Cycling NZ26 - Day 28 - Duel

The blasted Crap nav is doing its best to give me the full New Zealand experience and being that I am easily lead I continue to do as I’m told. 

I seem to be fighting everything. The crap nav for sure. There really is only one route down to Christchurch which means I have been stuck on national route 1 for the last 3 days. Not too bad really cos the traffic was relatively light and there was a decent shoulder for the best part of it. However it is the only route connecting the South Island to the North Island so it kinda has all the traffic and big rigs from the ferry, the farms the loggjng etc on it...  

So the crap nav says let’s go this way and I say okay 🤨. After hours of greasing along on lovely tarmac I suddenly find myself courtesy of the Crap Nav back on an ultra-ultra soft gravelly road. When will I ever learn!  I for sure plough through it better than cycling it. And then there’s the fence. We climb over that. And then the river bed. We fight through all the shingle. And then the river. Thank you Crap Nav. It’s only 7 miles back to the main road. Nonetheless he stares at me with bright open eyes and a manic smile on his face. OK. OK. 

I knew I had brought my banana skin shoes for a reason. A quick change and away we go. Across the river. Only up to my knees. He’s stood up on my handlebars running left and right clapping his little hands together so so happy was he that we made it here together. Right here. Right now. Yup, like I said. The full New Zealand experience. Thank you Crap Nav. 

In my life there is a pecking order. Who tells who what to do. For sure the Crap Nav is at the top of that little tree.  Then the cat.  Well it was. The Crap Nav is partly the reason why I don’t have a cat any more, see later. Then the girlfriend. Then everyone else. And then me.

For example, in my last relationship I’d accidentally taken my crap nav into the bedroom. It was a lovely evening. There I was making beautiful love to my girlfriend and right out of the blue the crap nav said ‘make a U turn’.  So I did.  I immediately jack-knifed and fell out of the bed. Couldn’t help it. A Pavlovian reaction. 

Boy was the cat unhappy. Had been joining in licking its bits when all of a sudden I landed on it.  Took me 30 minutes to get its head out of its arse.  Hence no cat any more. 

And then there’s the double articulated 55 tonners. Riding along with them is not too bad on the flat stuff. The shoulders are wide and even the idiots seem to scrape by without to much worry for me. 

That is until you reach a sharp left hand uphill bend in the mountains. Now that felt unsafe. Simply because the big double articulated rigs scape past you on the straight and level at the best of times flatly refusing to cross the central median even when there is no other traffic about. So being invisible around a left hand bend worried me enough to stop on the grade listen down the valley for a big diesel fighting up it and if all was quiet to then quickly press on.  But damn and blast if one more of the feckers scrapes past me there will be hell to pay!  

My name is Menace Fever. I’m out of the mountains and onto the relative rolling land that run towards Christchurch.

This could be Northern California. The roads are quiet and I’m happy in the grove making good progress. All of a sudden out of nowhere this big double articulated milk tanker of a thing flies past me. Almost leaves a strip of light blue paint down my panniers. I scream wildly with a PAAARRRGGHHH! sound.  I’m sure he heard. 

That’s torn it and I’m off after him!  

We’re on a downhill section and he’s on his Jake brakes. I however have no fear of downhills. I catch up, pull out and overtake him. I give the driver an almighty fright as my manky dusty rig speeds past his open door window ringing my bell. 

In now back in front in the middle of the lane on a left hand bend. I’m all black. Saturated in the grease and the dust of 28 days riding my bike to hell and back.  I slow down.   Growling my way up the hill. I snick my bike one at a time into the lower gears for I have 22 to play with and grind out the road ahead.  I hear him shouting aw c’mon get a move on will ya. Not a chance. This fecker is never going to scrape past another cyclist ever again. 

Then there’s an opportunity. I stick my right arm out and give him the c’mon signal to encourage him to pass on the gradual left hander. I see him in my mirror pull out just as a caravan and motor home combo comes around the bend. Almost had him. He sharply pulls back in behind me. I see the look of shock and fear on his face in my small rear view mirror. 

He sees an opportunity up ahead, hits the throttle and drives off the road into the passing place on the other side and somehow manages to get past. I scream with anger RAAARRRGGHHH and ring my bell wildly!  But too late, he Is past and away. 

Some time passes and yes there he is in a cafe stop. I pull up outside and enter the cafe. It’s full of cyclists all eating choc chip cookies and swigging high energy drinks. I see him sat at the table in the corner. He’s obviously chuntering to himself. He spots my black bike outside. I see him trying to recall was I the one with the boa fasteners on my MTB shoes and just what was the colour of my helmet?

He gets up and fair lays into the bloke to my right. Hey Mister. I don’t know what I have done to upset ya but just let it go okay!  The cyclist, an off road downhill racer type, takes unkindly to his accusations and hits him in the milk churns. In the ruckus I slip out the door and get going on the bike. He sprints after me but no not a chance. I’ve got 22 speeds on this sucker… and I’m gone.  But no he’s not getting away from me. So I hide in a lay-by, just like the police do, and wait for him to pass…. Which he eventually does. 

I’m cycling along and spot his rig in the roadside zoo ahead. He’s in the telephone box. Yeah the fecker is trying to report me to the police. The yard out front is full of cages loaded with every dam dangerous animal that crawls the earth in this neck of the woods. There’s bunny rabbits and possums and even the deadly Blue Duck. 

I scream a ferocious RAAAARRRGGHHH! as I pile in through the cages whilst ringing my bell!  There’s wild rabbits everywhere. Somehow he gets out of the telephone box, avoids being nibbled and manages to get in his truck and is away from me before I have chance to pull the chicken wire off of my bike. And I’m off after him into the grade ahead. 

Now it looks like he’s having a problem. Yes yes!  I see him smashing his steering wheel with his fist and to all intents he is screaming as his truck splutters and falters on the grade. Perhaps he’s run out of Ad Blue. I’m right behind him ramming into his long vehicle sign with my front pannier adding tiny little scratches to his paintwork.  I catch a glimpse of him screaming C’MON!  C’MON! at his truck as he struggles up the rise. He crests the hill and starts to free wheel away from me. Makes a very sharp left hand bend and disappears down a gravelly track. 

I see him!  I see him!  Oh no you don’t and give chase. He reaches the edge of the canyon, turns his rig, jams a 2 litre bottle of milk and two cartons of extra thick cream on his accelerator and jumps out. 

I see this at the last moment and hit his big rig head on. There’s an explosion of milk. I hit my brakes and let out an unearthly OH NOOOO! furiously ringing my bell as I push his rig with a loud MOOOOO! over the cliff edge. 

The dust eventually settles. My rear wheel spins as the free wheel hub slowly clicks the late afternoon away. I stand up, brush off my bike, pull it up the other side of the canyon and am away feeling rather satisfied as I watch him dancing in the evening sun over the remains of his wrecked truck. 

What?  No of course this is not a made up story based on the film Duel

It really did happen.  Yes it did!  

I’ll show you the milk stains and the dusty blue scratches on my bike when I get home!

Ciao for now