Thanks for the holiday wishes Bob! It didn't disappoint!
Had a great time!
Yeah I love the idea of those pm pedals...drool
Btw don't ever go to "The Indian Cafe" in Nelson. Couldn't make anything vegan!
"Little India" were much more accommodating.
Oh well had a great time in Nelson between 2 lots of flooding
Weather was great. A really comfortable 23degrees everyday and strong sunshine. Man the sun is ridiculously strong up there. One year I took my top off playing tennis for about 30mins and the rest of the time had to go swimming in a t shirt I was so burnt. Lot more carefull this time and I did some good work getting the tan lines on the arms at least not so noticeable.
Kids lived in the pool at the place which was good as couldn't go swimming in the sea the 1st few days. Was good seeing the youngest really getting a lot more confident by the end.
Hardly any evidence of the "massive devastation" I was half expecting from the news reports. Apart from a few slips here and there that had mainly been already cleaned up very little evidence. Anyway after the sun comes out water drains away pretty quickly.
Went for lots of rides. Cool having real cycle lanes away from the road too. In ChCh they just paint a strip on the road in the "door zone" and call it a cycleway
Anyway went for 7rides while there. Had a beautiful 100k ride out to the Rai Valley over a couple of big hills. All covered in mainly mature Pine, and some Native forest. (However won't look so good in a couple of yrs when the trees get harvested
)
Had crystal clear river running at the side of the road a lot of the way, which was just beautiful. Don't think I've ever seen a river that clear before! Passed a few cycle tourists going both ways which was good to see. However seemed to time my ride just right as there were lots of big trucks going in the other direction. Wouldn't have been much fun on some of the narrow sections with convoys of trucks up your arse!
Most of the other rides were just fifty k rides in the local area. One cycle lane was really cool going right through a vinyard. You could reach over and pick the grapes if they were ready. Unfortunately they weren't
Best ride was from Richmond to Motueka and up to the top of the Takaka hill. Took some back roads on the way there which was really nice. Very fertile area with a great warm sunny climate so one of the best growing areas in NZ. Heaps of veggie, berry, orchard and Vinyards as well as one of the major hop growing areas around Motueka. Had a great ride up the Takaka hill though. Its 13k's long but I only did 10k's as they last 3 k's are a bit up and down. Gradient isn't too steep except for very bottom so could keep up a good speed. Took me 41mins to the top.
Fantastic descent though. Nice road, long sweeping (and some quite tight) corners. But was a little anoying catching up to cars and then getting slowed down on the corners. So had to stop a few times so they could get ahead of me and not impede my progress
At the base looked at my speedo and was surprised to see 70k's already on the CC. So had another 56k's to get back to Nelson( my ride had finished his shorter distance and gone home) which was the longest ride I've done in ages. Got a bit excited on the way out so started to run out of energy after about 90k's having only taken an apple and 1 bidon of sportsdrink and no money with me
So got slower and slower. My CC made overseas couldn't handle the vibration of the NZ course chip and went blank which was good as I would have been embarrased at the speed I was keeping
Direct seabreeze headwind for the last sixteen k's so was crawling by the time I got home mainly due to lactic acid buildup and/or dehydration as 1.5litres for nearly 5hrs was nowhere near enough. Didn't bonk but must have been close.
So 4hr41 ride.
Just under 400km on the clock for the holiday so was good to make it over the 6000km for the year. So much easier getting motivated cycling in a new area. Would have been much harder not cycling
Another highlight was hanging out on Tahunanui beach and going swimming in the sea which was really nice and warm. Wasn't sure if I'd be able to with the beaches having been closed at first due to the flooding. Much warmer than it is down here. As we filled up with petrol on the way out it started spitting which progressively got worse but by the time we reached ChCh it was hardly raining. Just had the cold air to deal with istead
Quite shocked to hear of another couple of large eq's in Christchurch while on holiday. A 5.8 and a mag 6.0( 15,000tonnes TNT equivalent) directly underr New Brighton beach on Dec 23rd. Bit like groundhog day so wasn't sure what we'd go home to. The Grandparents are still up North so was good being able to get to their house 1st and cleanup. The grandmother is very traumatised by the quakes and would have been badly affected having to see that damage. Was much worse than I expected with stuff all over the floor. Their house is getting demo'd btw as the foundation block it sits on is cracked right through even though the rest of it is very strong being a good quality house with very solid and thick reinforced concrete walls built in the mid 90's.
So after seeing that was surprised that our own house had very little damage. Just a few photo frames kitchen stuff and a few broken wine glasses. But I suppose it was
only a mag6 and 13k's away in a direct line which is a bit furthur away than the other mag6's we've had
Just means the eq's have woken up again after a reasonable quiet period. Only felt one decent quake since I've been back, a loud mag4.3 the night we got home. Was a bit annoyed I missed a mag4.8 today by just a few mins as I was driving
Anyway happy New year. Have a good one!
Or lose traction and spin the backwheel. The topo map looked so nice and smooth too 
) 
Which means of its 3zones it records 2 are where I normally sit on the flat 130bpm and on the hills 150 so keeps going beep beep beep whenever I go from one HR zone to another which is nearly constantly! Will have to pretend I'm younger to get my maxHR up so the 3 zones are where I think the should be, instead of the arbitary place(IMO) they now sit. Then at least the beeps will tell me something I may want to know 
