President Ian welcomed everyone to our meeting at the Cambridge Cricket Club. The meeting was hosted by the Cricket Club and put on by the Community Committee run by Nigel Salter.

Thanks go to Nigel and his team for putting on a great night for us.

Gavin Levesque introduced our guest speakers Chris & Hilary Smiley. Gavin made a point of all the people in the room wearing an element of biking apparel as was mentioned in the Bulletin.

Chris & Hilary have been cycling trails for many years, in Asia and Africa and finally decided to take on a challenge in New Zealand, the Tour Aotearoa (TA), stretching 3000km from Cape Reinga to the Bluff. This was a huge challenge and the Smiley family made the point to Chris and Hilary that they were turning 75 this year and they were taking on the biggest challenge of their lives.

Chris’s 3 daughters were with us for the evening, 2 daughters from Cambridge, Sharon and Carolyn and a daughter from Vancouver Island, Kathryn. Chris and Hilary’s family were the support network for the trip and were following progress via a Locator Beacon.

Chris talked about one of his University colleagues saying to him “for goodness sake Chris, act your age..”.

Due to Covid traffic light settings and restrictions around Auckland and Northland Chris and Hilary decided to join the ride from Auckland. From Auckland to the Bluff was still 2500km. the Smileys registered for the TA a year ago and started on a training programme building up their stamina and endurance. The TA is more an endurance ride than a race and involved on average 100km riding per day.

Chris and Hilary both talked through the presentation and showed us a number of photos from their trip. Hilary talked about the trip being 50% on road and 50% offroad and some of the offroad was rocks not stone trails. The goal for the event was to complete the TA in under 25 days and you had to spend 6 hours off the bike to make sure that you rested each day.

Nutrition was extremely important and Chris talked about the health aspects of the trip, requiring twice the daily calorie intake and the need for lots of protein. They talked about the Trail Angels that they met along the way, locals in the backwaters of New Zealand that supported the TA participants with food and drink stops, local produce and cooking and chilled drinks stops.’

Hilary called the trip “an experience of a lifetime”

President Ian thanked the Smileys for their presentation and we moved on to the dinner for the evening. The Cricket Club hosted our dinner and the Community Committee served us our food which was very nice.

 

John Bishop announced the timing for a combined 75th anniversary and Change over night - 30th June at the Don Rolands Centre