Off Rhoda, queen of NZ realtors

•October 8, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Rhoda Morrison is the first Kiwi mountain bike champion, who (along with Dave Whittam, the Kennett Brothers) were putting fat tire bikes to use in the very earliest part of the eighties.

By the time I met Rhoda and Dave at Man V. Horse in Llanwrtyd Wells Wales, they were on their “O.E.” (many New Zealanders take off between school and Real Life to see the world before returning to their country, staying abroad for a year, two years, or in Rhoda’s case, five years). She was a petite 21 year old superathlete that was undeterrable, and extremely funny in a subtle unassuming way.

We were instant friends and I kept vague touch as I learned about her 4 Corners bicycle charity run (four teams of four fanned across the globe raising money for charity back in the late 80’s), her career as a bush pilot, and then she dropped off my radar.

I succeeded in reaching her by snail mail–her old address worked because the current resident contacted her to say “Someone named Jacquie’s coming to visit” and we were back in touch after a decade or more…

So now I’m here at her place, we’ve been out kayaking while the tide was high enough to float us around the peninsula, and we’re gonna have a picnic on the beach with Rho’s bro Ro.

As in: Rowland.

It’s great to be at home with an old friend and meet her business partner Tricia.

“I’ll do my best to disrupt your normal routine, and fumble all the chores you assign me” I promised, while overpouring strong tea and dribbling passionfruit curd on the tablecloth.

May as well  just get that out there.

Tall poppies are worthless at being a Fly on The Wall.
They strew red petal-shards and black pollen all over the clean surfaces, and can’t keep their luggage in order…

Tricia is mad about American autos from the 50’s, and able to pull them apart and put them back together again, restore them to perfection, and even knows Someone Who’s  Been To Modesto (“where they filmed American Grafitti”) On Pilgrimmage.

She’s got a broad back, the legs of a sprinter and the heart of a broody hen.

When I arrived, they were worried about a baby chick that had been attactked by a nasty rooster with a Napoleon Complex. It was a shivering ball of pearl colored fuzz with patches of hot pink where the ointment had been applied to the wounds. With a day of fussing, warmth, and being carried around by hand (I got to hold it, get pooped on, feel the love) it was able to limp gamely along with its brethren after mum.

My hostesses did the same for me, and after a stupendous fish curry, announced the evening entertainment (there is nothing quite like knowing that you’re going to be Entertained, when visiting a foreign land–all kinds of funny expectations bubble up, and even some fears)

” It’s Required Viewing for all our guests”  Tricia said. “But I’m not saying who it is or what it’s about, other than they are  our very own cultural treasure”.

And thus it was that the Topp Twins aquired one more adoring fan. 
When it comes to a theater near you, check out Untouchable Girls. Or simply google “yodeling lesbian twins”. You will not be disappointed.

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Stony Bay 45 km pursuit

•October 6, 2010 • 2 Comments

With three days to get up to Stony Bay on the lonliest part of the Coromandel peninsula, I left too much to fate on day three.  Each leg of the trip was easy, fun, and in retrospect, too short. The towns are spaced all wrong for me to reach a remote spot on rutty, very hillacious terrain at ten a.m. on a given day.

Especially if you’ve been softened to the melting point  at the Tangiaro Kiwi Retreat 12 km from Stony Bay.  I’d enjoyed a solitary  soak in the ferny spa along the river–whose name (Tangiaro) means “weeping love”.

I had more of a Weeping Relief sensation walking into the Tui Lodge, my haven for the next 14 hours.

The 800 acre retreat is an impressive example of what you get when hospitality, comfortable luxuries and eco-planning converge: wildlands in perpetuity (emphasis on the Tui) in exchange for permission to build several sensitively sited guest lodges around the cafe dining room & conference center.
The manager, Katharina Hecht, is a trained bird biologist who moved to NZ after spending her five yr work visa volunteering on bird projects around the country.

She took me for a kiwi-hunt (and glow-worm stumble) under pitch black skies next to the sobbing (sounded more like riffling to me) brook, then I fell into such a deep sleep that I got up late, and fruitlessly raced over six hellish dirt hills with washboard (which relieved my bike rack of the nice down L.L. Bean sleeping bag I’ve been using, plus my Marmot rainwear–now I’m the one sobbing, a little)….

The next two hours I zipped along the scenic walkway to Fletcher Bay, with varying accounts of how far ahead the kids, Sam and Conagh, were ahead of me.
“Fuffteen minutes” (that’s how kiwis say it).

“Van hower” (that’s how French say one hour).

And so on…Luckily I got a motorist to STOP them so I could finally ride with them the last half of this epic (more than I’d intended) ride.

