Steele's blog

Loaded up the bikes and drove over the German boarder to spend a week camping out in the Eifel with Lien.

The Torino Nice Rally – 10 sunny days in early September.

The living room workshop in action once again.

We spent December in Sydney visiting family. I packed a tent and made plans to do some camping but we didn't bring bikes and after a couple of weeks I started getting the itch to go riding. Luckily I got in touch with local bike shop Omafiets who were able to rent us out a couple of Surly Bridge Club touring bikes complete with some helmets and Ortileb panniers. Whats more they also had some nice looking routes on their site, so we decided to do the Two Pub Tour and stopped off at Umina Beach to visit my Oma on the way home. It ended up being a great choice – after a 1 hour train ride that only cost a couple of dollars we were off for a few days of beautiful riding, funny encounters with friendly locals and some nice pub meals – the proper small town experience.

Walking up Mount Keira, Wollongong December 2022.

Building up the new bike and taking it on the first ride through Autumn forest.

2 weeks in September & October 2022. 1000kms through France and into Spain in search of sunshine and the next local marche.

Building up this old frame in the living room workshop with parts off my old bike and some Marktplaats finds. 

3 days in the Ardennes and a day in Liege and Maastricht with Lien. Early September 2022. We got lucky with the weather, crazy storms in the evenings but dry in the days and it was hot. Lots of rough stuff with some steep climbs and bike hiking, but we mostly had the beautiful forest all to ourselves. The few times we passed locals on the trails we were advised in a mix of broken English and French that we were ‘on the wrong bikes’ and our tires were ‘too light’. Maybe they had a point, but were always happy to hop off and walk for parts and take in the scenery.

Amsterdam >> Zwolle via the Veluwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug with Lien. June 2022 over 4 warm long days.