Doctrine of Misery

Sometimes it's the little things that count.

Mikeal, he of the glad-handedness, devised a plan of subversive suffering. This plan of his was fermented from the cosy warmth of his automotive and not while on two wheels. The plan was in equal parts sublime and stupid, as such it grabbed my attention. He proposed that we venture down to the Coromandel, ride the Tapu-Coroglen Road, then The 309 Road and ride back down the coast to the start point. A brilliant plan, with metal roads, the highest road crossing of the Coromandel and then one of the few roads in New Zealand that rental cars are banned from (along with The Ball Hutt Road and Skippers Canyon Road). This had my sort of silliness all over it.

A day was set, and we had a company of four, Doris, Mysterex (who was soon to go trans-gender and, additionally, suffer name reassignment), Mikeal and myself. Apart from Mikeal, who was on his cross bike, the rest of us were on road bikes.

The plan was that Mysterex would be collected by me, he and I would drive to Thames and then ride at pace the twenty kilometres to Tapu, to meet Mikeal and Doris who had driven to that point. We would then ride the loop and Mysterex and I would then ride back to Thames, leaving the others with ninety kilometres under their belts and Mysterex and I with one hundred and thirty.

The day dawned a little damp, and started, for me, inauspiciously, as I arrived to collect Mysterex in the pre-dawn to find him still deep in his scratcher. He arose, pronto and was shambolic. As we drove down the southern motorway I endured the soundtrack of clanking spoon and ceramic bowl and the stench of milk and weetbix as Mysterex inhaled his weetbix.

Arriving in Thames did little to assuage my concerns as to Mysterex's powers of organisation. There we met Mikeal and Doris, who were collecting packs and bottles from us before motoring on to Tapu. In very short order Mysterex had a pile of clothes spread across the road outside the Thames police station, was a half-dressed man, had a cell phone in the gutter and, horror of horrors, was going to ride a road bike with a saddle that could have served as a wharf buffer for the QEII. The saddle was round, white and had a cut out, it looked like it should have been bolted to a posh toilet.

At that stage, with a large and serious riding day, with no short cuts, Doris, Mikeal and myself all looking on bemused, Mysterex jumped aboard the bike with the plushly upholstered ring cushion, rode it in a couple of quick circles to test that it was up to the task and realised his seat was too low. Promptly he was renamed Sid, as in Ice Age, the enterprising sloth.

Sid was also concerned about the hygiene of the bladder of the camelback that Mikeal was lending him. Mikeal assured him that he'd cleaned it carefully with his bare hands. Sid was dubious. A quick reset, both bike and mental, a tidy up of the tornado strike and he and I set off up the coast to met the other two, who were motoring up to Tapu.

Thankfully things passed well from there. The climb up the Tapu road, through soft rain was the equal of any road I have ever ridden. Winding up through the mist, it was a road that is without equal. We stopped to visit a massive kauri, a short walk up some steep stairs, it did require a footwear change. It was here that we gained witness to, the now renamed, Sid's second satorial disaster. He had, in his rush, taken his wife's jandels. Let's just be kind and say, that apart from an urge to cross the gender divide, no man would ever slip those particular jandels on.
The kauri was magnificent, and well worth a visit, I would strongly urge all to go and visit it, it's majestic beauty made me all too aware of the things that I forget when I am in cities.

From there, we rode on climbing to the day's highpoint, and started the gradual, fasr descent towards the eastern side of the Coromandel. It was part way down this descent when we were witness to a moment from Doris that I thought was going to result in toy throwing. She was uncomfortable with descending the long metal section and not enjoying it one bit. Her face, when she caught up (Sid was still there with her, so not completely slow) was like she was chewing wasps, and petulance hung large in the air. Thankfully, it passed and the road flattened out. As always Doris soldiered on , and she did a helluva a lot better on the truly horrid descent of the 309 Road, which I hated.

After a small interlude of sealed road we were back on metal, and the 309 Road loomed. The valley is long and climbed gradually, then suddenly it pitched up and climbed in earnest. The surface, unlike the previous metal road, was soft and sapping. It was a damn hard climb up to three hundred metres. The descent was a little less fun than the last, and required a modicum of caution.

A brief stop at the cafe at the watergardens, letting Sid raid the cake cabinet and dispense knowledge to Canadian cycle tourists as where to purchase sheepskin saddle covers, and we were down to the coast again. Two painful climbs later, and a tail wind laid up nicely for us made the flat coast pass easily.

We all witnessed Sid's well developed grasp of technology. On the descent of the 309 Road, he suggested he ride ahead and take a video of Mikeal and myself descending the metal. Here are his three efforts, unedited and in full.







The upside of the ride is boundless, it was a challenging route that I'd recommend with a couple of caveats.
We were, to the best of my knowledge, the first to ride road bikes over the Tapu-Coroglen Road and the 309 Road. It is a hard ride, and the climbing on soft metal roads is sapping, but the rewards are well worth it. The caveats concern the amount of metal (45 kilometres), two long metal road descents and the lack of shops, provision or bail out points. It's not a ride for the unprepared, apart from Sid.
Like most metal roads, they are best to ride in spring, as the loose gravel has been pushed into the surface of the road. It's also not a ride for the unfit.
As such I can thoroughly recommend it, and truly hope that others will ride it, as well as follow Mikeal's lead and create, and share, damn interesting, well thought out rides.

Thanks Mike for the brilliant day out.