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A somewhat overdue drivers-eye view of the inaugral Cape 1,000km – hereafter to be know as The Cape Beast.

Cape 1,000 – 26th April 2016

Sitting alone in the St Andrew’s bar of The Lord Charles Hotel with a pizza and beer in front of me, it was impossible not reflect on what might have been. A handful of weeks back, lying in Constantiaberg hospital after crashing out of the Argus, I already knew my role in the Cape 1,000 would not be as a rider. But some part of me held onto the remote possibility that maybe I’d recover in time. My first 100km club ride back with the Wednesday group finally banished that notion. I survived, barely, and mostly by latching on to every wheel I was offered. By the end I was beyond exhausted – my legs were like jelly. Even if I’d felt stronger, the answer to whether I’d ride would still have been a resounding “no“. Sitting on the bike for four hours was tolerably uncomfortable,  but 50 hours? Not a chance! But this wasn’t an evening to dwell on my own misfortune, riders and supporters were beginning to trickle in and we had an Audax to make happen. Riding, or helping out, all of us were there to take part in a little piece of Audax history – the first ever 1,000km BRM held in South Africa. Continue reading “A little piece of history”

24TH March 2016

Life, and other posts got in the way of me writing this piece for a couple of weeks. But finally  I’ve managed to carve out a few hours to bring the blog up to date with a couple of my more exciting cycling related developments of  the year.

Track

Confession time. Starting with Shu Pillinger‘s RAAM attempt in 2014, and successful completion in 2015, I’ve become something of a “dot watcher“. It’s a term given to friends and family of riders who sit back at home following the position and progress of the rider they are supporting, shown as a small numbered dot on a map of the route. Be warned it’s highly addictive – I’ve since found myself checking in on the progress of riders on the Trans Continental in July 2015, and most recently The Munga last December. Continue reading “Track & Trace”

My body is now sufficiently recovered to sit at a keyboard long enough to jot down the tale of an unexpectedly eventful Argus weekend (and yes, I know, it is now more correctly known as the Cape Town Cycle Tour).

Junior Cycle Tour, 5th March 2016

Our move to South Africa and the Argus are inextricably intertwined with my passion for road cycling. I’ve ridden every edition since that first one in 2008 and, come September, I sit eagerly at the PC waiting for entries to open without ever questioning the decision to ride it again. In the last three years that tradition has evolved to the extent that I’m almost more enthusiastic about the shorter, but equally enjoyable Junior Cycle Tour. Continue reading “More news, after the break”

Cape 300km, 19th February 2016

And once again, I’m re-using the ride report written for the Audax SA website! 🙂

In one sense, a full house of finishers could be seen to justify the decision to move from a 3am start to 9pm the previous evening. But in contrast to the 300km brevet last November, the weather concerning us at the start certainly wasn’t heat. Whilst the entire Cape were celebrating the arrival of some much needed rain, eleven hardy Cape Randonneurs were kitting up and heading out to Vrede amidst varying levels of downpour. The rain had at least stopped by the time we gathered for the pre-ride formalities and rolled down the driveway, but it was hardly a promising forecast. An ominous ring of clouds loomed over moonlit mountains all around us as we made our way towards Franschhoek. Together with the occasional scattering of stars peeping through the clear patches, it would have made for a rather beautiful scene if it didn’t also represent the very real possibility of a drenching with a long cold night of riding ahead. Continue reading “A Hard Day’s Night”

It’s a strange feeling. For three and a half years barely an hour went by without some aspect of PBP occupying my thoughts. From the obsessive planning and re-planning, to wondering what it would be like and if I would be up to the challenge. And then, in a flash, it came and went. Not in the same way as LEL passed-by, in the aftermath of that I was so physically and mentally drained I doubted my passion to continue. The months since PBP have been more like basking in the glow of a long sunset after enjoying a much anticipated day – the memories remain vivid, but the light is fading and that question of “what next?” hangs unanswered on the night time breeze. My bike, and I, need direction.
Continue reading “Uncertain Direction”

First Audax of the year, 23 January 2016

After a heat induced DNF on the 300km back in December, I was more than a little nervous despite the shorter distance of 200km and the early start time. The forecast was still for scorching temperatures by the time we’d be finished in early afternoon. Continue reading “Learning to Fry”

Niner RLT – 24 December 2015

“You’ve got to take it out on the club trails”

I’d already done a couple of short test rides locally. The first, on the way home from the bike shop, which included some offroad sections by the river through Radloff park plus a short but steep-ish section of downhill single track off Hillcrest Road. The second ride was all on tar, my regular Rollercoaster hill loop. But I’d yet to follow-up on William’s instruction to put some proper dirt under the wheels of my nearly-new Niner. With all the prep done for the day after, and Yoli and Ben watching a movie, a sunny but cool Christmas Eve afternoon seemed the perfect time to put that right. Continue reading “Ghost Ride”

Cape Audax 300km, 5 december 2015

With temperatures forecast to be in the upper thirties Celsius, there was a distinct sense among the riders gathering at Vrede wines that even a 3am start was not early enough. That wasn’t the only drama of the ride either, Theunis notching up three different mechanicals before we’d reached halfway: a broken rear spoke; a broken seatpost clamp; and a broken saddle bag. Continue reading “Too Hot to Handle”

2 December 2015

As the old saying goes “you wait a long time for a new bike, and then two come along at once“. OK, it doesn’t go quite like that, I’m paraphrasing, but it’s apt all the same. I’d visited William’s a couple of days earlier to collect the first of the much anticipated arrivals – my new Giant TCR Advanced Pro 1. Neither the picture on the Giant website though, nor my own photos do the colour scheme justice. Stunning looking as it is though, you don’t buy a bike just on it’s looks (or at least I don’t, not entirely anyway). How does it ride? Continue reading “Ride of The Phantom”

Stellenbosch Cycle Tour, 29 November 2015

I haven’t wheeled my bike across Stellenbosch High School sports field to ride Die Burger in a while. It’s not even called that any more – the familiar name, now replaced with one embodying all the creativity of double entry bookkeeping. Accurate, but dull. I vaguely recall reading somewhere the entry limit was 7,000 riders, but numbers dotted around the field and gathering in chutes felt way less. I doubt the name change had any role in that – more likely the prices which seem to steadily increase with every season’s events. For my part though, none of that mattered. It was still the same great route around the heart of the Cape Winelands, and I was looking forward to some proper hard racing again – a chance to ride fast instead of conserving energy to ride far. Plus a bonus of the small start groups was an unusually relaxed atmosphere as we waited to shuffle forward across the temporary bridge and roll to the start line.  Continue reading “Rookie”