DAY 11
After having debated whether to push on to Apiti yesterday evening, and having had such a good experience at Rangiwahia, I’d convinced Jeremy and Dan that Apiti wouldn’t be anywhere near as good. And I was right, up until we came across the Apiti community hall ..
.. when June came out as we rode up, inviting us in for coffee and freshly made cheese scones.
And Apiti wins!
Then my parents turned up, and at the top of the day’s main climb, on the side of the gravel road, they put on lunch for us. We had fried chicken, pizza bread, fresh vegetables, watermelon, sticky cinnamon buns, and one of Canada’s greatest inventions, Nanaimo bar. Thank you, Mom and Dad!
From there, it was freshly graded sketchy gravel downhill which on a Raleigh 20 is like riding on marbles on banana skins on ice with grease on it, then onto tar seal, mainly descending all the way to Palmerston North. It was hot, but we had a bit of a tailwind so we made good time.
From there, we left Palmerston North and headed up over the Pahiatua Track (a side note, if any of the route organisers are reading this: we see what you did there by making us ride up Polson Hill, The Steepest Hill You Could Find, and then just sending us back down the other side to rejoin the route. What an inspired call, and hilarious, and in the early evening after having already ridden 100km, we had a good old laugh ha ha ha ha ha).
We finished up at Pahiatua Carnival Park, which we can thoroughly recommend (well priced, friendly, clean), where my parents, who had driven down while we biked around, spoiled us again, this time with Chinese takeaways. Parents: they're the best!
Todays stats:
131 km total distance
1490m total climbing
7:17 total riding time
3967 calories
78.5 kph max speed