We wish to take this opportunity  to say hello and Season's Greetings  to all our fellow Cycleblazers.  This past year has been challenging on so many levels, but as we head into a New Year let us all hope and look forward to 2021 as a time when we can once again travel freely, hug our loved ones, greet old friends and make new ones. Hoping to see you on the road...... Love, Steve and Dodie, the Grampies

Happy Holidays to you, Grampies, and to everyone else here.  Indeed, 2020 has been a terrible year and I know that, for many people, the troubles go way beyond having to miss out on a bicycle tour.  I also know that this Covid thing exacerbates tragedies that might have happened anyway.  It sucks!  I wish everyone a better year beginning today.

-Greg

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Seasons Greetings ... and yes... let’s turn the page on 2020. Let’s pedal confidently into 2021 with hope, optimism and bit of caution. 

Long distance cycle touring, with its thrills, spills, unpredictability, joys and discomforts prepared me reasonably well for the trials of 2020.  
However the triple whammy of unprecedented bushfires here in SE Australia, the Covid pandemic and then several family bereavements in mid 2020, has been the cycle touring equivalent of pedalling uphill into the wind and with cold, heavy rain. It’s been a tough year.

That said, as comedian George Burns said, “I look to the future, because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.”

What George didn’t say is that cycle tourers, especially those who have gathered on this CycleBlaze site, are some of the most likeable, eclectic and interesting people I know. They have shared the experience of seeing some of the world at the slow pace of a loaded bicycle. 

Thanks Steve and Jodie. All the best to you, your families and to other CycleBlazers. 

My best to you all for the coming year.  May it be full of vaccinations and (more) openness, and in due course, cycle-touring.  (Of course, looking forward, there are some obvious puns about 2020 and hindsight, but we're not going there. Yet.)

Yes, we can all use a better year and I wish that for all of us. I don't think I'll be traveling much before being vaccinated for the virus, but when I am - watch out! 

It will be interesting to see what the new normal will be like. When will I feel safe to sit in a restaurant, to be closer than 6 feet to anyone. I already ride with soap and water and santizer and extra masks. As I saw Arundhati Roy said, this disruption is a portal that gives us a chance to leave behind our baggage and go forward much lightened, new.