I’m extremely soft when it comes to cycling in the winter, mainly because I hate the feeling (or lack thereof) of numb feet and fingers. After a bunch of research I decided to try a European company called GripGrab, specifically the Arctic Shoe Covers (4mm neoprene) and Polaris Gloves. If you don’t live in Europe [...]

The following review of Ground Effects Storm Trooper Jacket is based on my personal experience while riding a Surly Long Haul Trucker touring bike and Scott Sub 20 hybrid. The Storm Trooper is by far the single most expensive piece of clothing I have in my touring gear, but totally worth the expense. I previously [...]

The following review of Ground Effects Ranchslider bike pantsis based solely on my personal experience while riding a Surly Long Haul Trucker touring bike and Scott Sub 20 hybrid, both having a Brooks Flyer saddle. Pricing Note: Products that are shipped outside of New Zealand do not get charged 15% GST (NZ’s VAT). The price [...]

These days both Katie and I look like walking advertisements for a little New Zealand company called Ground Effect which provides a unique line of cycling clothing and accessories that in their words and my opinion “works and lasts.” More on the company, how I found it, and why I use their gear in a [...]

Qatar Airways is cycle tourist friendly, or so I was assured when booking my flights for Turkey next April. Below are the details of their baggage rules and what I had to go through to confirm them. My Qatar Airways Experience Flight: Seoul, South Korea -> Istanbul, Turky Date: April 2011 Weight Limit: 1 piece, [...]

Flying with a bike and gear seems to be getting harder and harder these days with all the weight and baggage restrictions, and finding up-to-date information is even harder. Here is my personal experience with Qantas My Qantas Experience Flight: Seoul, South Korea -> Christchurch, New Zealand Date : November 2009 Weight Limit: 1 piece, [...]

Flying with a bike and gear seems to be getting harder and harder these days with all the weight and baggage restrictions, and finding up-to-date information is even harder. Here is my personal experience with Emirates My Emirates Experience Flight: London, England -> Seoul, South Korea Date : November 2009 Weight Limit: 1 piece, 32kg [...]

I’ve been thinking a bike stand for touring for a long time and was doing some research as to which would be suitable for a loaded bike when I came across Click-Stand. “They claimed to be The World’s Only Folding Portable Bicycle Stand,” so I thought it would be worth looking into. At first I [...]

My few days of summer vacation have finally arrived so I’m taking off on a 4 day solo trip in the Southern mountains and West Coast of South Korea. First things first, gear. What am I taking on this trip? Before I get into an extensive list of what I am taking I’d likely to [...]

A while back our friend Craig from South Korea made a comment on a post asking us to write a post about 3 things we wished we didn’t bring and 3 things did you wish we had with us. Immediately after I mentioned this, Katie turned around, looked at us lads and said “I know [...]

As you know when you travel where you put your valuables, credit cards and money is important and as we are (for the most part) each carrying cash to last us around a month at a time we each have chosen different ways to hide our money. When it comes to cycle touring there is [...]

It’s been less than a month on the road and stuff is already breaking and . Spose that goes with the territory of over 100km a day through any kind of weather and any kind of road, but as long as the bodies aren’t broken riding must go on so on the road solutions are [...]

Panniers are they are bags that attach to the bike racks with the intent of holding enough equipment for self-sustained tours over days, weeks, or in our case months. The two main brands of panniers are Arkel and Ortlieb. Finally after months of waiting our panniers arrived helping us get one big step closer to [...]

Storm Trooper Berglar Tom and I have been doing a couple of day rides these past few weekends giving me a chance to try out some of the Ground Effect gear. I have to say I’m very impressed with it so far. One of the challenges we will face on the trip is keeping warm [...]

Jared and I undertook the task of assembling the 3 Surlys last night; a fun, if time-consuming, job. Our first surprise was learning that the third bike (which we’d neglected to remove from its box on Sunday) was not olive like its siblings but cherry red. A quick size comparison confirmed that this was indeed [...]