Table of contents for No 66 in Spoke

Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. Being alone without any regrets, sadness, or depression. Not to be confused with “loneliness”. I signed up for the Tour Aotearoa with the intention of doing it solo. I had no idea what to expect, just the thought of riding 3000km was too overwhelming for me to comprehend, so I just ignored the mountain (or entire country) that lay ahead of me. I didn’t want to partner up with anyone, I wanted to leave when I wanted to leave and stop whenever I pleased. I didn’t want to try and stay in a pack, I didn’t want to stick to wheels, or draft, and I didn’t want to make silly conversations all the time. I thoroughly…

We are the heavy metal to road cycling’s Europop As a woman who spent her high school years trapped in a sort of bookish/geek purgatory while secretly longing to be a rock chick, I do think it was the tug of a rebel edge that first drew me to mountain biking. It was sport, yes, but there was something a little bit devilish about it. Mountain bikers were like Kevin Bacon in Footloose: if your daddy was a preacher, you wouldn’t want to take one home. That’s why when I recently got a new bike, I was pleased to see that not only was it painted emo-black, it had those sticky-up things on the ends of the handlebars, which I took to be devil horns (also known as “The Sign…

None of this Strava stuff; how accurate is that anyway? You know those twisty, bermed, flowy paths that run through hills all over the world? That we call trails? Well, it’s common knowledge that trail fairies appear when we’re not around and maintain these paths and sometimes, if we’re lucky, build us new ones! It’s very kind of them and I appreciate their work, no matter how boring or how much fun the trail may be. Some of these fairies have never built a trail before, so who am I to criticize their work? They turned off their TVs, got off their arses, spent some of their hard-earned cash on tools (Atlas ones if they’re wise fairies) and put in the hard yards to construct what the general public might…

Often meeting a hero can be a mix of emotions, sometimes even faint disappointment I’m not as young as I used to be, but it’s fun to pretend. I can’t blame others for accusing me of having a childish existence—most days are filled with the wonder and spoils of my surroundings at home in Wanaka and its inspirational people—though they also recognise that I’m highly appreciative of the life I live. But every so often an opportunity comes along that rockets me back to the fun-filled full-on dysfunction of my youth. As an eager mountain biker in the early ’90s, my heroes were few, but the ones I did have were from the other side of the world. They were the racing pioneers who appeared ahead of their time, seemingly…

Growing Old, Fear, And Trees Might Seem At Odds, But For Mountain Bikers They Are Intrinsically Connected One of the best experiences in mountain biking is the sensation of descending an off-camber slope under a canopy of beech trees. A combination of springy, almost mattress-like loam, a tyre-deep pillow of cornflake leaves plus a constant awareness of angular roots (and the cavernous holes often found after them) combine to create a perfect balance of grip, lack of traction and float, like snowboarding through half-a-metre of powder on a bluebird morning first-run. The Southern Beech that make this all possible—members of the Fuscopora genera (plus the Lophozonia Menziesii [silver beech])—are found widely throughout New Zealand. When originally described by European botanists, they were believed to be a form of Birch. Then…

The Dodzy Memorial Enduro isn’t just an event where the aim is to stake your name at the top of the list. It’s a social gathering built on common ground: riding bikes. Yet it’s so much more. From the road trip banter about our nemeses, or unfamiliar faces at the event, it was all about being together to remember the legacy Dodzy left behind. I knew James fairly well, having had the privilege of filming with him. One major standout of his character was that he treated everyone as a friend; he always took genuine interest in what you were doing and it didn’t matter how fast you could ride or what your technical level was like, he would happily teach you a thing or two that would make it…

A kiss from the lips of Aphrodite herself, imparting a soft and special wish A saddle is a contact point and an aesthetic necessity, but it is also something more. It is the harness that affixes your supple underpouch to the machine. It is a conduit through which gentle trail features communicate. It is the perch atop which we pay the necessary penance; we scratch back and forth like dogs across carpet as we leak salt into our own eyes and winch our way toward the tippy-top where––if we are lucky––something delicious awaits. A bad saddle is more than a comfort risk; it’s a powerful enemy. One night, overcome by baser urges and a scintillating message exchange, I ventured 150 kilometres through the night where cows spoke to me from…

A good trail should start with coffee and end with a beer In 1979 a tall, wiry young man by the name of Scot Nicol stepped into the dazzling sunlight on the hot tarmac at Sydney Airport. With his old Motobecane road bike stowed away in the belly of the plane, this bearded Californian hippy had just taken his first steps on a four month backpacking trip down under. “Some of it I remember vividly, other parts not so much”, Scot tells me as we begin our own road trip. “But I do remember that you guys drive on the wrong side of the road, that Australia is a really, really big country, and I also remember that you guys have to end everything with ‘ie’, so mosquitos are mozzies,…

It’s a bit like having power steering on a V8 Bentley race car You guys must know me pretty well by now. Modest yet so talented. Quiet but full of wisdom. Well connected yet never one to name drop. Well, I wanted to assist you all once again by helping to clear your head of all this confusion about 27.5+ and what it’s really for. Fact: Wider rims mean a more stable tyre, which means less rolling/burping, and allowing for lower pressure, in turn increasing the tyre’s contact patch. This all results in better grip. Myth: A fatter tyre with low pressure rolls slower than a skinny tyre with high pressure. Okay, so what about fat bikes then? Well, sometimes you have to sit on the fence. Too far each…

