Somewhere near the top of The Bastard

I decided that I was neither mentally or physically fit so to prove this beyond any possible doubt pointed my grunt machine up Gebbies Pass and thereafter up Summit Road, a road known to cyclists as The Bastard - it just seems to go on and on and on and up and up and up......

I decided that the objective should be to survive the trip and so I found a couple of reasons to stop on the cruelest and most grueling stretch, first to take this photo and secondly to urinate. Typically that's when most of the other traffic turned up, to view yet another roadside attraction, but by that time I could not really have cared any less.

We have to count ourselves as incredibly lucky though to have all this on our back door-step. I think of those poor suckers in Auckland trying to "enjoy" a cycle out and about the airport every time I venture up these hills.

This is looking down the harbour and toward flood ravaged Lyttelton.

Still this ride took me about twice the time it used to, well maybe not twice but certainly long enough. As a reward, I came home and mowed the lawns.