Why New Zealand?

Yes, good question. Why New Zealand? I guess what most people think of when you mention New Zealand has changed slightly over the years but you can still expect fairly consistent answers. From "sheep", "Maoris" or "the All Blacks" to today's more common answers like "Lord of the Rings",

"The Hobbit", "Christchurch Earthquake" or perhaps even that New Zealand regularly appears in the top 5 in most "quality of life/progressive country" type surveys - our knowledge of New Zealand is fairly superficial. That intrigues me. Other than being a beautiful country - a major attraction in itself for a keen cyclist like me - what more is there to New Zealand?

Then of course there's the attraction of the climate at this time of year. I'd already planned in that I would go somewhere new for 6-7 weeks during November & December, cycling being the main purpose, so I quickly boiled it down to only a few options in the Southern Hemisphere and soon opted for New Zealand.

Another attraction is that, strangely enough, road touring cycling doesn't really seem to have established itself much yet in New Zealand. Doing a little bit of research I can see that there appears to be a fairly strong and growing cycling club culture throughout the country. There are also a few quite popular sportives, like the Lake Taupo Challenge. However there is very little to be found on the web about road cycling tours, organised trips, tour companies etc. There's been a lot of investment in the last 5 years in creating a nationwide cycle trails network but this seems to be targetting "short stage" mountain bike / hybrid cyclists who want to spend a few days exploring a specific part of the country.

Another recurring theme that comes up when you explore cycling related info on the web is the perception of a strong conflict between cyclists and motorists in New Zealand. I've frequently come across the accusation that "New Zealand drivers hate cyclists", "the roads are built for cars", "it's a war out there & cycling is too dangerous". You know the score. No newspaper or blogger seems to be able to publish an article about cycling without their comments feed filling up with abuse, hatred and trolling to the extreme. This is where the UK was 5-10 years ago. Things are getting better mainly because cycling has reached a critical mass or tipping point. Sweden hasn't got there yet. Then if no-one cycles there and no-one writes about it or promotes it then it's never going to get a chance.

So one day a few months ago I opened up the ridewithgps.com route planning site, clicked around the map in a roughly circular fashion - coming back to my theoretic starting point - and concluded that "about 4,000kms" total distance was something that I could cope with in about 6 weeks. Then the fun started - the detailed planning. But more about that a little later.....