An Auckland adventure on two wheels

It feels like someone is giving you a gentle push from behind. Though we’re riding uphill, my electric bicycle skims along; the pedals turning effortlessly under my feet.

It’s a warm, humid day, but I haven’t broken a sweat by the time our first stop comes into view: the greenhouse-like façade of City Works Depot, a restored building housing various boutiques, cafés and creative studios.

First stop: Odettes

I gaze at the large Art Deco letters spelling out Odettes, a stylish café with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It’s brunch time.

It’s also my first time on an e-bike. I’ve long cycled around Auckland using only the power of my legs, so I know first-hand how punishing its hills are. Now, it feels like those hills no longer exist.

The power of e-bikes

When I collected the e-bike from Adventure Capital downtown, owner Jacqui Wilkinson encouraged me to ride a few loops around the square next to the shop.

It took me about 10 seconds to get the hang of the electric assist.

You choose the bike’s power setting, which changes the magnitude of the electric push. Set to two, it gives you a gentle boost. On five, a big one. There’s also a scooter-like throttle for hill starts.

“When you’re pedalling, an e-bike is quite intuitive, so it picks up when you’re going up a hill and it will give you just that extra boost,” Wilkinson says. “They know when you’re starting to slow down.”

I can see why Wilkinson has switched to one for her daily commute. “It’s really fast, and you arrive not sweaty, but still feeling like you’ve done a bit of activity and have got some fresh air,” she says. “And you don’t have to wear activewear.”

Choose your own bike adventure

Adventure Capital leads e-bike tours, but I decide on a choose-your-own-adventure option that roughly follows the route of its City Discovery tour, which covers some of Auckland’s iconic attractions. Mine has a few of my favorite places added in.

I’m taking Bella, a friend from Melbourne, on a tour, and I’m determined to show off Auckland’s food scene as well as its sights.

That’s why, as soon as I see the sign for Odettes, we pull off the Nelson Street cycleway.

Enter the Lightpath

A couple of almond-milk flat whites and sharing plates later, we continue uphill to Te Ara i Whiti, the Lightpath, a 10-minute ride.

Bella gasps with delight – suddenly we’re riding on a bright-pink cycleway curving up into the distance, suspended above the traffic.

The one-kilometer Lightpath used to be a motorway off-ramp: now it connects Nelson Street with the uptown precincts of Ponsonby Road and Karangahape Road (K Road to locals).

As we ride over the magenta tarmac, the gray day seems to brighten, and we’re both wearing huge grins. Behind us, a view of the city skyline and the harbor unfolds.

More Aucklanders ride bikes

Groups of people on bikes pass us, as well as parents riding with kids. It didn’t used to be like this. Bicycling is new to the city, but Aucklanders have embraced it.

“Auckland’s cycling network has grown significantly since 2015,” says Hamish Bunn, who manages the network for the council-controlled organization Auckland Transport. “More and more people are choosing to ride bikes for fun and for transport – 38% of Aucklanders now ride bikes.”

And the network is still expanding. Bunn says the priority is to build “safe, separated” cycleways which are “suitable for everyone on two wheels”, not just the Lycra warriors of the past.

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Expanding the network

Separated cycleways were rare in Auckland before 2015. Since then, a loop of protected paths, which encircles the city centre, has been built.

Auckland Transport has drawn up plans to expand the network – out into the inner suburbs – and a new route up to Ponsonby is currently under construction.

Improvements are also about to start on K Road, and a route has been drafted to cross the Harbour Bridge.

People are flocking to the new openings: according to Auckland Transport figures, the number of cycling trips in February was up 20% compared with journeys the previous year.

In turn, bicycles have changed Aucklanders’ lives.

Three regular bikes and an e-bike

For Emma McInnes, a designer at sustainable transport agency MRCagney, bikes represent freedom, as well as a potent recovery tool for her depression and anxiety.

“I have two or three regular bikes, but my e-bike is my big enabler,” McInnes says. “I cycle more than I used to, I cycle further than I used to. I go to more things. I don’t have to say no to something because it’s too far.”

E-bikes allow you to ride without making major changes to your lifestyle or wardrobe, she says: “I love wearing dresses, and I love wearing heels and big dangly earrings – and I don’t have to compromise with my e-bike. I am so unashamedly not a Lycra cyclist.”

Flattening the city

Back when McInnes was a student in 2015, she worked in an e-bike shop, and many of her customers were elderly people who used the bicycles to get around.

“E-bikes are incredibly accessible and an enabler for people who have difficulties moving in the city,” McInnes says. “All they do is flatten the city. It feels exactly the same as cycling in a Dutch city or a Danish city.”

Lightpath is one of McInnes’s favorite sections of the network. At its top end, it concludes a few meters from K Road, Auckland’s arty, alternative hub.

Gentrification has seen its grunge cleaned off the walls in recent years, but its vintage stores still hold strong.

Next stop: K Road

We pop into Crushes, which sells New Zealand-made gifts and secondhand clothing, and take a stroll through the light-filled, historic St Kevins Arcade.

Continuing along K Road, we ride over Grafton Bridge and continue straight along Park Road for about a kilometer to a set of imposing stone gates, which lead into the Auckland Domain, the city’s green heart.

Enter the Domain

On the sports field, cricketers in their whites are mid-game, despite the threat of drizzle.

The Auckland Domain’s winding avenues are lined with pohutukawa trees, their low branches perfect for climbing.

When I was a kid, the trees were the main attraction, but today, it’s the building at its center: Auckland War Memorial Museum.

When I visit, I always stop at the wharenui enclosed within – an entire Maori meeting house.

In the same galleries, I marvel at the craftsmanship of the korowai, the feather cloaks, and the mere and patu, both carved greenstone weapons. It’s a portal into New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans.

One more stop: Vaniye Patisserie

After a dose of history, it’s time for another coffee.

Riding out the opposite site of the Auckland Domain, we coast down Parnell Rise for about five minutes to the side street where Vaniye Patisserie is tucked away.

Owned by a French-Thai pastry chef, and serving locally roasted Kokako coffee, it’s the sugar hit we need before our next stint.

Continuing downhill, it’s just another five minutes to the cycleway that skirts the waterfront.

The tide is full, lapping high on the sea wall, and riding next to it, I feel as though I’m actually skimming over the water.

The path follows the curve of the shoreline, then becomes a narrow causeway, crossing the tidal inlet of Hobson’s Bay, with water on either side of us.

We ride past Sea Life Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium (where you can meet penguins) and the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial Park, which boasts one of the best views of Auckland, until we reach Mission Bay, the best swimming spot on this stretch of coast.

Best ice cream in Auckland?

The sun has come out – it’s a typical Auckland day, four seasons of weather in one – so obviously, it’s time for an ice cream.

We retrace our tracks some 7km along the waterfront to the Ferry Building, a 20-minute ride, to the Island Gelato Company store hidden within.

This is the best ice cream in Auckland, I think to myself for the umpteenth time, tucking into salted passionfruit and coconut.

Gazing across the harbor to Devonport, shards of light glittering on the water, I’m content in the knowledge that home is just a short, effortless ride away.