Everybody has one. Their own internal world map. There are countries we know because we’ve been there. In some we live, or have lived. Some are just around the corner and we visit regularly. There are those we’ve only heard of, via friends, the news, or books. Then there are those of which we know nothing, to which we have no connection, and surely wouldn’t know where to find them. Often called white spots on the map, for me, one of these spots was Oman. I became aware of my ignorance on a flight to southern France. Flipping through the on-board magazine, I found an article about Oman, regarded as the safest country for travelling in Arabia. Coasts, beautiful beaches, deserts and massive mountains; I became curious. Where there are…

“If you start second guessing yourself then distractions like fear can creep in” Nothing defines us more as riders than the four-letter F word. Fear screws up our progression like nothing else. We ride plusher bikes and sacrifice chunks of the weekly grocery bill to purchase new stuff we think will make us better and faster riders—a newer bike, more modern geometry, fatter tyres, whatever—and for a while, they do the job. But all we’re really doing is purchasing short-term confidence. If we were all honest with ourselves, if we could consistently hit those sections of trail without taking the chicken lines, then we’d probably fill our fridges a little more and sleep easier at night knowing we finally earned a higher place in the pecking order of the local…

It’s the ghost of a road that was envisioned, but was never finished “There are ghosts on the Old Ghost Road”- ‘Spirit to the Stone’, written and performed by Marion ‘Weasel’ Boatwright “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!” - ‘Ghostbusters’ by Ray Parker Jr The Old Ghost Road trail, which links the abandoned town of Lyell in the Buller Gorge to Seddonville on the West Coast, was one of the summer’s most talked about trails. Opened last December, the 85km track is New Zealand’s longest continuous single-track route, and is already famous for the mind-blowing views from its high points and the haunting beauty of its lower reaches. But we’ve also heard murmurs of hauntings of a different kind. Are there really ghosts on the Old Ghost Road? The trail…

Mountain biking has a dark side too; it’s not all berms and jumps I’ve always been wary of people who are overly happy, all the time. Maybe it’s because I’m not one to avoid the problems in my life, or in the world at large, or maybe I’m just getting grumpy in my old age. Whatever it is, I believe there’s nothing wrong with calling shit for what it is, shit. And then, when those magical moments do appear, they are all that more magical. I mean, come on, your lunch wasn’t awesome, it was tasty. Let’s get some perspective here, sometimes you’re gonna get an ordinary sandwich, but you’re still gonna eat it. Just like life, mountain biking has a dark side too; it’s not all berms and jumps.…

It happens between the temperatures of 6° and 60°C Eating off the beaten track can go one of two ways. One is car camping or glamping, where a vehicle is used as a base, weight isn’t an issue, and cast iron rules. The other is ‘proper’ backcountry, where you are responsible for carrying everything in and out, a stove is optional, and you feel a little more primal. This involves more planning, as every gram adds up. It’s too easily an afterthought, which can be a recipe for disaster if you get it wrong. Running out of fuel when adventuring makes the ultimate goal of having fun (and returning in one piece) difficult. So the question is, what do we eat in the great outdoors with few modern conveniences and…

Images popped out, creative juices flowed and memory cards were filling up The decision was made. I’d committed to participating in one of the world’s coolest photography contests. Deep Summer is the premier mountain bike photography event that takes place alongside Crankworx, whereby four invited photographers go head-to-head in a battle of compositional, conceptual and creative skill. Basically, each photographer joins forces with a team of riders, shoots the bejesus out of them for 72 hours, then collates all their images into a slideshow that is played on the final night, then judged and a winner is crowned. Got it? Good. We set out on our first day with a quick recap of the rules, a few free cakes from the media tent, and a last minute check of the…

A split second of time to be captured forever more As mountain bikers, we look at photographs in magazines and online, gleaning the entertainment, inspiration and often tutoring we constantly crave. From the basics of wondering how different riders take corners and jumps, through to what they’re wearing, it’s all part of the sport we love. The image is everything and drives our thirst for more, sparking a re-ignition of remnants of stoke we get when we’re out on the trail doing what we love. Sometimes it’s just the one image, other times it’s a collection stitched together to make a web edit; both provide this essential ingredient to furthering our passion and enriching our lives. People crave a stream of never-ending knowledge and information about those we look up…

There was a time when you would go for a ride and not know what it was going to be like. In the early days of mountain biking, more often than not this involved choosing a dotted line on a topo map, following it, misreading the contours, and ending up chucking your bike over a ledge and climbing down to where it had landed in a thicket of rosehip bushes. It was all very fun, but it wasn’t for everybody. These days, many riders prefer to use bike-specific trail maps to guide them. They’re handy not just for directing you away from cliffs, but also for alerting you to how difficult a track is likely to be. This usually includes using the now-familiar green/blue/black colour scheme; green meaning easiest and…