Hardest Flat Ride - 90 Mile Beach

After a very leisurely start, we rode up the steep gravel road to the main road, and then up to the Cape Reinga.  We walked our bikes down to the lighthouse for the first official Photo Control Point of the Tour Aotearoa.

By the time we got back up it was quite busy, with bikes everywhere. I met more people I had chatted with on Facebook, and lots of people complemented me on the work I'd done on the cue sheets and the GPS files for the course.

It was amazing to see the huge range of riders and bikes. Lots of people had panniers, home made bags, cobbled-together map racks, etc. I chatted with a lot of people, and had a great time despite the heat and the long wait. Lots of tourists started to arrive on tour buses, and it got quite crowded.

As about 300 riders are participating in the Tour Aotearoa 2016, we have been divided into 3 waves.
This is to prevent bottlenecks at the Ferry in the Kaipara Harbour.  The ferry can only take 30 riders and bikes.  The first wave of 130 riders left on Sunday at Noon to catch the low afternoon tide.  I am in the second wave, with about 100 riders. The third wave starts tomorrow, with about 30 riders.  Several other riders have started on Friday.  Finally they had the race briefing and then we left at 2pm. 100 crazy bikepackers all heading off down the road from Cape Reinga was a sight to see.

The road was very hilly, and we climbed about 350 metres in only 15 km. About 2 km from the start, one of the riders had his home-made rear light fall off I grabbed it for him...not a great way to start!

We turned off the main road into Te Paki road, which immediately turned to gravel. It was hot, hilly and dusty, but after a few km we reached a point where people ride "sand boards" down the enormous dunes, and from there we began to ride along a stream. That was great fun, though a bit slippery in places.

Te Paki meets the Ocean - Joe Jagusch

After a few more km we reached the beach. What an amazing place to ride! A wide flat beach stretching off to the horizon, dunes and scraggly pine trees on the left, huge surf and crashing waves on the right. A bright sun beating down.

While the weather report had predicted a cross/tail wind, we actually had a cross/head wind, which made for tough riding. It was surprisingly hard riding along the beach: the sand was firm but it still sucked all the momentum from your wheels and the flat sand meant you never had a change of pace. It was just a constant grind for 80 km, and was definitely the hardest flat ride I've ever done.

We soon joined a group of riders setting a fast pace along the beach. Greg was keen to stick with them, but I said I couldn't -- the pace was far too hard and I needed to eat, so we let them go and continued on our own for a while.  We only made about 15 kph at first, and it seemed to take forever to get anywhere. Then we met a few other riders who had also been dropped by the fast bunch, include Brian Prestidge, and we formed a small bunch of our own.

We stopped for food at 40 km down the beach, where we met Sam. Sam had run out of water and was struggling, so he joined us.  By this time I was getting quite worried that we might not make it to Ahipara that day, as the tide had started to come in and we still had a long way to go.  We continued on, helping each other, sharing food and water. I gave Greg my spare water bottle, and then ran out myself.

At the 60 km point, we decided we needed to find some water. We had crossed several streams earlier, but hadn't seen any for a while. We asked someone walking along the beach, and he said there weren't any more streams but pointed out a place where we could go about 50 metres off the beach to find water.  It was brackish and smelled of dead fish, but my water filter worked brilliantly, filling about 8 bottles of water. After we had drunk our fill we all felt much better and we continued riding.

By this time the wind had finally died down and the temperature dropped. We managed to ride at about 20 kph rather than 15 kph, and made good progress down the last section of the beach.

We left 90 Mile Beach at around 8 pm, having ridden along if for about 5 hours. We had finally reached Ahipara, where we immediately headed to the takeaway shop at the far end of town, where I ordered a burger, fries, and a banana fritter, and managed to nab the very last bottle of chocolate milk. I was happy!

It turned out that there were still lots of riders on the beach. A big group arrived about half an hour after us. One person had run out of water with 50 km to go, and another person had managed to blow out the sidewall of their tyre on the beach, and after trying four tubes and cable-tying his tyre together had ended up walking the last 10 km.

We stayed in the Ahipara campground and got to enjoy a hot shower. There was even a cellphone service so I could chat with Ruth and upload a few photos. Luxury!

104km of hard riding today.