New Zealand in Feb 2006

islandboy said:

We (2) are planning a two month road bicycle tour of NewZealand in February 2006. Anyone with insight, suggestions, etc.? Thank you for your responses in advance.

Hey man,
Good choice! NZ rocks. Me and a mate did from Auckland to Wellington after our exams last year and it was good. Unfortunatly we got really bad weather the entire time, basically light rain every day so we were wet most of the time. We went in early december though. We had a book from the library that had a route in it that took mainly back roads so we never were really on the main highways for extended periods of time. We took a tent with us but only ended up staying in it for one night as we found that cabins were only slightly more expensive and much nicer than a tent (maybe $30 compared with $10-15).
We are planning on doing the South Island some time and if we do that we will do it on a tandem with a trailer (insted of individual bikes with panniers). When you are seperate it is muchharder to talk to each other (espcially in bad weather).
I'd really reccomend doing it, we had a great time. We got a lot more tired that we thoiught, and didn't really feel like exploring the towns after we got there each day (we were doing 100km days though). The hills aren't as bad as people go on and we didn't really train for it (but were both fairly fit).
If you want to know anything else just reply to this post and I'll let you know what I know.

Patrick88 said:

If you want to know anything else just reply to this post and I'll let you know what I know.

As we will be doing a 2 month tour, information regarding replacement parts and reputable mechanics will be invaluable. What parts are most readily available in NZ?
Thanks

Sounds great! I found cycle stores in NZ to be better equipped than my local shops here in Brisbane so I think you'll be right for parts. There's some awesome MTBing in NZ - unfortunately we were with family so could only do a couple of short trips.

Kathy

islandboy said:

As we will be doing a 2 month tour, information regarding replacement parts and reputable mechanics will be invaluable. What parts are most readily available in NZ?
Thanks

NZ has heaps of different bike mechanics. I have not been to a store where the staff have been unfriendly although some stores have people employed who are not as knowledgable as you would like but 90% are good. Most towns will have a bike shop. Parts are no problem - we have them all.
What would you tour on?

We will be bringing our road bikes; Marinoni frames with campy groupo. I am hoping to upgrade to a newer bike before we do the trip. We have found campy parts to be elusive at times. I am considering going with shimano for ease of replacement, ah but that is a different post.

islandboy said:

We will be bringing our road bikes; Marinoni frames with campy groupo. I am hoping to upgrade to a newer bike before we do the trip. We have found campy parts to be elusive at times. I am considering going with shimano for ease of replacement, ah but that is a different post.

Any shop should be able get campy parts in, but you may end up waiting 24 hours for parts to be delivered in some locations. Shops that carry a reasonable road bike range should have the most commonly used campy parts in stock though.

If you bring your camnpy equipped bike and you need to find a shop that is likely to carry the parts you need, call the NZ campy distributor - W. H. Worrall, phone 09 636 0641.

islandboy said:

We will be bringing our road bikes; Marinoni frames with campy groupo. I am hoping to upgrade to a newer bike before we do the trip. We have found campy parts to be elusive at times. I am considering going with shimano for ease of replacement, ah but that is a different post.

Road bikes??? mmmmmmmm
Are you using a support vehicle to carry your gear?
We toured the south island in 2003 on our tandem and needed 2 panniers weighing a total of 14kg as we did the backpacker thing.

Cheers

Geoff

Melissa and I just completed our 600 km trial run fully loaded with panniers and Bob trailer. We took six riding days through the BC West Kootenays, tenting along the way. We took one rest day in Halcyon. We left Westbank Tuesday, Aug 9th to Armstrong, to Sicamous, through Revelstoke, to Halcyon Hot Springs, to Fauquier, to Lumby and back to Westbank today (Monday 15th Aug). The ride along the Arrow lakes and up into the Monashee mountains (700 - 1000 m climb over 10 km) was full of spectacular views.

Lessons learned - pack lighter, ditch the Bob on anything over 4 days, and do not try climbing mountains without a granny gear on the towing bike. We are psychologically ready and now the real training begins.

Does anyone know a good source of topographical maps, road maps, etc.

islandboy said:

Lessons learned - pack lighter, ditch the Bob on anything over 4 days, and do not try climbing mountains without a granny gear on the towing bike. We are psychologically ready and now the real training begins.

Does anyone know a good source of topographical maps, road maps, etc.

Depends where you are flying in to. We have only done the South Island so I do know that there is a good map place in Christchurch that has a large range of maps.
Here's a list of what we used for the South Island.
Lonely Planet's - Cycling NZ
Nigel Rushtons - Pedallers' Paradise (only covers the Sth Is) get it from MEC
Kiwi Minimap - a good overall map with town centre maps
1:250,000 Land information Topo maps which are interesting and give great detail but they aren't that large so you will end up carring a few and they don't give street names.

Granny gears are good. If you like your knees they will be on both bikes. Sometimes it doesn't even need to be hilly to need a lower gear. I have had the fun of riding into a headwind in Sweden that was so strong that I was in my lowest gear for 8hrs to cover only 70kms. The south Is does get strong winds at times and the Crown Range is a trifle on the steep side. I have cycled through the Kootenay's and Manning Park and the gradients are fairly mild in comparison.

We have to pack all our clothes, camping gear, food etc., into 4 panniers, a rack bag and a handlebar bag. If you both carry 4 panniers you will fill them!
If you do a wash every day when you get to camp or every second day, you dont need to carry much. Don't take jeans or tshirts or anything that is slow to dry. Do take a light weight seat of some kind though.
Here is a link to pic of our tandem
When we were in France recently we did meet up with a couple in their 60's who were towing a BOB behind their Canondale tandem and they were headed for the Pyrenees!
Good luck

Cheers

Geoff