Bonking in New Zealand: a slight difference of language

Dave went to a conference recently and met someone who convinced him to take part in the Taupo Cycle Challenge.  'A little ride around a lake', he thought.  'Should be nice and level'.  Ummmm, Dave - Lake Taupo is not exactly small.  And after agreeing to the idea, he discovered that the perimeter is not exactly level either.  And the race route is 160km.  Oh well, at least it's an excuse to buy more kit - viz, a road bike and new bike shoes.

Then last week, Dave came home from work with a bike magazine that a colleague had lent to him and there on the cover was this perplexing offer:

Well, I know what bonking is (at least in the UK) and you know what bonking is, but really, is your average Kiwi cyclist so desperate for action that they need what the table of contents describes as a step-by-step plan to learn how to suppress those urges while on a 160km bike race?  Frankly, I'd have thought that all that sweaty lycra and chafing of sensitive areas would be more than enough to put one off the idea of bonking without dedicating an entire magazine article to the problem.

Reading the article turned out to be something of a disappointment.  Context is everything, and from the context here it appears that bonking is what happens when your blood sugar dips and your body runs out of energy.  Ohhhhh.  

Confusingly though, a non-representative sample of Kiwi adults that I questioned yesterday understood 'bonking' in the UK sense of the word.  But somehow, within the NZ cycling community it has an entirely different meaning.

Exhaustive research on my part (ok, Googling 'bonk OR bonking AND energy') has led to this Wikipedia page and I am now enlightened.  Apparently, bonking has had the meaning of energy depletion since the 1950s.  So there you go.