Hot Rides

Cycle touring always seemed like an invitation to meander through the countryside on a bike loaded to the gills with stuff slung on racks over front and rear wheels, map in hand, punctuated with leisurely picnic and ice cream stops planned well in advance.

An endless, dry summer on the South Island's West Coast. Home of my favourite singletrack - much of it recently refurbished in a surge of enthusiasm from local trail builders. 

Although a seasoned commuter and mountain biker, this was to be my first real experience cycle touring. Perhaps not geographically the easiest of cycle tours, Banks Peninsula rewards you with spectacular views, exhilarating downhills, gruelling uphills, and - once off the main roads - relatively stress free riding.

The Heaphy Track is one ofNew Zealand's great multi-day backcountry rides - 78 outrageous kilometres of benched singletrack snaking its way across the top of the South Island.

South of San Francisco, the Peninsula and South Bay offer a myriad of options for combining riding and sightseeing. More famous for tech - Apple, Google and Facebook - than singletrack, Silicon Valley does though sport many diverse parks and preserves, most clustered along Skyline Boulevard (Highway 35).

In 1929 my father, Ray Chapman-Taylor, and his friend Ray Williams decided to bike home to Napier from Otago via the Haast Pass and the West Coast. They mounted basic bikes with no gears and rudimentary brakes on a route with no bridges and only a cattle track across the mountains. What follows is best said in his own words.

One of the best and longest stretches of single track in Canterbury - curving through the beech forests around Mount Oxford. Beware of wasps in the summer.

San Francisco... arguably one of the world's iconic cities. Booming tech sector, classic liberal history, world class food, wine, artisan cocktails and the birthplace of mountain biking. Really?

It's no coincidence that pizza and bicycle wheels are both round. Rumours infer that a quattro formaggi inspired the first mountain bike expedition into the Italian Alps, or at least fuelled it. And there is no better post-ride treat than a triple headed gelato.

Wet, hungry, and far from home. Soggy clothes, soaked shoes and grumbling tummies. After riding all morning through the tail of a typhoon, we didn't want to slosh into a Japanese restaurant in that state. I tried drying out by standing under the vent outside the kitchen. I wrung out my shirt and socks. I got no drier, but now I smelled of noodles.

Switzerland and New Zealand are chalk and cheese in many respects. The land-locked home of Swiss timing has no coastline, native bush nor wilderness. They keep sheep as a hobby and the farm animals wear bells.

What do you do in the middle of the mountains when two large, thuggish Chinese men get out of a car and stride purposefully towards you? You smile and say thank you for the stale bread and peaches they are offering you! Never before on a cycle tour have I benefited from so much food and encouragement.