Team JIM Sound 2 Sound

Good camp at the gorge, woke and breakfasted looking out over the river. It was a fine sunny morning. Packed up the tents loaded up the bikes and headed off up the first only only real hill.of the day. We turned off for Methven so I could get my spoke fixed. 16km detour to Bigs All's bike and ski shop. While we waited we went for 2nd breakfast. Best breakfast yet..scrambled eggs and black pudding.on toast.. just the job. Spoke fixed, New break cable, wheel realigned and it felt so good.. Back to the trail and onto photo spot at alford forest.  Mt Somers was next stop for a little lunch at the general.store..what a great little store it is, with lots of old shop stuff around the walls and a good stock of Faraday pies which was very good (not as good as Amberley pie though). GF was alright too. We pressed on through more long, straight, flat road with a mix of seal and gravel. Good riding but little points of interest other than sheep, cows, grass and and some tree. The...

Disappointing to leave the loft, such a cool pad, but the cycle trail awaits.  We stopped gor breakfast on way out and continued through west christchurch towards rolleston. 27km of flat riding, we nearly past the town completely, had to double back to get some lunch, to set us up for the 69km steady climb to the gorge. It wad supposed to be 400m of climbing, but cycling through Canterbury was flat as, long straight roads as far as you could see. A bit of sealed and gravel.. but still flat, long and straight. At one point we had 40km to go and I counted only 9 bends in the road. Not corners, just bends.  We were lucky to have a tailwind most of the way which helped and Amanda cycled with the speaker so helps having music to ride along to. By the end of the day it was a bit of a struggle, finished with an awesome decent into the gorge, with snow patrol chasing cars playing (it was one of my favourite songs - discussed during the day).  Unfortunately I discove...

I didn't think I'd ever consider 68km an easy ride. It was, Amberley to christchurch with a tailwind. Mostly flat steady easy going pace with couple of well spaced stopping points for 2nd breakfast and lunch.  I started the day with an outstanding Amberley peppered steak pie, which set me up so I didn't need much.  We made great progress as hoped, arriving in christchurch around lunchtime so we could have a restful afternoon.  We sorted out some bike stuff at evo before visiting riverside markets for food. Amanda and James went off to potentially buy new garmin watched as they had received the 'blue triangle of death' a global garmin upgrade f@#k up. Fortunately the guy at the store was snle to reset them. I walked over yo our appointment we bought a couple of years ago which I'd still not seen. Looks good, but still surrounded by other building sites, which look to complete soon along with the new rugby stadium.  Then back ...

I'll start be apologizing for the various tipos and spelling mistakes. I should have started with this. English was never my strongest subject and writing this on my phone (with or without reading glasses) at then end of a long day cycling, something with a couple of beers under my belt is a challenge in itself. So please beer with me. Today might have been the best day yet, not for the scenery, although it was not too bad, but for how good it felt clocking up another 130km ride felling stong the whole day. It must have been the awesome curry we have in Hamner last night they fueled me along. Admittedly it was not as hard as previous days, more downhill and shorter individual climbs. We still managed 1060m climbing, however spread over the day. The route took us away from the main road, zig zagging from Hamner Springs to Amberley. We planned to stop at the Hurunui Hotel for lunch and as we neared I had thoughts of a cheese and onion toasties and chips. We arrived to find it close...

I am falling behind on the blog, it's now the start of day 5. Yesterday was an 12hr ride. We arrived at Hamner after 8pm and checked into hotel, stored bikes, a quick shower and onto the Indian restaurant next door before they closed at 9pm. It wad an excellent meal.. we were all starving. Then a quick walk through the small town, which was mostly closed and back to bed, too tired to do anything.  It's now 6am and I'm contemplating the day ahead, but need to finish Day Four. I am now confusing myself as this is still entry for day Four. We surfaces from out tests at 6am, the clouds were low over the hills, weather still and dry. We didn't manage to get organized any quicker, not getting away until 8am. Lindsey, Sonia and Frazer (dad, mum and son) shared the camp with us, they had a car and 3 bikes and are also going the S2S, Sharing the driving between stops. They left ahead.ofnus and we'd see them along the way. Sonia and Frazer riding today.  The first stage from ...