The Australian Crust Van Tour
Photo and words by Jorja Creighton

Touring plans can be dismantled on the fly and made better, sure there is glory in the hard yakka, but when you are out for two weeks, just looking for the good times … Chase the rainbow and good trails. Turn off that path if it looks rosier, you’re on holidays! That’s what the #crustvantour did, and boy did we find the rainbow.

We set out to ride half of the east coast of Australia. From Brisbane to Sydney over the month that Kurt and Raymond were in town from America. Half the crew riding on Crust Bikes, it was a Crust Tour after all; a step through extra small hot-pink Evasion, an eXtra cycle converted Evasion, a Crust Romanceür, and a fresh burgundy Scapegoat that Kurt was riding. The other half of the crew riding a Surly, a custom Moustache build, a pub bike and Jones bike. We can’t all be Crust lucky.

We were a crew of 8, Marcel and myself – Sydney; Matt and Cheech – the perfect couple; Rick and Daniel – Brisbane’s finest and Kurt and Ray – bringing the international American flavour. We set out from Brisbane, 8 bikes loaded into 2 vans. Cyclone Debbie has rampaged through the first half of the route. So we skipped it. We drove nearly 400km south to Crescent Head, soaking in the flavours of Australia the old fashioned way, pit stops into pie shops.

Riding 20 km or less per day might seem difficult to do, you must be impressed. When you wake up slow, cook breakfast slow, slowly walk to the beach to check out the waves, have a quick surf, roll out with our 8 strong squad, stop at 3 or more cafes, find a perfect campsite, have another surf, chat and relax after a hard day and build the perfect campfire as the sun sets – time runs away from you.

After a week of blissful beach-side touring we jumped back in the Crust vans and drove south to the Australian Alps, for a 4 day Easter long weekend #rumbleinthejagungal ride organized by the Sydney shop Omafiets. The 8 strong squad was down to 4 because of work. Marcel, Kurt, Ray and I were rolling as cute and tight as cycling squads come. As the bad kids of the Omafiets ride we rolled into camp last, stayed up the latest, rolled out the slowest, laughed the loudest, and squad the hardest.

The route chosen by Omafiets was to showcase the phenomenal scenery experienced on the Hunt 1000 ride held in November, to spread the hype. It worked. We are all in.

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