The Cycle Race

Okay... don't get excited I didn't actually sign up for a race or anything. I was just looking at my journal and remembered that I wanted to blog about my close encounter of the cycling kind.

When I left the National Park the first part was amazing - very fast pace (travelling about 35km/h down some steep hills and even went quickly up some (dare I say it) pleasant hills. Anyway, I was coming upon Raetihi (once again I apologize if I've put in the wrong name or spelled it incorrectly) and I was probably cycling at around 40km/h when I passed a sign that said "Caution Cycle Race" and there was a girl (about 20 years old) directing me to turn onto a highway toward Ohakune. I ignored her wishes and said I wasn't apart of the race... then it occurred to me that this was an opportunity to see other cyclists in action and also have a break... so I stopped and went back to chat with her.

She was just about to head back to Otago University in Dunedin - seems everyone goes there... for the full on "uni experience". She apologized to me for thinking that I was apart of the race, but she had been told the first cyclist wasn't that far off... hence the other reason to stay and chat up a stranger at the side of the road. Anyway, we continued to chat about my journey and wait and wait. I finally asked her a few more details about the race, typically it takes people at least 4 hours to finish the race from Ohakune - up the Desert Road to National Park and then back... and the longest finishing times are about 8hours. Usually the first cyclists would be due to pass this area at 11:30am - and the current time was 10:40am. So I asked her how much longer I should wait to see some cyclists. This is when the light bulb went on - she said that two race organizers had come by about 20 minutes ago (in a Ute) stating that the lead cyclist was about 20 - 30 minutes away and that records would be broken in this race... now I think some of you will see where this is going... realizing that they too had confused me with being in the race, I must've been impressing them with my speed and grace...hahaha!

After this realization... I just smiled and kept moving on!