A chat with Caz

I've followed Caz online for several years, enviously watching her adventures unfold on Strava and Instagram. Camp-outs, overseas trips, countless dog-walks (and countless-dog walks at times), and just good looking rides around Adelaide. She's been an inspiration to me when it comes to getting out in the world (even my very local world) and seeing it by bike. Caz's Instagram is a collection of gorgeously captures adventures, full of smiling faces, happy dogs, and stunning scenery. Definitely follow along there if you're able.

She lives on the side of a hill near a town in Tasmania, and it looks magnificent from what I could glean during the video chat. I don't know why I've not been to Tasmania. It feels like a place that I'd enjoy.

Caz and I had a great chat for about an hour, me in my office and Caz in her van with her dog Bob, in a car park, where she gets The Good Internet, and also shelter from the Tasmanian winter.

It was my first attempt at having one of these chats online, and I think it worked pretty well. Photos in this post are by Caz and Andy (Fame and Spear on Instagram). Many thanks for them.

Let's drop into where we were talking about buying a block of land, and bike storage and theft.

Caz: "...we just grabbed a piece of land - 'yep, sweet, this is it.' I went onto this piece of land and it was just the most beautiful thing ever and I thought 'this is the one' with plans to build a house on it later. So we put all of our bikes into storage and kept our commuter bikes out. I had my bike just locked to itself, not locked to anything else. We're not in the middle of nowhere, but we're not really in a populated area, so I just had my bike sitting there, the shed was unlocked, and someone robbed us late at night, the one night we weren't there. They took everything, and took my e-bike. Which sucked. I loved that thing. So Tern have let me borrow an Orox.

KO: That's the really big one isn't it?

Caz: It's an absolute beast, yeah. It has its purpose, but it's not the right bike for me, because it's 40 kg. So, carting it in and out of this place, and I can't put it in the van, it's too large. It's not the right bike for right now. So it sits down at Andy's shop.

KO: I rode one at Treadly a while back, and thought that it would be perfect if you wanted an electric off-road capable touring bike, with massive loading capacity. You had a small Tern previously, a GS-something?

Caz: Yes, a Quick Haul. I'd lowered it, like I'd slammed it - I put flat bars on it and it felt like a fixed-gear bike. And because it had tiny little 20-inch wheels, it was really zippy.

KO: I rode a Brompton the other day, one of the really high-end ones. And because of the rotational inertia of those tiny wheels is so low, it felt like it was electric. You have this expectation of what a pedal-stroke should do, and it just does way more suddenly because you don't have to accelerate anything, it's just magic. So with little 20-inch wheels on the Quick Haul I completely get it.

Caz: Yeah, it was actually really great. But the Orox is a 29-er so it's the complete opposite. You push down, and it takes a bit to go. But when it goes it really goes. But it doesn't feel as big as it is, until you get off and try to move it. We're nearly at a point where we can buy a new Tern, so that's good.

KO: It's great of Tern to let you borrow one.

Caz: Yes, definitely.

At this point we get side-tracked by house pricing, social housing, and politics, which while interesting and lovely, isn't really relevant for this post. If I ever start a politics blog (I won't), I'll get Caz back and we can sit around agreeing on things for an hour.

KO: I would love hear about your bike-travelling. We've spoken in text previously about your Vietnam trip, but also the stuff you used to do around South Australia, and I'm sure there are other trips that I don't know about and I'd love to hear about it.

Caz: What have I done? I've bike-packed through India. We did the New Zealand trip a few years ago.

KO: The TA [Tour Aotearoa]?

Caz: No, I mapped it. Just the south island, just down the west coast. I have an article online about that. It sucked.

KO: I'll have to dig it up. (I did)

Caz: I basically complained the whole time.

KO: I've been watching the Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman Long Way Around/Down/Up/Home series lately, and it feels a bit like "super-privileged man decides to ride a motorbike and complains".

Caz: I really hope that's not how mine came across (Note from KO: I've now read the article, and no - it doesn't come across that way at all), I just did it all wrong. I took just a tarp and a ground-sheet instead of taking a tent and New Zealand south island is really made for vans, and all camping sites are really made for vans. And there are swarms of a million sand flies, and they're all biting. I had packed head-nets because I knew about the flies but then you'd hop into your sleeping bag, put the head-net on, and a hat so the head-net didn't fall against your face, and it would be 4pm and you'd have to just sit there because you'd have no escape from these damned things.

