Jughead

Last Wednesday evening I let CTB drag me around the better (or harder) parts of his Nutcracker Suite. He was on his trusty cyclocross rig and I on my road bike. As will be shown later, one of us made the right rig choice.

We trolled across town and up Kitchener Street. There I engaged my trusty twenty five tooth cog on my rear cassette and grunted and heaved the bike skyward. CTB leading the way, me following like a man who has been a couple of rounds with Jack Dempsey, and that was only the first and shortest climb.

Then we tackled Liverpool Street, marginally easier than the last time I rode it, but still a horror that darkness serves well. At the top I was several lengths adrift, the world was unable to be heard over my pounding heart and pedestrians in the immediate area were fearful of being inhaled.

After a brief roll and chat we plunged down a footpath in the back of Arch Hill and then turned at the bottom to ride up again. Here, the lack of run up and my sheer lack of coordination meant that it took me three goes to clip in and let the climb assault me. I was so slow that CTB had darted up to the top and was inching his way back down the precipice before I was even near half way up.

From the top we started to descent again, but then engaged in a hard left. This was where my rig choice was shown up as being inadequate. I was quite unable to make the turn, feeling that at walking pace I was about to be pitched over the handlebars, the front wheel folding under and my trajectory carrying me a long way down the muddy grass slope. Thankfully, this was my fear and not the reality.

I managed to unclip and get a foot down, then remounted and rode into the pitch black bush, following a narrow, winding metal track. Here my handlebar mounted headlight was about as useful as a candle and I squealed like a pig at a couple of near misses with the shoulder of the track, feeling it drop away.

Eventually after a few more bits of nastiness we adjourned to a small bar in Mt Eden. After a brief fortification with about one point two litres of beer each, we set out to tackle Big King.

There, with admirable Beer Strength I attacked the first wall, only to blow. CTB danced away from me like a butterfly, the steep gradient serving him well. At the summit, in the dark, with the city lights laid out around us, we were flushed, panting and kings for a moment.

It was urban bike fun at it's best.

I will head in some time with a slant level to get accurate gradients, the data off my garmin being patchy, but from what I can see, Liverpool Street is twenty seven percent, the other climbs are less. Good fun stuff up or down.