About us

Colin and Sau Keng

In our sixties, with two grown children. Time to go on a big adventure - we plan to ride from Cape Reinga to Bluff!

April 2022, near Arrowtown

I've always been sporty and a bit outdoors, confident I can do pretty much anything, but without any compulsion to prove it. I've tramped, run, canoed. But I've never embarked on something like this.

Sau Keng had polio when very young and consequently has only one good leg. She has never been sporty or inclined to outdoor pursuits. But she has great sprit and is much better organiser and mover of events than me.

Around 2012 we purchased a cheap and nasty tandem, then a couple of years later a rather better one that I converted to electric. We enjoyed rides together - but Sau Keng did not feel completely secure nor does she really like being a passenger. Things changed in 2018 when Sau Keng spotted an electric tricycle in our local bicycle shop.

She tried it, liked it, and has become steadily more adventurous.

By 2021 Sau Keng was reaching the limits of her tricycle. It was wonderful on easy going, but the front wheel spun when the going got tough and the brakes did not give me confidence. Sau Keng had her eyes on the Otago rail trail and more, and needed a more capable machine.

Trikes NZ in Levin, run by Brian Gilbert, had what she wanted. A larger frame, both rear wheel driven through a differential, disk brakes on all wheels.

This trike won't hold her back.

The rides around Auckland got longer, 40km to Mt Eden and back is not a problem. Early in 2022 we went to Wellington for a week and rode from Upper Hutt to the harbour and back, all around Martinborough, up the Remutakas. Lots of fun and very satisfying. Time for the Otago rail trail. Autumn colours will be perfect. We will ride and travel and work in the South Island for 3 months.

It was perfect. The rail trail was great - and easy. Lake Dunstan was not so easy, but with help in a few places where the camber was a bit much Sau Keng and trike handled it with aplomb. The Clutha Gold trail was gorgeous with the Autumn colours. The trails around Queenstown and Arrowtown almost as good. We spent time in Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, lake Tekapo, Nelson and cycled around them all. We took our bikes on the Trans Alpine and rode some of the West Coast Wilderness trail too. The weather was fantastic, almost perfect the whole time, except in Nelson, sunshine capital of New Zealand, where it rained for a week! We rode over 1000km and enjoyed it all.

What next. I guess it's obvious. Sau Keng bought the Kennet Brother's Tour Aotearoa books and started planning.