On biking to liz’s

I was ambivalent about the distance at first. The first time I went I took the bus to hornby and then hiked up worsley, along the summit road and down to her place. Then took the bus home again. Since I have only taken the bus there one other time, and that was because I thought the bus over would make good time to do some reading: but it just took forever and I decided never to do that again. Plus the guy who ended up living there biked all the time to Canterbury uni...

I always take the same route. First down clyde to fendalton and after onto straven (being mindful of traffic as you cross two lanes of traffic from the bike lane to the turning lane). Straven is an enjoyable long strait-shot as straven changes names several times and passes through lights, a railway crossing, a highway, a school (my favorite part right next to the grass and the road here is wider) before coming to cashmere rd at a round about. Stop at the round about, wait for a gap and then proceed through a long curve (wonderful to take at full speed coming the other way) until another round about. Use caution here as the cars coming down dyres pass rd can be going Fast down that steep bit. Then don't miss the turn, or turn to early, onto landsdowne (I had to look up the spelling of that name...). The final stretch is a sprint, though on later trips I gave up sprinting up roseneath place to their home in favor of walking and cooling down.

Biking there in late afternoon I seemed to have the least luck and would often hit every light, very annoying. On the other hand going either way late at night I seemed to just make every light and make fantastic time. In general though the trip from liz’s is a minute or two shorter. Interesting to note that when sprinting the journey I would often hit lots of lights and when I went at a normal pace with Fabian we were only a minute slower than normal. I forget my times now, but I have a note I made for the couch-surfer Nano that it took me 25 minutes to bike home from the bollywood party. Morning bike rides always promised to be sweet but somehow the sunrises in Christchurch don't bring too much color; perhaps I was riding a bit late as sunrise color is often just after dawn and before the sun rises. One morning riding back I was carving as a skier for almost all the journey and taking it real slow, fun though I’m sure the cars thought I was crazy. I normally just biked it hard out and enjoyed the rush and wind, but occasionally (like that morning) I would take a more leisurely pace and think on the world, relationships, and experiences. For enjoying a ride I generally would bike to the beach: loving the world, clouds, wind, pavement at a fast or slow pace for the sake of the moment and not the destination. For enjoyable scenery I perfected my ride into town to stay off the major roads and visit nice neighborhoods with pretty flowers which I would almost coast through.

There's a bit on my Christchurch riding!