Long Hot Summer
My ride was a loop of the Waikato, a 200 kilometre amble through the countryside on nicely undulating roads, avoiding as much traffic as possible and stopping at rural cafés along the way. I had successfully lured two long-term cycling friends, Megan and Michelle, along to accompany me on the Longest Day Ride.
At 5:56am we left Matangi,
squinting into the haze of a typical Waikato morning, backlit by the sunrise.
We had the roads to ourselves, even the farmers weren’t out of bed. As we rode
up through Scotsman’s Valley, the sun spilled over the ridgeline and draped
itself across the foggy paddocks—the grass was glowing. The early morning haze
soon retreated to the distant hills and the warm sun lifted our spirits and our
cadence.
Force-feeding
ourselves a second breakfast at Morrinsville less than two hours into the ride
felt a bit strange, but it was insurance for later. Salad wraps, iceblocks,
cold drinks and stretches were the order of the morning. Back in the saddle, the
heat and our kilometre count steadily increased. By lunchtime we knew we were in for a
beautiful, but hot, ride.
At the hottest part
of the day I could smell the dry grass in adjacent paddocks. The sun beat down
on our backs and heat rose up off hot bitumen. With every breath I inhaled hot
dry fumes and it felt like I’d dusted my lungs with Cajun powder. There was no
respite in the shade—there was no shade. We rode along to a strange crackling
sound as bubbles in the hot bleeding bitumen popped under our tyres. I was
sweaty and salty. My legs were brown with dust smeared around with sunscreen. I
later discovered that it wasn’t dust but bitumen that had flicked up from my tyres
and coated my legs.
Watching 100 kilometres
click over on our computers was both an uplifting feeling of achievement and a
moment of dread—we were only halfway into our day. Meg’s shoulder started to
complain, Michelle’s feet swelled up, and I got the shakes. We knew what we
needed—an incredibly long stop at the Pirongia pub: Speights, burger and chips,
bananas, Powerade, ibuprofen, massage and multiple power naps.
Meg pulled the pin in
Te Awamutu, so we dropped her off at her house. We watched our feet shrink in
the cold paddling pool, then retreated indoors to the air-conditioned
lounge. It felt like game-over for me,
too. Not even Bodhi-dog’s hot raspy tongue licking my legs was enough to make
me move. But Michelle muttered something and stood up. I decoupled myself from
the cool utopia, dosed up on ibuprofen to try to dull the all-over body ache, and
got back onto my bike.
By now our brains
were thick with the fog that comes from an all-day ride. We lacked the physical
and mental strength to hold good lines through the loose gravel of the unsealed
road we were following—we were virtually swimming down the road. After a
lengthy deliberation at the first junction (the long way, or the hard way?) we
continued on the rough road. We were relieved to find it soon smoothed out and
the hard way became fast and fun.
Not long after we
found ourselves in Cambridge, sitting in the gutter eating KFC. It was hardly
the lowest moment of our day—we actually felt good! Dessert in Hautapu followed
and was continued with lolly mixtures stuffed into our jersey pockets.
As the sun sank lower
our shadows stretched out across the road and we edged closer to our goal.
Fourteen hours and 31 minutes after setting off, I turned back through the gate
in Matangi, but not before one extra 8 kilometre lap around the block in an
attempt to make the ride a double century.
Our Longest Day Ride on a hot summer day was over. It was one hundred and ninety kilometres of riding shared with friends in a memorable experience that will long outlast any pain or injury. We have stories to tell, friendships have been cemented, and we look forward to doing do it all again.
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