taupo ride 2012

taupo ride 2012

with the lake taupo fun ride coming around in around 7? months its time to start thinking and planing what ride to do this year

last year I did the 4 lap ride (640 km)

my rides at taupo have been 

2008 my first time enter -one lap 160 km I enter the event a few weeks out from the start not doing any training having just come off a few months of bike touring around north land and a few other bits of the north island

2009 had an DNF around the 30 km mark because of a spit rim (I had wore though the rim with breaks)

2010 2 laps (320 km) I decide to do 2 lap to make up for the DNF also because it was more then I have had ever ridden in 24 hours at that point (the most I had done up to then was 180 km -I did do a 220? km ride just before the  taupo ride in training)

2011 4 laps (640 km) having done the two lap ride I though whats next so I enter the 4 lap ride having done most of my training around and though I was well prepped for the ride  - what I did not count on was the high winds and the lost of my rack bag with a lot of my gear in it part of the way around the first lap - thanks to tim Neal and others I made it round all 4 laps in a time of  57:30 with the last lap done on the sunday

so now its 2012 and time to start planing

having done the 1,2,4 lap rides and leaning a lot about life and cycling along the way 

yes I do have a few disabilities so I might need to do things a little different from others when I do things but I still get things done  and i'm still an athlete that loves to ride on they bike a lot  (around 8-10 000 km a year)

Whatever course you decide upon there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson"

having spent a few weeks ride around parts of the south island there is a lot of strat roads that have giving me a lot of time to think of what i would like to do with my life -bike touring gives one a lot of time to think about things  

last year as I was planing the 4 lap ride I did a lot of home work reading up on long rides like PBP by people who have done them also well as talking to some and looking at the riding that I have done in the past few years  -seeing what worked on the rides that I have done also what did not work so well when on the rides leaning more each time

its has taking me a few weeks of work to decide which ride I will be taking part in this year - should I do the 4 lap ride or just the 1 lap ride - doing the 8 lap ride this year did not even cross my mind until a round 4 weeks ago when a few people that I knew of and had seen around the odd event did things that inspire me to push my self even harder - people like sud downs doing the 24 hour out door track record   (see http://no-more-shadows.blogspot.co.nz/ )- the more I though about it and looked at what i needer to do to do a longer ride and after a few phone calls to find out which rides were happening at taupo this year and some other info the more sure I became that I could do the planing and the training that would be needer to take part in a longer ride so this year goal is to ride the 8 lap 1280 km lake taupo ride 

 I under stand it's not going to be an easy ride for me but if I only did things that were easy I would never of done  the things that I want to do with my life 

I am starting the planing (also the training) now as it will give me time to work out the many of the bugs and find ways around then (any other bugs that come up close to the ride or on the ride I will just have to deal with then as they come up

working on the training plan will be fun  as I don’t have a fixed address - I live in a tent spending my days bike touring a round nz some times spending a week in one place others time riding to a new place each day its a some what crazy and fun way to live ones life but it is a life style that seem’s to work well for me - at any rate there seems to be many ways that people train for 1200 km rides like PBP 

Why do I do long rides?

it is not an easy question for me answer 

for me doing long rides it is not a question of why  but why not

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."

- T.E. Lawrence, 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom,' 1926