Of course, there's always public transport, but that's going to be caught up in the blockages as well. Auckland Transport directs us to seek detailed information at www.maxx.co.nz. But that's not exactly user-friendly. To make sense of it, you have to go to a map and work out the number of the bus stop or stops you plan to use. Then you have to open a long-winded chart where you match the bus stop number to the temporary stop your bus will use.
Heart of the City business association chief Alex Swney seems torn between cheer-leading "another opportunity for Auckland to put its best foot forward" and backing the retailers who pay his wages. His compromise is to demand a cap on the number of street-closing events.
With more than 50,000 people living in Auckland's CBD, it's no longer just the retailers and the businesses being inconvenienced. Organisers talk of 50,000 spectators, presumably spread over two days. How many of those, you wonder, are residents trapped in their own frontyards.
Even hotel guests will be trapped. Organisers warn that "guests who are checking in on Saturday, April 6, will not be able to bring in or take out their vehicles into the streets that are closed after 11am. Taxis and shuttles will be able to collect/drop off guests from the closest point outside of the event course". What a great welcome to Auckland after a long flight from Europe, the US or China.
It's something of a repeat of the pre-Christmas madness that blocked Victoria St at Victoria Park for the Friday night and most of the Saturday of the Red Bull-sponsored boyracer contest last year, but on a grand scale.
It's as though these event organisers feel the need to bring a city to a grinding halt in order to draw attention to themselves, and the more inconvenience the better.
Why, for instance, is it necessary to keep the CBD locked down the whole of Saturday night, when the official schedule has the last race of the day - the Elite Women - starting at 3pm. Being the elite, presumably they won't still be puffing up and down Queen St on their bikes after sundown. So why not let the city return to normal for the night?
Exactly why anyone needs to be chugging around a Queen St circuit isn't obvious. Compared to other world cities on the circuit, the built attractions of Auckland are hardly the city's main drawcard. Downtown London, or Madrid or Stockholm - three other destinations on this circus - it is not. What we do have is a splendid harbour, and west of the event central on Queens Wharf, there are great expanses of waterside land just begging to be played in. Wynyard Quarter is supposed to be the city's new playground. It's home to Team New Zealand's base. It stretches around past Westhaven Marina to the harbour bridge.
The argument for using Queen St and Shortland St is to throw in a hill or two. If it's a hill they need, there's always one of the bridge clip-ons. Using it, they'd get not just a hill, but a scary wobble as the bridge flexed itself in surprise at the intrusion.
For the pay-TV audience, the bridge crossing would be an added frisson they're not going to get from watching athletes chug up and down unremarkable Queen St. It would also help keep the heart of the city from a self-inflicted coronary.
