The other week I tried riding in to my Northcote school.

I have a road bike from when I used to cycle to an old job before I got my drivers’ licnce. It’s about nine years old but still goes well.

The ride is certainly not short – 15km each way or 30km total, not including the ferry ride inbetween.

And that was the biggest problem with that ride – missing the Birkenhead ferry and having a half-hour wait for the next one. Where’s that harbour bridge cycleway when you need it?

Birkenhead Ferry at Northcote Point, and a local

Aside from that, it was a good exercise. I’d left a change of clothes at the school in case I ever did this – that was six months ago so they were a little dusty – but meant I didn’t have to take a change with me. The school has staff shower facilities too.

I caught the ferry to Northcote Point for the outward trip, and met it at Birkenhead for the homeward trip. On the city cide, I used the Northwestern Cycleway up to Carrington Rd, including its just-opened new section through Kingsland.

The new section is great – and well lit too. Unfortunately the next section between St Lukes Rd and Carrington Rd is incredibly poorly lit and I nearly lost my balance after striking a rock I didn’t see here!

To carry my equipment with me, I’ve upgraded to the Logitech Kinetik backpack, which is a rigid backpack designed to carry a laptop plus a whole bunch of accessories.

Logitech Kinetik backpack

I’ve managed to fit all of these into that bag:

• My laptpop with charger
• Commonly used tools
• Jacket and umbrella
• Cabling
• Lunch
• Breath mints (important!)
• A paper file
• Extra discs and recovery equipment

And my little laptop fits into a separate well-protected compartment, leaving the main laptop bay free to fit a second laptop or additional gear. I’ve already used this to move a couple of serviced and spare laptops around from and to a couple of clients.

I’m going to try to bike a bit more often. If I can get a cheap second bike, it may even be an option to bike to the local train station (Mt Albert). The problem is there’s no lockers there. Mt Albert and Baldwin Ave stations have missed out on the Wedst Line upgrade.

Birkenhead · cycling · ferry · laptop · Mt Albert · Northcote