Day 21 - West Coast Escape 1 - Queenstown to Wanaka

[arcadiagt5]

Either the trike is getting older or the NZ roads are getting rougher. Or is it both at once?

Actually it isn't that bad but I've been progressively losing bits and bobs (those are technical terms you know) as the tour has gone on.

I removed the front head light fairly early on - the early load-ins / load-outs  to/from the trailer damaged the base to the point where I'm not sure I trust it anymore.

Over time the left mirror post assembly has been rotating to the right on the kingpin. It is disconcerting at 30+ KPH to notice the left mudguard drifting rightward away from the wheel and towards my legs. I gave up on trying to tighten this up and removed the front mudguards this morning.

This morning the barend shifter for the rear derailleur lost a plastic cover and broke the indexing ring. The latter wasn't discovered until about 40Km later in Wanaka. I've shifted over to friction shifting and hopefully that will work well enough until I can organise new shifters.

EDIT: Oh and let's not forget the little wardrobe malfunction with my cleats on the last day of the Milford Experience.

Having said that today was quite a pleasant ride. I met the new rider Kara this morning when we got picked up from the hotel - quite a serious road rider, Kara is in training for an Ironman event. We started with a brief warmup from Arthur's Point to Arrowtown. Nice scenery, warm weather, not too many hills. A chat and a bit of shopping then ensued in Arrowtown before we rode to the base of the Crown Range climb which Kara naturally rode up whilst Ingelise and I caught the bus to the top. There was a brief stop at a viewing point at the top of the first swtichbacks but after that it was straight to the top for the ride down to Wanaka.

There was a headwind for most of this ride but overall it was ~40km of riding down a very pretty valley on a warm sunny day. This culminated in a lunch spot close to the waters edge on Lake Hawea Wanaka  which was pretty neat.

After that I toddled around town trying to get the shifter looked at (see above) before retiring to the hotel to relax.

And now the inevitable stats (I will hit 70KPH sometime on this tour damnit!):

Day	Max	Ave	Distance	Time	BJ Rank	Against
21	69.6	22.5	63.46	2:48:50	758	4936
		Totals	916.09	49:32:09

Not quite sure what the options are tomorrow but it is a fair way to Haast. I am going to make an attempt at the Haast Pass though.

Comments

[the-riviera-kid.livejournal.com]

I had pretty much exactly the same thing happen to my rear bar end shifter. 6 weeks on I'm still waiting for the warranty replacement to come - I'm not sure whether my LBS or Shimano is to blame for the delay. I'm very glad I refused to let them keep the broken shifter in the mean time.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

In my case I rather doubt that the warranty on a bar end shifter is good for more than 3 years or 15000Km...