Tumbleweed

I just finished the Tour Aotearoa (TA) on Sunday and it was a remarkable once-in-a-lifetime experience! It took me 30 days (29 riding days) to complete the 3,000+ km bike trip from the top of the North Island in Cape Reinga all the way down to the bottom of the South Island in Bluff. As noted in my last post, Ginny joined me for the North Island part of the trip and I carried on on my own for the past two weeks to ride the South Island. It wasn't nearly as fun riding without Ginny but there were plenty of other riders along the route so I didn't feel like a total lone ranger. In fact, the social aspect of the TA was one of the things that I really enjoyed as there were literally hundreds of other riders doing the same thing as me. It was really fun to share the experience with people who had traveled from all over the world to challenge themselves on the TA. While the solo traveling was challenging at times, it did allow me to push the mileage a bit more than when I was with Gi...

About a year ago we started seeing all of these cyclists rolling through our small town of Featherston and we learned they were doing the Tour Aotearoa (TA) from the top of the North Island all the way down to the bottom of the South Island. All in all, it's a 3,000 km ride following a designated route that includes a mix of sealed roads, gravel roads, single track trails and even some beach riding. The seed was planted and we decided that we'd give the ride a go in 2025. We also reached out to our friends Becca and Shaun and they were also keen to to tour New Zealand by bicycle.  Just getting to the start in Cape Reinga is a challenge in itself. It took Ginny and me 2.5 days to train, fly and shuttle ourselves and our bikes up to the northernmost point of the North Island. After all of that travel, we pulled into camp at 8:30pm the night before we were due to start riding in the dark to the starting point the next morning. Amidst all the chaos, I managed to leave my cycling sh...