KO: That does sound genuinely bad.

Caz: And all the roads were crammed with vans. But yes, Vietnam, India. My first one was the UK when I was 21 or so, on a fixed gear bike. I haven't really done that much. There are heaps of people who are out there doing cool things. I just travel by bike some times because it's cheaper than travelling by train or whatever. I'm not one of those cool long-distance rad people.

KO: No, but there's something to be said for not making it a big deal as well. This is my decision and this is not for a big reason.

Caz: It's just a better way of seeing things.

KO: And to me, (a bit sigh can be heard in the recording here, where I'm disappointed with myself) I still haven't done one, right, I haven't travelled by bicycle yet. The time in my life when I decided it would be a good way to travel, there have been a bunch of things in the way - young kids, work, aging parents, all the complexities where disappearing for 3-4 weeks isn't easy. I'm sure it will happen one day. But the appeal of that slow travel, where you go places that doesn't have a car-park so most people don't go there, or doesn't have a train-station so most people don't go there. Hugely appealing. It feels a bit like the distinction between traveller and tourist. We were just up in Port Douglas as tourists. You walk around going "urgh, there are so many people here", while being one of those people who are there clogging the place up.

Caz: You are a tourist, but you don't want to be.

KO: That's right, but it feels like people who travel in the more gentle ways don't have that same impact. Someone turning up on a bicycle doesn't have the same impact as someone who rolls up in a car.

Caz: ...and people treat you differently as well. The locals of a place will see you differently. They'll see you more as "them" rather than someone else. Travelling in Indonesia, when we were on the bicycles, people were so much happier to have us in the cafe or whatever, which was cool. Everyone else rocks up in their driver-car.

KO: Which is paying someone's wage for that day, so in a way that should be seen as being better, nearly. But I can see why people would respond more kindly. You've gone to effort to be in that place, in a different way, and I think that's the wonderful part of it.

Caz: Go do it. Would recommend. I know there are complexities, but go do it.

KO: My partner is mostly in on the idea, so once the kids both turn 18 I think the two of us can go off and travel the world.

KO: Do you mind telling me a bit about the India trip?

Caz: Any time I've done one of these things, it's been for something online to help fund it to come degree. So that was for Cycling Tips. We basically went to photograph one of those trips that people go on where you just grab a bike and each day is planned and structured. But we were photographing it for Cycling Tips as though we were on the trip, so it wasn't proper bike-packing. The van took all of our stuff. I was carrying an RB67...

KO: Of course you were travelling with a medium format film camera!

Caz: ...and it was someone else's and it was banging around on the front of my rack because of the roads in India. We rode from Mysore to Varkala, so covered quite a distance and that was really cool. But I wish we'd done it ourselves. I'd love to go back and do it for us. My next trip that I would love to do is Malaysia and go over to Borneo. That would be super cool.

KO: So, you'd ride Kuching to KK, or KK to Kuching? That sort of thing?

Caz: I looked at the back roads and stuff and I'd probably ride across the top, but not go into Indonesia.

KO: Have you been before? It's definitely one of my favourite places. We've been a few times, and we've climbed Mt Kinabalu and learnt to scuba dive there. I guess it's a matter of planning a good route that's safe.

Caz: You just go, and even if you don't have a route you look at it on the day and it sorts itself out.

KO: I think that's what I need to realise. It doesn't need to be perfectly planned before I go.

Caz: And you can have the worst experience, like my New Zealand one, and it's still this whole thing. If it goes perfectly the whole way that's kinda almost boring. If it doesn't go perfectly, that's the story.

KO: I can understand that. There's a difference between perfect travel and good travel, and I think good travel is what you want to aim for. When do you plan to do the Malaysia trip?

Caz: It was meant to have been 2020 when I finished uni, but something got in the way.

At this point we got side-tracked again, and ended up talking about other ambitions in life and work. Unfortunately not being in the same place meant that there was no bike ride together, and no coffee to be had. But a magnificent chat nonetheless.