Some other day I ‘ll tell you about leaving my backpack/passport/moolah and addressbook in the back of a D.O.C. truck…

And expect more about Helen Macky, the ‘wanderer’, single mom, chef and wonderful hostess…

And maybe  about Tidewater Youth Hostel, and the INCREDIBLE Jarvis, who took care of a high-maintenance tired old Wombat…

Off Rhoda assured me that “they’ll be glad you’re well  clear of the Coromandel area” when she picked me up in Kaipara district.

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Coromandel town crier

•October 3, 2010 • 2 Comments

“I’m all alone in the big wide world!”

Starting with  Sideshow Bob, then Bella and her son Louis (who rescued me from an irreparable rear flat on my first day of actual riding), I’ve been batted between Extremely Generous Kiwis like Helen Macky, Janette Lloyd, Murray and Marg Gilmore, and Chris Coombe.

I try ONE NIGHT  out in the open, under the stars, and suddenly I’m a major wimp.

So tonight, after a night of listening to the pounding surf at Buffalo Beach in Whitianga, I’m going to listen to (or block out, with “Quies” brand earplugs, which silenced the surf) four other snoring maidens at the Old Age Hostel.
The ride was a thrill, and the Kuaotunu beach, right there in front of me halfway to my destination, stood empty!
Turquoise water, white sand,  dead tree (Anne Cutler alert!) and barenaked wombat sprinting for the three inch high waves.

NICE.

Cold, but nice.

Castle Rock winery had every imaginable fruit (but grape) wines: feijoa, chayote, plum, ginger, and others. Not my cup of tea, but I sampled every last one of them, then ordered a sandwich, possibly my last civilized food until next week…

The bike is working great, but I keep heaping more things on (found stuff, like the nice facecloth, and the kilo of manukka/bush honey from the Dutch lady, and the huge wool sweater from the Op-shop) and at some point, when Helen brings my other pile of stuff, I’m going to have a problem.

I’ve still not created a system for finding my stuff, so each item takes at least five minutes to find, and it all adds up.
I guess if I were riding with someone, they’d go nuts waiting for me.

When I tell my hosts I’m about to go, I remind them that it will be in about forty-five minutes when I really push off.

Got great photos of dead ‘possum’ (looks like a cat, not a native here, but supposedly endangered native of Australia–they trap them here and make sweaters, socks out of the fur blended with merino) and hope not to be one myself.

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Lettuce continue our adventure

•October 1, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Murray, Marg the lettuce king & queen

Helen, my Waihi NZ hostess, pitched me north toward the “rellys” up in Tairua, where  I pulled in after two days of riding.
My riding days have been a less-than grueling 2 hours each…mileage is miniscule, though the road-fright is enough to make me age visibly.

And this is with nearly no traffic!

Her rellys are Marg and Murrray Gilmour, the hydroponic lettuce farmers of the scenic peninsula.  They have rows and rows of plastic-covered greenhouses with trays that have holes in ’em and drainage runnels and the colors–deep burgundy purple and chartreuse green–make your eyes light up and your camera say howdy.

They have three grown kids. Laura is an entreprenurial young woman who took me with her to the village market this morning (Saturday) an hour’s drive north in Whitianga (pron: “fittyonga”).

It’s where I will pedal tomorrow by a different route.

Laura’s skills  talents range from  hula-hoop manufacture,  ginger beer production, and  “Contact Care” expertise (a healing modality),. She also dives and does triathlon.

The market was twelve sellers of fine felted wool wearable art, kauri and macrocarpa wooden bowls and barrels, homemade jam (heaven! Feijoa jam! And Tamarillo jam, never heard of that), manukka honey and mosaic tiled garden art. Hardly anyone sold anything, but the hula booth was by far the most popular tent, with shy kids turning into hula demons while the occasional grandma gave it a go, and yes, several hoops found new homes.  I demonstrated long enough to know I’ll have a  waist-ache tomorrow.

How pleasant it was,  sitting passively as the 40 km home whizzed sweatlessly  by.  The green pastures were punctuated with lines of trees (not the tightly knitted ‘shelter belts’ that screen the kiwifruit orchards) and fine furry Galloway koos: basically  black cattle with a massive white belt in the center that looks like it could be Advertising Space.

We passed at least fifty lycra clad bicyclists (shame spiral twirling in my gut)  who were training for the K1, the biggest road race in New Zealand.

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Waihi

•September 29, 2010 • 1 Comment

Orakawa bay. Look it up. Having trubble uploading any pix.

