TT Report, Day 14: Yes, 14

Back in Auckland, the magnificently mustachioed Benny of Benny’s Bike Shop asked where I was off to. I told him I was heading down to Tassie for 10 days to ride the TT. He said, “What are you going to do with the other five days?”

Fair question. I told him I’d never biked more than 50 km in a day so I thought 10 days was pretty good. But Benny is an actual bike guy. He laughed, but he’s not in the running for Worst Bikepacker in Australia. At two weeks in, surely I’m the front runner.

The best I can say for myself so far is I managed to ride five days in a row without making any decisions so catastrophically stupid that they were life-threatening. The most recent of these was getting separated from my tentpoles on a day of freezing rain. I got ‘em back, but still.

I’ve made some low-stakes mistakes too. A few nights ago the ground was too stony for tent stakes, so I had to get a little creative. It’s not exactly Bear Grylls-level survivalism, but it was still kind of fun tetrissing these together.

I was just about ready to congratulate myself for my cleverness when I realized this is fucking Australia. Some of the most venomous spiders in the world might live right under the rocks I’ve been pulling up. Maybe I should actually inspect them a bit before grabbing them barehanded.

And who should come walking along but this little fella? Exactly the colors of Spider-Man. I thought about letting it bite me. The proportional strength and speed of a spider would make these hills a lot easier to climb.