Sunday, June 30, 2013

Battle of the burrs...

Fantastic ride today with a good bunch of people and some warmer weather. I joined Juan, Val, Terry, Tony and Renier for a ride out into the 'outback of Benoni', chasing a few hills and coming back via the train tracks. The route was great with a challenging short drag and some great new single track down the other side. We stopped at the top of the hill and Tony has us laughing when he sat down to take off his leg warmers and sat on a bunch of burrs and was covered all over. He then took his shoes off and was hoping around as his socks also got covered. These burrs are really difficult to take off as they stick to everything.

The battle of the burrs...
I had to keep a close eye on Renier as he was trying to take some of my Strava segments, so there were a few stages of chasing his back wheel. Near the end of the ride we met up with Richard and Bruce at a new restaurant (at the end of the Vlakfontein single track) for a great cappuccino and my first ever breakfast pizza (Tony spent most of the time still picking the rest of the burrs off his clothes....). Here are the Strava details of my ride.
The group relaxing after a great ride.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Jaaging in the mielies

So it has been a month since our epic Sani adventure. Before Sani I think I was the fittest I have ever been and it is amazing how quickly you lose that edge. Coming back home it has been difficult to get back into training again, as we have no events in the near future. Not to mention that winter has descended on our fair lands and it is extremely difficult to dress up like a Michelin man and go out in the freezing cold. I seem to only manage maybe one or two early morning rides during the week and our valiant group of 10 mountain bikers has now been reduced to Mark and I (and sometimes  Greg2). Mark and I have found a good incentive to brave the freezing cold we stop for a nice coffee at the new Mug and Bean outlet situated at the Total garage on Altas road.
Mark at our coffee stop, average temp for this ride was under 2 degrees
Jack Frost has added a bit of nip in the air
After a few weekends of very limited riding I really had to get out there and test the boundaries of my declining fitness. I joined the group of like minded mountain bikers at the BP garage on chilly Sunday morning. There were about 20 riders, some were doing a long ride to Big Red Barn mountain bike track, near Irene and a few other doing a shorter dash in the mielie fields. I decided to stick to the shorter route because of time restraints (and BRB route would be over 100km ride for me and I am not sure I was up for that just yet). We had an awesome ride out into the mielie fields, initially there were 6 of us but Ryan turned back after awhile as his legs were shot from the ride the day before. Renier, Jess, Dee and Adriaan ended up dashing (Jaaging) in the mielie (corn) fields, nice fast exhilarating tempo. Was really great to be out there and riding in the wide open spaces with great company. I ended up doing over 70km here are the stats from my Garmin.
Great way to finish a winter ride is to have a nice warm cappuccino