On the 22 of September My class and I went for a 34 km bike ride on the Wilderness Cycle Trail from Milltown to Kapitea Reservoir. We started biking around 9:30 but we had to be at the school by ten past eight. We finished around 3:30.
We drove to Hokitika, past Lake Kaniere and to Miltown where we stopped. I went up with my dad in his shuttle van with a couple of my friends. It was fun because we were listening to music and doing tik toks. Once we got out of the van lots of the mountain bikes weren't up to the ride. Some bikes had flat tyres or the brakes had been tightened too much so they were braking by themselves without even using the brakes. So I helped my Dad to fix them. At this point the weather was drizzle and damp but luckily I came equipped with the right equipment; like a rain jacket!
I got out and put Billie’s seat down using the tool from my dad's trailer. The seat couldn't go down any further and It was even a little low for her but she didn't feel confident with it higher so I biked with her. She was also not used to the two chain rings and using her thumb for changing gears. The start of the ride was me biking with Billie to help her get used to it. Right at the start of the ride there was this really cute black calf that was just cruising around watching all the bikers go past. For a little bit at the start it was flat through a paddock with a river running under a hill. Then we came to a hill where it looked as if it went forever. It wasn't that steep but for bikers that didn't do much biking it was a challenge. I helped a lot of the people with using their gears so it was easier to ride up the hill.
As soon we were at the top of the hill we were at Cowboy’s Paradise. As soon as I got there people were telling me not to skid because they had gotten in trouble. They said they got yelled at by a man with not a very good temper and not a good vocabulary range for 12 year kids!
The second stage was pretty hard. We had to bike up a hill and it was long and steep. The person I was biking with gave up so I kept on biking because I wanted to challenge myself. It felt like I had to pedal hard or I would fall all the way back down the hill. I rode all the way to the top and I was pretty happy with myself. One thing that was annoying was when people stopped in the middle of the track and some people were on a roll determined to get up the hill but there was no space for them to pass. It is of course hard to start on a sloped angle so those people had to walk.
When I looked down from all the zigzag hill I saw all the boys stuck behind the tandem bike because they weren't allowed to pass the adult on that bike. That made me laugh quite a lot .
After that there was a steady hill we climbed again but it wasn't too steep. I was talking to my friends most of the way. We finally got to the down hill part and, boy, were we flying down that down hill! At the bottom of the hill we had to climb again! But it wasn't too long. We stopped at Kawahaka intake for lunch. It was good to eat some food because I was hungry.
The last stage for me was the trickiest because I was tired and there were hills. It felt as if the ride was never going to end. At this point I had to put in all my effort/energy into pedaling up the last hills and to finish. As soon as we got to the end I wanted to go home. I was knackered!
