nelson at 10:30 pm  or latter at the Tahuna camp ground in Nelson. Thanks Alex for the Hamburgers  you as we were hungry. 

At 1000miles(1666km) in 23 days it should be all OK as the daily rate is modest in comparison to the two NZ tours I have done, but you still don't do this sort of stuff without a fit body. That is a risky strategy. 

I may have overdid the preparation but I am retired so why not. 

Below is a summary of my 2024 training-note some of these stats include a provision for the tour km to come starting on 3 June.   

Moving time means actually moving, rests when you stop  to eat etc are not included.

This average daily ride  includes anticipated tour in June which is less than I have done in April and May 

Above also include LEJOG Tour anticipated during  June-May had only 15 rides as rested

This  log of rides  excludes the tour-the highest peak was a170 km ride in early May.last ride 20 May