A bit of underbiking today towards the South coast of Wellington on my first ride with a buddy for 2 months. Very enjoyable. I love this Bach right down on the beach.
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the NZ Tourism Council should be providing you with a stipend, this all looks fantastic!
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The weather in Wellington is pretty rubbish by NZ standards, windy most of the time, wet in spring, barely a summer. It doesn’t really get very cold, but when my wife talks about “where are we going to retire” I hate to think of missing out on living in a small capital with great restaurants, beer and coffee, and trails on my doorstep. NZs biggest earner, Tourism died overnight with Covid, and with our elimination strategy, future tourism will be domestic, or at best reciprocal ditch-hopping with Aussie. While I’m working from home I am enjoying the challenge of finding more 60 minute lunchtime loops which is a lot more fun than my shitty 60 minute commute was for sure.
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It’s been raining all day so I rode around in the graveyard a bit. I like this tomb but I can’t find any info on it.
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Possibly a mason? Also found reference to them being a creditor to somebody else so they had enough money to lend.
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Lots of nice smooth climbing by the look?
Went up to Index Galena road today, a road that’s been washed out for years. It’s part of a big loop, so the other side of the washout is still accessible, but a much longer drive. There’s a handful of cabins up there, along with a trail up to an old mining town but I’ve never been. I’ve never made it past the washout. I’ve heard a few times that there’s a trail to get around, but I hadn’t been able to find it.
I found it today though.
Road on the other side of the washout is excellent miles:
Rode up the trail/road to Mineral City, the old mining town. It used to be a road, but real worn out. I’ve read online that it’s washed out in a few places and pretty treacherous to get past. I just road up a bit, and turned around because I got scared of dying alone in the woods.
Bonus bridge pic:
Gonna have to come back soon with a buddy or two. There’s also an old hot springs resort up there that’s been abandoned for some years. The internet says it’s more like warm mud than hot springs but worth a look.
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My ideal weather is somewhere between northern california and the pacific northwest - cool and rainy and often cloudy with nice coastal winds. I also really like coastal mountains. New Zealand sounds sort of perfect.
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So does the Oregon Coast.
Helluva shakedown ride! Got the tandem setup with racks/bags for next weekend’s overnighter, and although we brought way too much stuff, we still made it through some heinous miles-long climbs and bombed down the other sides! Other notables were a bit of singletrack, and it was sup’s first time riding clipless! Great success! Oh except for crossing Hwy 285 
never doing that again…
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re: 285 there’s no other way that I know of to get across there unless you go all the way up to Conifer.
It’s not so bad on singles, probably a shitshow on the tandem though. I haven’t been into the foothills once since this whole covid shit started 
Need to get my climbing legs back. Think we’ll do lookout on thursday.
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Because I’m bored out of my mind I took the partyhardröck out for a full coastal classic on Saturday.
Down in Palo Alto, it felt like the entire bike-owning population was out riding along Foothill Expressway, and there were more roadies climbing the lower reaches of Page Mill than I’ve seen in the past several weeks combined. The parking lots for the preserves were as packed as I’ve ever seen them…
The tire and saddle swap made this acceptable but this is still a lot of miles and feet for such a dumb bike.
The giant gridfin of a basket up front apparently doesn’t cause a ton of drag, because I could still get going pretty damn fast on the descents. I blasted past some casual roadies while in a full aerotuck and my buddy behind me reported some extremely confused reactions.
Super clear air. I wish I’d stopped to snap a shot on the bay-side of the ridge, it was the clearest I’ve ever seen it.
I miss being able to stop at the bike hut
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Good to know… it’s a damn blind curve considering the cars are going 65mph and I was in too-hard of a gear
We’ll be doing lookout this week too! Looking forward to the descent on disc brakes since last time I did it was on the old canti’s with Joel… yikes
Mrs. hasn’t ever done it and is pretty apprehensive about it. I put her through the ringer in the mountains this weekend and i think she’s bummed about her climbing ability, but I’m trying to reassure her that it’s totally doable.
This is the only way I know of to cross 285 onnabike without actually touching the highway, or riding further west.
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Biggest ride in a long time. Did 3 different parks with probably 15 miles of singletrack. I’m whooped. Pedaling a super slack bike with downhill tires for 3 hours is hard.
Also took a pic
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Damn, always wanted to get up there, never did
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Yep… still in the works. Henrico/Hanover is not even behind schedule. Richmond, of course, is a complete boondoggle because between thinking you can fix the mountain of issues with low-income housing by putting a bike path near it and the elevation change between campus and the river the city and related planners are going to end up being the last ones to settle on something and it’s probably going to be only slightly less underwhelming than the Franklin St “bike lane”.