It’s a bit embarrassing, when I count all of our bikes at home the end result is twelve. Yup twelve, so 6 per person. I know thats ridiculous. We have 2 racing bikes, 2 bikes from Voys, 3 mountainbikes, 1 bike for use at the trainstation, 1 citybike , 1 fixie and the latest addition to our fleet of bikes are 2 trekking bikes.
We bought our second hand travel buddies after a lot of searching, over thinking and doubting. Do we really need new bikes? Can’t we use or modify one of the existing bikes? How much money do we want to spend?
Nadine’s buddy
After a lot of online searching, we decide to visit some bike shops in the area hoping to find what we needed. We saw a lot of beautiful bikes and brands like Santos and Tout Terrain. We finally ended up at Egberts Egberts a great bike shop in Borger. After we gazed at the new Koga bikes, Nadine asked if by any change they had some second hand trekking bikes. The guy who was helping us didn’t think so, but surprisingly came back with one.
It’s to small for you he said to me. But I knew it was Nadine her size and she preferred a male bike-model, so she took it for a test ride. After adjusting some settings the test ride lead to a small negotiation and after a hour we were in the car on our way back home. Nadine just bought her new best friend for the first couple of months of our trip. A Koga Worldtraveler Signature 2016 nickname ‘Black Beauty’.
Jorg’s buddy
Our online research and the visits to several bike shops made it clear I needed and wanted a dedicated trekking bike. At all of the bike shops they didn’t had any second hand trekking bikes in my size and they all said it was a rarity. So I started a more active bike hunt online and discovered quickly that online the trekking bike trade is dominated by a couple of private dealers. There reputation isn’t that great so I focused on the private sellers. A second hand Santos bike 2.8 with Rohloff hub came up and I arranged a test ride. I felt great and looked beautiful, but I wasn’t convinced about the done maintenance on the hub (which is required). That same day another type of Santos, a 2.6 with Rohloff hub and belt-drive showed-up online, a second test ride it was that day.
This one was used intensively (40,000km and counting), but the Santos 2.6 is made for this as is the Rohloff hub. Besides that the 2.6 isn’t easy to destroy, which is a great feature for me. So I decided that this would be my bike for our world trip and the years to come. Say hello to ‘The Tank’:
‘A bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its engine, is its passenger’
