A bike touring blog. Mostly about bikepacking and single speeds. By Montana Miller
“They's all meat sheep now,” says Will. He's a pot bellied bloke with a stubbly face, and is wearing a t-shirt with a screaming, flaming, ghastly ghost skull on it. Spooky! We're sitting at the Wimbledon Tavern, an old little pub at the bottom of a steep green valley. “Meat sheep?” I think of the … Continue reading Napier to Wellington
“You looking at the bird?” There's a little black bird hopping around the grass. “He's called B-fah. You see? B for bird!” T starts cracking up at his own joke. He's an older Maori guy, thin and wiry, fluorescent camo bucket hat and little pink reading glasses. “I named him, he follows me everywhere. Poor … Continue reading Wairoa to Napier
It's raining in Rotorua. Which is just fine, because we're happy and dry in a house. “You guys could probably jump on a trip today,” says our friend Dicky. The raft trips are quick, only 30 minutes or something down the Kaituna River. We went a couple years ago, and the river is gorgeous- blue … Continue reading Rotorua to Gisborne
I'm way behind on this as usual, but we're taking a few days off before our last couple weeks of riding, so I'm going to try to get caught up. Back in December: From Colville at the top of the Coromandal, we ride south to Whitianga. A vacation community with some houses attached to a … Continue reading Colville to Rotorua
The road is one of those impossibly steep ones, the kind where you'd shift a car into first gear to try to creep down, but it's still too steep so the by the time you're at the bottom the brake warbles and smells like shoes that were supposed to be drying by the campfire, but … Continue reading Auckland to Coromandal
“Now, we enter the Plains of Despair!” I say. We’ve left the mountains and are have to cross about a hundred miles of very flat farm country before Christchurch. “I really wish you would stop calling it the Plains of Despair,” Colleen says. “Los Llanos de Triste.” “God,” Colleen grunts. “You’re depressing me.” “But I … Continue reading To Christchurch
We ride into Dunedin on a sunny afternoon, then a cold rain moves in. We pay to camp at a hostel, which is a nice option sometimes— sleep in the yard instead of in a smelly, snore filled dorm, hang out in the house if it’s raining. And at the rate we drink coffee, it … Continue reading Dunedin to Mt. Cook
Milford, Doubtful Sound and Fiordland were out— we came to a pretty easy consensus on that. The last couple weeks in high and dry Otago had been so nice. No sandflies, fewer camper vans, almost no tour buses. And going back over to the fjords would be diving back into the wet, itchy, selfie-stick nightmare. … Continue reading Southland
We’re having some beers with a group of Kiwi guys and their Australian friend at the campground in Wanaka. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you this,” says one of the guys. People are never sorry when they say that. “But, in IQ tests of all the people in the world, Americans consistently score near the … Continue reading Otago
The cards fly past Colleen’s head, she ducks. “Ooh, sorry bru. Been trying that one seven years, still can’t get her right,” says our new friend. He’s smelly, dreads, shoeless but wearing a shirt that has a picture of a gumboot. Just came down from some music festival out in the bush in Karamea. We’re … Continue reading West Coast
Dirt Cruise 