Gear Change Up

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Auckland-Thames

I am having major issues adjusting to a new country, with new circumstances, and different goals I want to achieve. In China my goal was to study cycling as a form of transportation. Check. It was something I had to do because 70% of cycling in this world is for the purposes of transportation and had I decided to blow that off it would have been very hard to convince Hamilton to give me money to go ride bikes with rich people in New Zealand and Europe. Unless, of course, I could find a way to get such rich people to donate to the college on the hilltop. Don't get me wrong, transportation is fun, especially when it's life threatening, but...Mountain biking. Road Racing. This is what I came to do.

And it's been kind of a rough start. A lot of Auckland was stress and nerves. Stress because I was shifting gears (gear change up!) very quickly and trying to pack for a self-guided bicycle tour down New Zealand. And here's how you pack for a cycling tour: You lay out only the things you absolutely need and cannot do without. Then you cut that down by 1/3. Then it's still to heavy, but you have to deal. So yeah. Stress. Nerves because this might be the dumbest idea my little brain has come up with yet. And there has been a very large line of dumb ideas. I hadn't ridden a bike in 2 months before today. I am pedaling the north island of New Zealand by myself where millions of things could go wrong. Most of all, I don't know if I can do this. So I listened to the mix Tay gave me, and hoped for the best.

So I finally got on the road today, and lo, I am out of shape. Absolutely amazing ride...the first part is hilly and goes through farmland...very Hamilton-esque. Then I descended to the seabird coast. Right on the Firth of Thames. I looked across this crystal clear blue water to the Coromandal peninsula, and it is surreal. If I had my roadie I would have been in absolute heaven and I would pedal ridiculously fast. But I was on a mountain bike with a backpack. So after a while I started to get tired. Real tired. So tired I didn't think I was gonna make it, but it's Sunday and what else did I have to do for the rest of the day besides pedal (and post in this fabulous fabulous blog?)?

So here I am. I did make it. It is satisfying, but now I have more and more questions in my head about the rest of this trip. I am not sure if it's a good idea. The bastard flaw in my thinking: Do I think I'm gonna make it? I don't know unless I try. So...I have to. I have two hot dates in Wellington for Christmas.

But. My first cyclo-tour experience. And lo, it is hard. So not much to do except go find some food and journal and sleep. And try again tomorrow. Got to be strong, got to keep on keepin' on.

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