Two legs. Two wheels. One bivvy bag, sans the hoop. A small bottle of comfort sunscreen, a snap-lock bag filled with pickles, and a whole lot of grit, determination, and choccy milk. It was the essentials only for Izzie Thompson, bike packing the Reset Brevet across Central Otago back in February. Naturally, Merino made the list.
If you're not familiar with the Reset Brevet, it's an unsupported bike race through Central Otago spanning 550kms and 9,300m elevation. The goal is to get from here to there and back round to here as fast as possible. Which, when you're carrying everything yourself, means packing as light as possible. It's tough, it's challenging, and it demands performance from both athlete and gear.
If you're not familiar with Izzie T, on the other hand? She's a Wānaka local who, almost by default, does it all. Bike packer, hiker, recipe creator, enthusiastic eater, pickler, forager, poet, chronic trail runner, copywriter, skier, surfer, and all-round good human. She also works full-time in architecture. Wouldn't want to get bored.
Truth is, there aren't many people who can fit more into a weekend mission or make you question your time management quicker than Izzie T. But the Reset Brevet was a challenge, even for her, one that was all about finding her limit. Naturally, we kitted her out head-to-toe in Merino bike apparel, slapped her on the back and caught up with her afterwards to hear all about it.
Hi Izzie! Want to introduce yourself and tell us about the ride?
Hey, I'm Izzie, and I just rode the Reset Brevet. It's an unsupported bike race through Central Otago. It's 550kms long with 9,000m of climbing, and it took me four days to complete it.
What made you want to do the Reset Brevet?
I did the Reset because… I'm looking for my limit, I suppose. I've done some bikepacking before, but more leisurely trips. Probably not leisurely by other people's standards, haha. But a lot more leisurely than what this race was. I haven't done anything as compressed in terms of kilometres and climbing per day and trying to get from A to B as fast as possible.
Did you bring any comfort items?
I didn't really have any comfort items, I don't think, apart from my film camera, which is kind of bulky but doesn't really weigh anything. It's quite light, but I take it with me everywhere, no matter the conditions or what I'm embarking on. And then other little bits and pieces… I had a little bottle of sunscreen, which maybe some people view as a comfort thing, but I really like my skin, so. That's important to me.
What did you pack and what did you ride in?
My mentality was somewhere between knowing that I have a certain level of comfort and trying to go as light as I could. I considered not taking a bivvy bag for a short period, but I'm really glad I did because it was really cold overnight. My sleeping setup was a bivvy bag with no hoop (I took that out), a sleeping mat, and then a lightweight sleeping bag. It was a bit cold and I wasn't entirely sure what elevations I'd be sleeping at, so I also took a silk liner because I didn't have a super warm sleeping bag.
Clothes-wise, yeah not much clothing at all. Literally just my change of top for the night and one more pair of socks. All my layers on the bike were provided by Mons Royale. I had this Icon tee which was my cosy warm layer at night that I slept in. The Diversion trail bike shorts, two Epic Merino bike liners, Merino socks, a Diversion Merino bike jersey which I biked in, especially in the mornings. Before too long, you'd strip all the way down to the Breezer shirt, which was nice having buttons you'd rip open and get some breeze around the midriff.
Any challenges when you were packing?
I guess one of the things I was most nervous about was fuelling food-wise, and just being able to eat enough food every day. It's not very pleasant. Resupplying as well – I really wasn't sure what time I'd be rolling into the towns and whether the supermarkets would still be open, things like that. You're definitely not going to carry multiple days worth of food on your bike from the get-go. You want to take as little as possible whilst having a tiny surplus.
Go-to snacks on the trail?
My snacks of choice were peanut bumper bars, sour lollies, pickles, bananas, one square meals, and salami and cheese wraps. Although I had far too many bumper bars in close succession, and learned they're so yummy because the third ingredient is butter. Sits pretty heavy in your stomach. Well actually, I learned that eating that constantly is just hard in general, no matter what you're eating.
Anything you took that might surprise people?
A big bottle of brown cow milk. At the end of a really big day on the bike or on foot, you're not often instantly hungry, but you kind of feel like you should be putting something back in your body, and choccy milk always goes down a treat. Recovery, dessert, deliciousness. That's just the least I deserve.
Highlights of the trip?
Some special moments were biking at sunrise and sunset, when you're all by yourself beside a lake or a river or up somewhere really high, getting really, really cold. But, gorgeous skies. One morning, when I was biking into the sunrise, I was going along this road and there was a whole bunch of dairy cows that had obviously just been milked, and they were slowly making their way one by one along their little cow road back into the paddock, and I feel like we had a moment. That was really nice.
Did you find your limit?
I think I did to an extent. The morning of the fourth day, I was up on top of the Serpentine Range. I'd slept in this scary old derelict church - but good thing I did, because when I went out in the morning, there was a huge frost, so it would have been freezing if I was out in the open. That was a really, really cold morning, it was hard to get warm. I'd done about three-quarters of the distance, so I knew I'd be able to finish it that day, but for some reason it just felt less achievable than the day before.
I got down to Omakau and was sitting in a cafe there trying to force feed myself a sandwich and chips, and finding it really hard, and my sister called me and I cried. It was my first cry and she's telling me you don't have to do this. I was like, I know I don't have to do it. But I kind of want to. But you're just so knackered, you can't really process. Even though it's really hard to continue doing the race because of the physical and mental load, for some reason it felt easier or more mindless to just get back on my bike and keep biking.
Actually, one of the hardest moments was going across The Maniototo Plain. There was a long stretch of road that we had to bike along the highway. I want to say about 60km, so a decent stretch. It was a dead straight line, dead flight, and I just had this ripper headwind, I think it was like an 80km headwind. Relentless. And that's pretty hard mentally, because you're looking at your little computer telling you how fast you're going, and I just know I could be going 100% faster with not much more effort if there was no wind, and you're just crawling along. Yeah, that was really awful. And same on the last day, the last stretch from Tarris back to Wānaka. The classic prevailing northwest was there as it always is.
Did you listen to anything while you were riding?
I listened to some pretty boring things to take my mind off what I was doing. Podcasts about global finance and cryptocurrency. I listened to a bunch of my favourite songs and I was crying as well. Probably Angie McMahon's album Light Dark Light Again because I love her. I would have listened to some kind of rap or grime for sure, that helps me too.
Finally, the big question. Would you do it again?
Depends on when you ask me. Probably in the thick of it and immediately afterwards, I'd say most definitely not. But time heals most things, and also you get a bit of amnesia, so I probably would do it again.
