The bike wobbled. Katherine put one foot down at once and laughed.
Both hands were still tight around the handlebars, her shoulders held stiff. One foot had found the pedal; the other seemed reluctant to leave the ground.
She tried again. The bike rolled forward a few metres. Her foot went straight back down.
She had not properly ridden a bicycle in more than thirty years.
Behind the Town Hall
That morning, the plan was to try part of the Te Awa River Ride. I had looked at the route beforehand. It followed the Waikato River towards Karāpiro, and it was long enough to make cycling a better proposition than walking.
Cycling, however, had not been part of our plan.
Cambridge was already bright when we reached the Cambridge Town Hall. A few horse sculptures stood nearby.
Katherine stopped to look at them, then wandered off on her own.
Behind the town hall was a small wooden hut I had barely noticed. Several bicycles stood outside. Helmets hung nearby.
I followed her.
“You want to ride?”
She did not answer straight away.
The young man at the hire hut wheeled out a black mountain bike, adjusted the saddle and showed her the brakes and gears. He did not hurry her. He simply stood back and waited.
Katherine listened carefully.
She got on.
The bike wobbled again.
Her foot hit the ground.
She laughed.
The young man laughed.
So did I.
Again.
One foot on the pedal, one push from the ground. A short roll forward. Stop.
Again.
A little farther this time.
We gathered enough courage to hire two bikes for two hours.
We told ourselves we would see how far we got. If it did not feel right, we could come back.
Before attempting the trail, we went to the large field opposite the town hall.
Katherine rode round and round. At first every turn was slow. The moment the bike leaned, one foot was already preparing to meet the ground. She would steady herself on the straight, try another corner, then carry on.
After more than ten laps, she rode back towards me and stopped cleanly.
She looked up at me.
I looked back.
We nodded.
Neither of us said a word.
Off we go.
Wrong Way
Te Awa was the target.
We saw a green River Ride sign and followed it.
The path ran beneath old trees. One enormous silver maple reached over the trail, its leaves already taking on the first colours of autumn. Sunlight came through the canopy in broken patches, bright and dark across the asphalt.
Then came the sculptures.
Beside the wetland, a huge tūī spread its wings.
Farther on, an iron pūkeko sat at one end of a wooden bench with a basket in its lap. Katherine sat down beside it and raised a hand against the sun.
There was an iron dog farther along.
We kept riding.
After a while, something began to feel wrong.
I stopped and opened the map on my phone.
Wrong direction.
The signs made sense now. We had ridden towards the Art Trail.
I showed Katherine the screen.
She looked at it.
We both laughed.
Turn around.
By the time we found the way towards Karāpiro again, more than an hour had gone.
We had hired the bikes for two.
I checked the time, then looked at Katherine.
She held the handlebars and looked down the trail ahead.
She did not suggest going back.
“Is this okay?”
Katherine was still riding slowly, hands firm on the grips, shoulders tight, eyes fixed on the path.
After a while:
“Is this okay?”
A little later:
“Am I going too slowly?”
At a small rise:
“Should I get off and push here?”
I rode beside her.
Whenever the bike gave a small wobble, I found myself drifting closer. When someone approached from the other direction, I checked the width of the path before she did.
Dry leaves lay across the trail. The tyres made a soft, brittle sound as they passed over them.
Cyclists kept coming towards us. Some were in full kit and were gone almost as soon as they appeared. A family came by more slowly, children in front, adults following.
Others looked about our age.
A nod.
A smile.
One rider passed Katherine and called out:
“You’re doing great!”
For a moment she looked surprised.
Then she smiled.
Later another cyclist gave her a thumbs-up. This time she lifted her head and smiled back.
On the next downhill she feathered the brake herself. Where the surface changed, she steered around it. Every now and then she looked down and changed gear.
At some point, I stopped hearing:
“Is this okay?”
Then she was riding in front of me.
The bright green helmet moved steadily along the trail. Her shadow and the bike’s shadow fell at an angle across the path.
She did not turn around to ask me anything.
“That’s a Paddock”
The houses thinned out and the country opened.
Black timber fences ran along the road, turned at right angles and disappeared into broad green fields. Horses grazed behind them. A few stood in the shade.
We stopped to watch.
Katherine pointed.
“See? That’s a paddock.”
I followed her finger and immediately thought of two days earlier, when we had just arrived in Cambridge.
We had been standing outside Paddock Café.
I had looked up at the sign.
“What does ‘paddock’ mean?”
She smiled.
“You’ll know in a couple of days.”
Now we rode on.
I looked back once at the field.
I had nothing else to ask.
The Green Helmet
Te Awa carried on beneath more old trees, their branches reaching across the track until, for a while, they almost met overhead.
Then the trees fell away.
The sky opened.
Low hills sat in the distance. Closer to us were farms, timber fences and trees beginning to turn.
A gap slowly opened between Katherine and me.
She was ahead now, still wearing the same bright green helmet.
I noticed that her shoulders were no longer held as tightly as they had been in the field. When the track was clear, she sometimes lifted her head and looked beyond it.
I did not catch up.
Watching that green helmet move steadily along the trail, I could not help smiling.
The Same Lake
Later, we reached Lake Karāpiro.
I had been there alone the previous morning.
Then, the lake had been buried in mist. Water and sky were almost the same grey-white. Young rowers carried long boats down from their shoulders, lowered them onto the water and disappeared, stroke by stroke, into the fog.
Now it was close to midday.
The mist was gone.
Sunlight lay across the lake. The pale concrete of the dam appeared between the trees, with tall poplars rising beside it.
The water was bright. Autumn trees and large white clouds shared the reflection.
Katherine stopped her bike, the green helmet still on.
Behind her were the lake, the dam and those tall poplars.
Looking across the water, I thought of the rowers I had watched there the morning before.
Wind came up from below.
The surface flashed in the sun.
We stood there for a while.
“Not Bad”
On the way back, our legs began to ache.
The saddles felt harder too.
Katherine said the bike had knocked her legs several times and she would probably have more than one bruise by the time we got home.
A little later, she announced that the saddle was hurting her backside.
I laughed.
She laughed too.
We kept riding.
By then the sun was high and the coolness of the morning had gone.
When the little wooden hire hut came back into view, it was already after midday.
The young man saw us returning.
“How was it?”
Katherine handed the bike back.
“Not bad.”
I checked my phone.
22.20 kilometres.
3 hours, 52 minutes, 56 seconds.
Started 8:46.
Finished 12:39.
We had paid for two hours.
I went to settle the difference.
Afterwards, Katherine and the young man stood outside the hut for a photo, the two bikes resting nearby.
Fine beads of sweat still showed on her forehead, but her shoulders had relaxed. When she smiled, the corners of her eyes curved with it.
The young man stood beside her, smiling rather shyly.
He looked at Katherine, then at the bike she had just returned.
“Katherine might end up buying herself a bike.”