Wanna get on bike. Have had a blast for three days chez Helen Macky, N.Z. farmer, self-made woman, with two amazing kids, Gn and Sm (vowels eliminated to protect their privacy). Sm is very good biker, toured me all around. But I can’t control this computer, or its uploads. I’ve typed loads without luck saving. GRRR. So, furhter up the road, me, Sm, Gn and Helen will do a bit of camping, after I’ve stayed with her ‘rellys’ and a keen biker named Susan she’s linked me with…

Sam toured the PIt Rim  (rim of Martha Gold Mine)…, showed me the local river, swimming hole, got to see the rest of Waihi, rode on and on, will yak about later. They need a full truckload of gravel for 3 grams of gold. I question the energy cost, the lady at the visitor center didn’t know how much it “cost” to extract that three g. of gold.
Never will find out. It’s nunnamybeeswax, right?

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Tall Poppy at Waihi Motor Camp

•September 25, 2010 • 1 Comment

I’m staying in the deluxe “Rosehill” motor coach–a blue city bus from the 1960’s that looks like it was tornadoe’d off of the Black Rock Desert (see “Burning Man Festival”)  earlier this month and plopped down in New Zealand, among a dozen tiny caravans and a handful of charming log cabinettes. When Gloria, the proprietress of Waihi Motor Camp said I could stay in it rather than the pequeno “Colonial” (room made of glass on two sides, filled with a bed and a little fridge-box), I leapt at the chance. No clue how to upload pix here, so imagine a blue and silver 30-foot bus flanked by puny caravans on a carpet of velvet green, in a manicured garden with streams, fields with sheep (some ofwhich I ‘dagged’–well, helped to dag. Watched being dagged. That’s when the strong young guy clips the poop-smeared wool from the sheeps butt.  Then they were “drinched’ (given a squirt of vitt-amin), mani-pedicured, and got pink ear tabs. All while looking semi-comatose held up supine. I guess they go limp when on their backs?
There is a minefield of duck-shit that helps with the greening grass, and a fine black pig suitable for head-scratching.

Just outside the piggy slope (mostly grass, some wallowmud) a huge box of kiwi fruit sits…I’ve been secretly hi-grading some, plus enjoying the worlds tiniest tangerines, delicious. The grapefruit around here looks like a flattened valencia orange. Bit of a shock when you peel it, and expect sweet….I’d found a pile of THEM on route 2 (“Pacific Coast Highway”) and carried them 20 km before I learned they are ‘only’ grapefruit. Making myself eat them…

OK< Waihi is famous for its gold mine, the Martha mine. It was a series of tunnels until the 1950s, and horses lived in the mines about 10 months of the year (ugh!).There are some cute Victorians here, and the coolest buildings in town are semi-seedy hotels, the Rob Roy and some extremely sad ‘backpacker’s hostel’ with tired old smelly men. I truly thought I was open-minded, but turned into a major princess after checking those both out, feel lucky to have found Gloria’s little ten acre fief….

Tomorrow I’ll head further north away from the cars…Rhoda Morrison (aka Offrhoda, the fleetest kiwi girl (on fat tires) in the world in 1984~85)just rang up–I’ll see her for the first time in 20 or more years. Yah, thirty like…either I go to her farm, or she tries singlespeeding for laughs, at Rotorua’s championship.

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Tall Poppy

•September 23, 2010 • 1 Comment

Tis a risk universally acknowledged that a poppy in need of chopping gets it

Day 2 in Zoo Kneeland Tall Poppy Tour 2010
In this land it is frowned upon to vaunt one’s greatness. I got

this from one of my literary heros, Jeff Masson, a writer who

emigrated from Berkeley to Auckland’s windy shores. His book,

Slipping Into New Zealand (a la Mae West?).

Masson paid a visit to Sir Edmund Hillary at home,

and got a clue about True Kiwi Modesty, which
waves off praise like a bad smell). Hillary is one of the world’s
great contributors (built hospitals after his legendary climb) and
still is Just Yr Average Guy. Masson did manage to convince him that
at least to a few people, Hillary made a difference. But the national
character is not to make a fuss of one’s self–the tall poppy is the
one assured of getting chopped by the mower of public opinion.
What is a woman with Selfish Team issues and a hypertrophic sense of
Grandiosity & Queenliness to do?
Ride around until I’ve been mowed down to size. Preferably not by an
automobile, truck, or other contrivance. Perhaps I’ll do the mowing
myself…

Thanks to Dean Watson, Gaz Sullivan, Jeff  Anderson at Kiwi bikes and Graeme Simpson, I’m now sitting underneath the planet, in  what many call bicycle wonderland.

