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Did a 4-day gravel ride around central Otago, south island of New Zealand, over the Christmas-New Year break. Flew down with our bikes on the plane, assembled them in the airport and then chained together the Otago rail trail, Clutha gold trail and Roxborough trail for a total of about 350 km. Weather was fantastic the whole time, sunny without being overly hot (mostly) and very little wind. Rode my relatively old Boardman CX bike which I've modified to have a MTB rear derailleur and 11-36 cassette. The smallest gear combo I have of 34 front 36 rear was adequate but I was out of the saddle for some of the steeper climbs (some sustained ~12% gradients).  The Otago rail trail is super flat and easy riding, kinda boring for the first day at least where we did 90 km almost entirely up-hill at a constant 1 to 2% gradient. The Roxborough trail was a lot more technically challenging and thus more fun, but the trail has a big gap in the middle where you have to book a jet boat to take you and your bikes from one point to the other, which was interesting but a bit expensive. The Clutha gold trail was a really nice flowy ride for the first half but the second half was a little repetitive. The final day we left the cycle trails and took forestry roads back to the airport we started from which was a much more 'proper' bikepacking day, with some pretty serious elevation change. It would have been a nightmare to ride in bad weather but we were lucky so overall just a good fun day's ride.      
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Jan 30, 2021 21:20
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:07 |
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Bud Manstrong posted:This looks incredible! Cheers, I assume that strava will let me share activities via link? Day 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/4547026365 Day 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/4547026373 Day 3: https://www.strava.com/activities/4547026396 Day 4: https://www.strava.com/activities/4547026359 As you can see it was a pretty cruisy trip.
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Jan 31, 2021 03:48
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El Laucha posted:An active volcano seems like a good place to ride Cool! You ever hiked to the top?
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Feb 3, 2021 18:58
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El Laucha posted:Yeah, like 5-6 years ago during winter. It’s a 6 hour hike from the skiing center, with around 1200m of vertical ascensión. Then maybe 30 mins to go down, fun as hell. You go up to the edge of the crater and you can see down inside the caldera. The smell of sulfur made your eyes water, many got nauseous. So, so easy to fall inside. Awesome, wow that's a shitload more active than the closes volcano here that I've gone up a few times (Mt Ruapehu), it has a warm acidic lake in the crater but not actual visible lava.
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Feb 4, 2021 20:02
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Hey not sure if shilling is ok, if not let me know, but my partner has a side-business making bicycle bags, mostly for bikepacking but also things like cycling-specific hip packs and even a giant bag for a cargo bike. Thought it would be appropriate to share in this thread given that gravel bikes often pair well with some bags for overnight trips. We live in New Zealand but she has shipped stuff overseas (shipping can be kinda expensive these days though). On the positive side the NZ dollar is weak as hell right now so if you're overseas the prices are probably relatively cheaper. She sells via her instagram, which also has a lot of examples of her work: https://www.instagram.com/paperroadsaotearoa Here are some pics for attention.   
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Jun 20, 2022 06:25
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Did a local gravel shakedown ride of my old CX bike turned gravel bike today, after replacing a bunch of components.    Feels a lot more playful and active than it used to, I think that's down to the new wheels and/or tires. Also the gravelking SS 38's really soak up coarse chip seal pavement and seem faster than the terrano dry's I was using previously. Was only a 40 km ride around flat roads, maybe 50% gravel, but super pleased with how it's turned out.
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Jul 28, 2023 04:53
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:07 |
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Found some gravel over the weekend with my partner, we only had half a day so it was a fairly relaxed 60 km with about 950m of climbing, maybe 50/50 gravel and tarmac.  I was carrying some ultralight trail panniers her bike bag company makes and they were great, I didn't have much in them as it was a short ride but I didn't even notice they were there while riding. Even pushing a reasonable speed into a stiff headwind I didn't notice any additional drag.   Perfect terrain and conditions for the Graveking SS tires I have on right now, they honestly feel like a road tire on sealed roads.   Absolutely perfect winter day in New Zealand, super green countryside due to all the rain we've had this year, if only the whole area didn't smell like cow poo poo due to all the dairy farms...
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Aug 5, 2023 06:37
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