These e-bikes are the perfect sightseeing option.
While dramatic, Auckland's volcano-peppered landscape (there are 53 in total) can make sightseeing on foot a stamina-testing affair. Hence why a lot of visitors restrict their explorations to the flat, tourist-friendly harbourfront regions of Britomart, Viaduct Harbour and Wynyard Quarter. This is understandable, but it's also a shame, because sprinkled among the city's lumpy outskirts are several intriguing neighbourhoods and attractions.
Local operator Power to the Pedal decided to fix this problem by launching a range of guided e-bike tours, allowing people to nonchalantly navigate the hills without coughing up a lung. Of course, this introduces another challenge. How can a guide deliver insightful commentary when they're leading a convoy of cyclists? With a radio transmitter and secret service-style earpieces, naturally.
It's a system that works well, allowing Carson, our entertaining Kiwi guide, to not only provide interesting facts and figures along the way, but also warn us of any impending hazards - such as potholes, traffic lights and phone-mesmerised pedestrians.
There are seven of us on today's Inside Loop tour, which promises to showcase some of the city's less-visited neighbourhoods. After getting acquainted with our high-tech Smartmotion e-bikes in the relative safety of pedestrianised Viaduct Harbour, we head west towards St Marys Bay, a sacred Maori site once used to moor the local tribe's wakas (canoes). Following a dedicated cycle path, we skirt around the southern hemisphere's largest marina, the 2000-berth Westhaven Marina, where Carson points out a cafe used by camera-wielding private investigators hoping to catch boat owners indulging in extramarital shenanigans.
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From here, it's a laughably undemanding battery-assisted ascent towards the cloud-piercing, 328-metre-tall Sky Tower, before a joyous blast along the Lightpath, an elevated pink cycleway that delivers us to the city's notorious Karangahape or K' Road. Once Auckland's red-light district, K' Road has morphed into a colourful neighbourhood of restaurants, bars and nightclubs. It's relatively quiet when we cycle through at 3pm; I'd imagine it'd be a different story at 3am on a weekend.
Our next stop is outside the Auckland War Memorial Museum, a commanding neoclassical pile that sits atop a dormant volcano in the verdant 75-hectare Auckland Domain. As someone who's breathlessly trudged up to the museum several times on foot, I can highly recommend the e-bike alternative.
It's an exhilarating descent back to the harbourfront, where we thread through the fancy restaurants and boutiques of the Britomart precinct before returning to the superyacht-crammed Viaduct Harbour. In 2.5 hours, we've cycled 17 kilometres, learnt heaps of interesting Auckland history and ticked off way more sights than we could have done on foot. Ordinarily, this would merit a celebratory beer, but Carson informs us that because of our bikes' battery assistance, we've only burned off a paltry 350 kilojoules. A Diet Coke it is then.
The writer was a guest of Power to the Pedal, which offers guided e-bike tours from $NZ115 ($105). See powertothepedal.com
