After the experiment yesterday morning, I rode up the hill in peak hour traffic. It was a little cray cray to be honest, but OK. The hill was totally fine, although I think I was in top gear from some of it.

Overall: pretty stoked!

Mercifully I didn’t encounter any buses on the way up, I am a little anxious about manoeuvring around them in the narrow bits of road when they’re at a stop.

I did have a bit of a chuckle about the e-bikers zoooooming past me – good for them I say – but I had to remind myself not to try to keep up with them. At one point a chap on a snazzy looking roadbike zipped past me as well. I told myself it must have been an e-bike, but I think, in fact, he was an actual cyclist, unlike me.

I also used Strava for the first time today, starting with the ride down the hill from school. It will potentially be useful for plotting my progress and improvement (if any!).

I liked how someone has entered the “hill climb” as a thing, and I can see my time for that segment – just over 11 minutes, which, again, I am pretty stoked with. I do hope that improves over time as it’s surely a leading indicator of my fitness and preparedness for the big one later in the year.

I’m impressed and a little terrified at the way Strava pretty accurately shows my movements – down to walking around the living room and kitchen at the end of the ride.

My initial impressions are that Strava is trying too hard to get me to connect social stuff – and that ain’t gonna happen for a while. I would love to be able to tap on the map and see the speed I was going, or alternatively the speed chart and see where on the map I was when doing that speed. I apparently got up to nearly 50km/hr, which I can’t imagine is correct, so would love to know where I was when that happened.

A lesson from this morning from an intersection I had not encountered on a bike before, and that was to keep cool. I got a little flustered when I stopped, there were cars behind me that I assessed could make the same turn before me. I attempted to wave one through, but then a line of traffic appeared preventing the car from moving. I should have simply accepted that I had stopped and was going to start again, and not wasted more time missing a chance at going through the intersection, and holding everyone up.

On the 29th of January I set a goal of being able to ride up the hill from the city to my house. Today I did it and I’m quite pleased, I really thought it would take weeks to achieve it. Technically I did stop, but that was so I could cross the traffic to get to my street, I’m totally counting it.

I rode down before 9am, it’s Sunday so traffic was light, and had a pretty enjoyable ride up the hill. During peak traffic it will be quite unpleasant, but at least I know I can do the ride with little drama now.

Today I rode the Juvie again and confronted my failings from the first trip.

In a nutshell it was good. I coped with most of the “difficult” stuff far more easily, and even managed the boardwalk 4 times out of 4 (last time I messed it up 3 times out of 3). The corner that follows the boardwalk I find really tricky, but I managed to get around it perfectly once.

I gave the slalom a go too, it went well until time 3rd time, when the back wheel detached during a moment of over-hard braking. A kind fellow rode over to help me diagnose and fix the issue. He said he had seen front wheels detach but never a back wheel!

Anyhow, I went around again without much incident and was pretty happy with how it went.

Pretty sweet on the way down. I cruised on the way up, but took the footpath. I totally could have done it without stopping, but I had to avoid a speeding skateboarder, and I nearly came a cropper in the same narrow area as last time. I need to do the ride at a quiet time on the road to prove to myself I can do it. But overall I was happy with my progress today.

Following advice to pedal slowly in an easy gear I nailed the longest hill climb so far, all on asphalt. It was about 650 metres. I did it twice and was pleased with my progress, I absolutely believed I would have been able to do it a third time.

It felt like this climb ‘clicked’, but I know I need so much more practice.

Brooklyn hill to my place is about a 1.5km climb, so this was good preparation. The traffic on the hill will make things much harder of course. The work ride is about 3km, half of which is the climb.

Thursday was commute #2. It was raining hard as I got ready to leave but eased off by the time I started to ride. The roads were quiet – I was out the door by 6:50am and was at work just after 7am.

Overall it was a good wee ride.

The ride home was also OK. It was busy – building up to peak time, and it was warm. I decided to ride through Central Park, up the central asphalt path. I stopped toward the top but was happy with my progress. 28 minutes again, but I know this will get faster.

Emerging from the park opposite the Malaysian Embassy, the path to the intersection with Owhiro Road wasn’t very steep at all – which surprised me.

I feel I’m getting closer to being able to ride up the hill on the road.

Today was a milestone for me, the first commute to and from work.

9 minutes there, 30 minutes back up the hill in the evening. About 20 minutes were getting up the hill. I believe that in a month or two I should have the trip home down to 20 minutes.

The journey up was a slog and involved a number of stops. It’s currently 0-3 to the hill, but I intend to reverse that. My aim is to get up without stopping within a month.

Overall I’m pretty happy with my progress so far.

Julian, my work bike mentor, tweaked the placement of the brake lever and gear shifter, they are much more comfortable now.

Great ride this morning. I rode to the National Library in somewhat busy traffic to get a new library card and borrow a book. I was cautious but not physically frightened by the traffic the way I had been on my initial rides.

The wind was about 30km/h too, which was a new experience for me in the city, having only dealt with wind along the quiet coastal trails.

The ride back was good until the base of Central Park. I make it up a reasonable way until my first stop, but from then on it was so steep I stopped several times. My hill start technique was well tested. I ultimately had to walk a lot further than I had hoped.

But I’m determined to get better at it.

It was also the first time using the bike lock at the library. I had separation anxiety!

Following the advice of the wonderful bikethere.org.nz I decided to test out the commute route at a quiet time of day (around 9am on Wellington Anniversary Monday).

I was surprised at how well it went overall. I got to the office in 11 minutes (all downhill of course), and there was very little traffic on the road. As I still can’t really signal while riding I was glad for the lack of traffic.

The downhill section did have me a little worried about the brakes, but I was pretty careful to reduce speed and then allow speed to build up before braking again. I had been doing a little reading and was careful to avoid dragging the brakes (or keeping them on most of the way down).

The ride back took much longer, nearly 30 minutes to go 3km. It took me ten minutes to get to the gates of Central Park, by way of the Victoria Street cycle Lane. It took another 18 minutes to get up the mighty Brooklyn Hill to home, which I figure was slower than I can walk it if I’m really powering up the hill. I needed three stops, the first was unintentional as I was on the footpath and struck the railing at a very narrow point. The other two were out of total knackeredness.

Anyhow, I made it, and was pretty pleased and relieved.

I am not ready for peak time traffic yet, but I’ll keep trying the ride until I feel more confident and able to get up the hill, and in the process hope to improve my road skills with traffic.