Restroom Confessions

 2015 Kiwi Brevet - I made it as far as 8 hours in before deciding to short cut the course. 2017 Kiwi Brevette - I overdid it on Day 1, and short cutted day 2 2021 Kiwi Brevette - I overdid it on Day 1, and short cutted day 2. Notice much of a trend here? I'd had a blast in 2012 during my first brevet, then went well in 2014, so why did I follow up with a string of failures? Easy - in each case, the old adage applied Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail. In 2015, I was hot off a great ride the year before. 1100km? Pffft. Easy. I'll cruise it in 5 days.  With that attitude, I did very little training - my biggest training ride ended at 140km, when I got a lift back home. This put me in exactly the right place come day 0 of KB 2015 - out the arse. I struggled in the heat, I wasn't anywhere near as fit as I'd been a year prior, and my head wasn't there. So, when I was feeling pretty grim after only 6 hours or so, I was already thinking of what I could do. When I cr...

I'd missed the inaugural Kiwi Brevet, through a combination of apathy and anxiety, I think. I didn't know a lot about self sufficient multi day stuff at the time (In spite of working at probably the best place to source information and gear - R&R Sport, which subsequently whored itself out to become Torpedo7). Combined with the lack of impetus to do  the thing , I was also shit scared of taking such a plunge. I mean, riding 1,100 km, with no possibility of a pick up from a good-natured friend, or bailing out at any point? Fuck that. The week of the first KB, I'd worked out I'd made a big mistake. I was following the blue dots with eager anticipation and excitement, wishing I was out there among them. I vowed to make the start line of the next edition, should there be one. //-------- I originally penned this passage the day I arrived home from my first Brevet. Only my second proper multi-day event, having completed the Tawhio o Whanganui the summer of 2011/12 w...

While I had some pretty good fitness leading into the Kiwi Brevet - it was only a couple of weeks after the GSB, after all - I was keen to roll around somewhere new. I've done the KB twice, once in each direction, and don't really feel there is much taking me back around that course. Thankfully, the Kiwi Brevette is a thing - it's about half the distance, but a completely different course from what I've ridden previously, bar a couple of shared sections (The Wairau, and Queen Charlotte Drive, both of which are lovely in their own right). The 2017 edition was a clockwise loop from Blenheim, including the Wairau Valley, Tasman cycleways, Tennyson Inlet, and back around Port Underwood to Benheim. Well, that was the plan, at least... ***********//*********** My KB started in Picton - I'd ferried over from Wellington on Friday, after finishing work for the week, and made my accommodation at around 11:30. The short trip from Picton to Blenheim was over pretty q...