“Then I had to cut my own toe off,” Steve said casually, as if recalling an ordinary moment from an uneventful day. I blinked. Excuse me? “Yeah, I had to take my Leatherman out and chop it off. The pain was too unbearable.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle before adding, almost as an afterthought, “That was after racing in minus 40 degrees in Lesotho… I mean, Alaska.”

That was Steve for you. His stories were like mountain passes—brutal, winding, and breathtaking once you reached the summit.

The Birth of an Adventure

“This was the first Stumpjumper.”  It all started with a phone call in 1982. Steve rang his brother, Alistair, with a simple idea: “Let’s run across Lesotho.” Alistair immediately slammed the phone down.

Steve called back. “Have you heard about this new Le Turbo bicycle?” A few hours later, they were at a bike shop, staring at two freshly unboxed machines. The shop owner grinned, “These just landed from the USA—the first Le Turbos… or maybe the first Stumpjumpers… in the country.” It didn’t matter. The bikes were sleek, built for rugged terrain, and had adventure written all over them.

But they needed funding.

The Art of Getting Sponsored

Sponsorship in the ‘80s wasn’t a well-oiled process. It was a sprint across the street to SAB (South African Breweries) and a plea to the secretary at the PR department. “That’ll have to fall into next year’s budget,” she said, waving them off with the kind of bureaucratic indifference that kills most great ideas before they take flight.

But Steve and Alistair weren’t most people.

As luck would have it, an executive strolled past at just the right moment. Five minutes later, the brothers were walking out with a check in hand, back to the bike shop, and ready to roll.

Lesotho Twice Over

They didn’t just do one tour across Lesotho—they did it twice. Two sleeping bags. Frozen bike parts. No tar roads, just snow-covered trails and winds that cut like knives. They carried everything they needed—food, gear, and a sense of reckless adventure that most of us only dream about. The pictures tell the real story. Frostbitten fingers gripping handlebars. Endless icy roads. A time before GPS, when maps were just educated guesses and your survival depended on your instincts.

Is It Still Worth It?

I asked Steve the inevitable question: “Should people still do this Lesotho bikepacking trip?” He shook his head. “No, it’s all tarred now. There’s no point anymore.”

A sad truth for those of us who crave the rawness of the unknown. Modern life, with its comforts and paved roads, is making adventure harder to find. But maybe that’s the challenge now—not just seeking difficulty, but creating it where it no longer exists.

📸 The images below from Scope Magazine’s 1988 edition highlight Steve and Alistair’s legendary journey.

After all, nobody tells stories about the easy rides.