COUNTDOWN!

In two days time we go on our first bike tour for three and a half years!  Like a lot of people, we had big travel plans for 2020, but of course with the emergence of Covid, that didn't happen.  Pete and I had always thought we'd travel overseas until we were too old and then we would start exploring more of New Zealand.  But with options so limited now and NZ being a relatively safe place to be, we have decided to close the business for a month and go explore the cycle trails of the South Island.

Many of our friends have already done a number of these trails and come back home raving about the Alps to Ocean, the Otago Rail Trail and the Dunstan Trail, and keen cyclists that we are, it seems crazy we haven't done any of them.  So we're going to do all of them.  Well, all of the ones in the lower South Island as we've only got a month, and it is supposed to be a holiday, not a mission!  

So we are flying into Christchurch on Saturday morning and will spend the next four days or so, cycling to the start of our first trail, The Alps to Ocean at Lake Tekapo.  We will take backroads as much as possible, even if it means covering much more ground than if we went along the State Highways.  Any bike tour is always more fun without traffic, not to mention safer.

ABOVE: Our planned route with the pink lines marking the roads and the green and orange lines marking the trails.  We will duck off the Alps to Ocean Trail at Duntroon to cycle over Dansey's Pass and meet up with the Otago Rail Trail which we will cycle in a westerly direction. At Clyde we pick up the Dunstan Trail and cycle west to Arrowtown and Queenstown. Then we do the Around the Mountains circuit before heading east on the Queenstown and Dunstan trails.  At Alexandra we turn south onto the Roxburgh Gorge Trail which joins up with the Clutha Gold Trail.  We should have enough time to explore the southern beaches before heading north to fly out of Dunedin.

Because we'll be doing a lot of offroad tracks, (about 800km worth), we have decided against using our traditional panniers and have opted for a lighter, more streamlined set-up.  In pursuit of this, we purchased a new 2.2kg tent for this trip and will leave our beloved 4kg Vango tent at home this time.  We also purchased more compact air mattresses as we don't have a lot of room and these are half the size of our old self-inflating air mattresses.

A lot of bikepackers don't use carriers but we have decided they are a good sturdy place to carry some of our luggage, so are keeping ours on.  Pete will carry the tent on his, with a small toilet bag strapped to one side and our tool kit strapped to the other side.  I will carry my sleeping gear and some food in a 20 litre dry bag on my carrier, as well as a small toilet bag on one side and the sunscreen and insect repellent on the other.

Pete will carry his sleeping gear and some clothes in a 20 litre dry bag strapped to his new Spyder Aeroe handlebar rack.  Also on his handlebars, he will have two water bottle carriers and a pouch for his sunglasses and phone strapped to his handlebar stem, as will I.

However, instead of the 20 litre drybag on the Aeroe rack, I will have our old orange quick release bag which we used on our last tour in 2018.  This will hold all our valuables and things that need to stay dry as it is totally waterproof.  Tucked in between this and my water bottle cages is an 8 litre dry bag with all my clothes in.  You definitely have to think carefully about what you take with such limited room available and possible temperatures ranging from 3C to 33C!

ABOVE: Our cooking pot and stove which pack up into a nice little package to be stored under my seat.  I have also managed to fit a container of coffee and some tea bags into the lid to maximise all the space.  I have put the pot inside the sleeve of an old jacket to stop any rattling but also to enable me to easily pull the pot out from the green peg bag.

In an effort to use every available space on our bikes, I customised an old canvas peg bag into what I guess you could call, our kitchen.  This bag contains our solitary cooking pot with our stove stored inside it and this fits snugly into the small space under my seat with the aid of a couple of hand-sewn velcro strips.  I was so pleased with myself that I then endeavoured to find something I could store under Pete's seat.  For his I found an old camera bag which was the perfect receptacle for his spare tube and the gas canister for the stove.  Being a padded bag meant the gas canister is nicely cushioned so there should be no rattling on the bumpy tracks we expect to encounter.  Again, a bit of strategic velcroing was the only modification needed.

The other big yawning gap to be filled was the inside of the bike frame.  After studying all makes of frame bags varying in price up to $250, I just ordered a couple of cheap ones online ($27 each), as the dimensions seemed to be ideal.  They took about three months to arrive but they did indeed fit perfectly.  Not sure how waterproof they will be so we have decided to store our wet weather gear in them.  And of course, being cheapies, I had to attach a few more velcro points to get them to sit securely.

I added the two velcro attachments on the left and the one on the bottom right and they fit like a dream.

Other preparations have included quite a bit of bike riding as on the first day of our tour I have planned for us to do 80km.  This is more than I would ideally like to do on the first day, but there are no other camping options on the Canterbury plains so I thought it would be a good idea to get the bodies used to cycling a bit further than to the local coffee shop.  So instead we would regularly cycle to the Lepperton coffee shop, a round trip of about 35km.  We had plans to do much more so we could really test our new bike set-ups, but apart from cycling round the mountain with Gary for three days, (and that was two months ago now!) we just did day trips.  Oh and an overnighter to Mimi, 50km each way about a month ago.  This is still more than we would usually do however.  

This afternoon we packed our bikes into their bike boxes in readiness for the flight down.  It was good to have plenty of time as it's not something we do every day so we haven't got the operation down pat, but we were happy with the result.  Pete's bike, box and frame bag weigh 20kg and mine weighs 21kg.  So not much weight allowance left for other luggage.  Luckily we're both only carrying 9kg apiece!

So all in all we feel pretty prepared and very excited.  Roll on Saturday!!