One  thing : I’ll have to look hard to find a ‘lonely’ road where I’m the “only vehicle all day”. Thus far, (from my perspective as an auto passenger) New Zealand roads are narrow, with nearly no shoulder, and are full of drivers two feet apart, who pass on blind curves. The government has dotted the roads with unsettling “please be tolerant” signs, plus ones that say “winners don’t drink and drive”.
I don’ t have to rag on this beautiful country, their bureau of traffic statistics does a great job. The alarming fatalities (exceed of course by USA) can be a hell of a motivator for people to ride off the roads completely, and I must say, I can’t wait til Paul Kennett and the government complete the Great Trails project in 2014 (I’ll be back!) ….I’d written to the minister, and plan to meet with him when I pass back thru Auckland. The NZ pols are VERY accessible!

(PS You’ll be the first to hear of it when I find a lonely road!)

Today’s breakfast: passionfruit curd! Never saw that before. Toast from real bread. Tea from the bottom shelf at the supermarket (they are called “countdown” here!).

I saw my first cyclists yesterday: twenty kids in identical yellow rain-ponchos pedaling from their school. They were the only cyclists out in the moody cold spring wind.

“Sideshow Bob” (my guardian angel the last couple days) took me to Rotorua, dropped me off at Bike Vegas in Fenton street.

It is a vast, tidy shop with a knowledgeable staff,   who met my  sonorous “I MADE IT!”  with a “we see that” sort of expression.
“I’m a month early” , I added.

SSWC (singlespeed world championship) in Rotorua. Front row seat!  Rotorua, the gently sulphur scented heart of New Zealand’s volcanic plateau).

Travelwise, I like to go early, leave late, and develop a reputation. Or arrive really late and really burnish my rep.

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Rotorua’s healing muds

•September 20, 2010 • 1 Comment



Rotorua’s healing muds

Originally uploaded by wombatbiker

As always, I have to leave a note…
Off to the bus to catch the plane to catch the plane to catch the ride…Mike Varley, you get a medal of honor for creating a 50 pound box of bicycle for me, and for building up the deSalvo singlespeeer.
Bones Voyage!

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Scholium projections

•September 19, 2010 • Leave a Comment


Scholium projections

Originally uploaded by wombatbiker

Yesterday Geoff H. picked me up at Trips for Kids under the freeway, loaded my road ‘ham on his lockable roof-rack, and whisked out to Fairfield, the town everyone confuses with Fairfax. It’s  50 miles away, usually an arduous drive in any sort of fine weekend weather.
We pulled into a small metal barn flanking a little vineyard with six year old vines (my guess), some of which were sagging with stunning, densely packed purple berries. I know, they’re not berries, they are drupes.
We were 40 minutes early, and got to watch Abe Schoener, the dreamer-upper of the Scholium Project, fork-lifting barrels onto pallets.
A huge ceramic good-luck kitty tipped over and shattered (not for the first time, according to Abe)…”goodby, Kitty” I said to no one in particular.
There were two old grape presses, the bladder-filled rotating type, where the juice drips into trays underneath, and groggy bees do the backstroke when they discover the aroma…
It wasn’t a long 40 minutes, and we got some details about the ‘rush’ from a couple of young interns who were at that thrilling point in life when they try a few different directions…
The small (dozen or so) crowd assembled and Abe let us sample first some “Ruthlessness of Brutus” or something…sorry, LSB Le Severita di Brutto (a real back-stabber?), cloudy pale urine color, heavenly in flavor.
Then out popped the corks. We were tasting wine that had been in the bottle a week or less. Mr. Schoener is  fond of trying different timings, ingredients (leave stems on! Skins on! Skins off! Drop and give me fifty!) and absolutely no wine blending… ok, except for the Tower of Babylon, which has five types of grape in it.
I will let the experts fill you in on more…
We left full of cheer and extremely high quality vino. I tried a few times to spit a little out (to mimic the others, and pretend restraint) but by the end I was trying to switch glasses with GH because he was routinely getting a more generous pour (probably because us ladies metabolize wine differently), and I WANTED more.

When it was over, I was impressed with how well the vintner knew his small gaggle of acolytes and aco-heavies. As a brand-newbie, I’d tried a few times to find a question so stupid that he wouldn’t be obliged to chirp, “That is a really good question” (this HAS to be a holdover from his St. John’swort College teaching days).

Even “do you have kids?” wasn’t pointless enough.

I mentioned that the banana smell that is often found in certain stages of fermentation is from amyl acetate  which made  him think I might be a microbiologist…”No” I said sorrowfully (still ashamed of never grasping Organic Chemistry or Physics). “A bike racer”.
At which he launched into how much he loves to ride, and that he knows Fairfax well, and likes Tamarancho…I realized that this guy has the dilettante bug even more than I….and I don’t have 144 bottles of wine to show for my life on earth…

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Mud Life Crisis™ de-programming retreat

•August 29, 2010 • 4 Comments

"Double, double, toil & trouble..."

Margit, Joelle and I drove five hours to Kirkwood ski area last Monday.

Charlie cinched my bike on top of the station wagon with butyl inner tubes, and the other two bikes went in the back, perched on their fork blades. In and around them were: bags of fresh fruits and vegetables, tahini, canned trout, bread (both rice and glute-building wheat), cheeses, quiche, butter, olive oil, apple crisp (pre-made), tea, tea and more tea. Oh, and of course: Kettle™ salt-n-peppa ruffled potato chips, the perfect post-ride  electrolyte replacement.   Hint to the people on Madison Avenue who worry that women don’t snack enough ( sweet snacks predominantly, rather than salty ones like the men do). GIVE ME A BREAK! I eat ALL snacks. But just at mealtimes! My big secret. No in-between meal munching.)

Margit opened the cooler to hide a huge slab of chocolate –the big 2 pound ingot from “Traitor” Joe’s.
“Do you think that will be enough?” I asked doubtfully.  I keep mum about my ten ounce per day (“Instead of lunch”) jones.

For four days, we’d brought enough food for a  village in Burkina Faso to survive a month.

It had been forever since I’d been out this way..for a race put on by Phil and Sandy Wolf. They bought their little girl,  Jasmine,  the “Instant Alice” hat (just add beer).

Jasmine at three

Margit, 51 (recently self-unemployed)  has skied there often, but never seen the flower-covered summer slope. She routinely rides centuries and goes nearly everywhere on her battered Bianchi.

Joelle, world traveling recycled clothing store owner (turning 50 this week) barely rides a bike since her Toronto street-vendor period twenty years ago (‘before motherhood”) .

I’d intended to teach 20 riders over 50, but Fate forgot to check her daybook…or my little sales flyer really stank. Or maybe it was a problem for most women because school just started that same Monday!

The challenge: get Joelle up and running without boring Margit to death.

Put another way: stretch Margit’s limits without killing Joelle.

Turns out four days of riding allowed not only improvement for both, but some growth for me, too. I was able to let each go out on a Ride By Herself (RBH is usually against my teaching philosophy; too scary letting riders out of my all-knowing, all-controlling sight).

If it hadn’t been for Team Bigfoot (Vic Armijo and Kathy Dilley) I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy a quiet week at a noisy resort under construction. All those back-up beeps coming from heavy machinery operated by nine-months pregnant-looking men in hardhats meant that a quick exit into the trail system would be best. But we ended up making so much noise, telling stories, comparing men, bruises, boobs and travel experiences that we never heard the beeps until we got outside the condo at about noon.

The schooling part of our first day was rigorous (you’ll have to ask them how hard it was), and we stopped for lunch at the intersection of Kirkwood Road and Godawful Uphill Drive. We were too famished to get up to the ‘nature’ part of the valley for lunch. One lap of the race course for me and Margit alerted me to all her unique ‘issues’ (to be worked on later), while Joelle reviewed what she’d learned (having gotten an accelerated course in finesse) on the shortcut back to the condo.

An evening jaunt to Kirkwood Lake inspired a mad fantasy: buy a cabin none of us can afford (a quarter million! On Forest Service land!) for Wombats! Coming to our nonsenses, we skinny dipped across the icy lake–a  Wombat Territoriality Ritual that costs nothing, assuming you don’t get busted for being pink in public.

Riders began trickling in on Friday for the Bigfoot 9-5 enduro race…and even Tinker Juarez came by, brandishing a 14 inch rainbow trout.

I have to try to digest our “Crisis Camp”, but in the meantime, check out Charles Pelkey’s day-by-day of the Vuelta a Espana, and this incredibly funny little video by  Berkshire NEMBA pres Brad Herder. It’s both instructional, historic and hysterical.

VERY late spring in the mountains near Calif Hwy 88

not exactly camera shy. "Sentinels" in the backgrnd

When it was all over (and it was a nice five day teaching trip)…they mastered every basic Wombat trick, and earned their “Bachelorette of Finesse” degree–now they can put BfD after their names.  The ‘graduate recital’ was a ride on a brand-new, beautiful Niner bike for each of us, thanks to Fuzzy John Mylne, who brought a van full of sweet machines to destr test ride.   Well done, ladies. It was all you, not the bike, right?

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