Mike the Sushi King

February 2017 is here already, how time flies when you are having fun on the bike. Few great rides in the last month with a great bunch of riding mates. It is incredible what a nice group of people are on our riding group - The Benoni Rough Riders, always good banter on the WhatsApp group and there is always fantastic company on our numerous rides (except if it is raining then it is just me and Norman Nofriends). 

Early morning sunrise ride before work 

Sunday breakfast ride - other Mark, Mark, Juan, Paul and Michael 

Sunday afternoon ride with my son and wife...more fun and coffee

The last couple of Sundays we have made a point in our ride to go to the Monument MTB track that a group of guys have made for the benefit of the local riding community. They have done a lot of work there and it is a great flowing track that keeps you honest as you go up Monument hill a few times on the route. Normally we stop for a breakfast and coffee at Hava Java coffee shop on the way home, but this morning we only had coffee as Michael invited us to try his Sushi from his Sushi Bus (he had some stock left over after a event yesterday). Really tasty, we all tucked in, it was awesome and we are all very grateful for Michael's excess stock that needed to be eliminated.  

Michael the Sushi King 

#awesome

Paul, Sean, Mark and Anton tucking into the tasty sushi  

And of course I have to mention my long time mate Greg Heunis, always there to assist me with any mechanical issues that I have with my bike. Here he is putting 2 new tyres and a chain on my bike. Really thankful for the all the years I have had him practicing his skills on my bike... :-)

"I can't seem to get this bottle of Stans to fit inside this tyre"

Route 42 and some more

It has been a great few weeks of riding, I have had some really awesome rides and I am starting to feel fit enough to tackle my fourth Sani to Sea mountain bike stage race in two weeks time. 

On the 17th of April, Wayne, Michael, myself (and a few others) did the Route 42 MTB race just outside Nigel. It was an awesome race and was pretty testing at times, with rocky climbs and push your bike up hills. Michael did the race on his fat bike and Wayne and I spent the first 60km trying to catch him. This was the first race that Wayne and I rode together as a pair and it was good prep for Sani2C. The good news is that we are evenly matched and ride well together. It is going to be an awesome race and I am really forward to it. 

Me dodging the rocks

Nice shot of me followed by Mike and Wayne - in 3rd and 4th place :-)

Last weekend whilst a lot of the Benoni Rough Rider gang (7 in total) are doing the Joburg to Sea MTB stage race, Michael and I joined Rebecca, Sean, Pierre and Robyn for a great ride. Mike and I had time constraints, so we turned back early (the others were going to Rosemary Hill east of  Pretoria) - but I still managed to do 100km ride at a good pace. Becky and Sean were doing a 'recovery ride' after their valiant effort at the 360 One MTB race the weekend before. They cycled a whopping 283km in one day on some treacherous terrain, before sanity prevailed.  

Playing chicken

Train spotting 

Today was a public holiday in South Africa and it was a great time for an awesome social breakfast ride with fellow like minded souls. There were 12 of us that rode out to Duanblane, Cell Tower, Brick Yard, Motor Cross Track and then stopping for great coffee and breakfast at Hava Java Cafe. It was an awesome 75km ride which I really enjoyed (I spent most of the time chasing Ian - phew he is riding strong). Below are a few photos from the ride:

Crossing the train tracks to avoid the mud...

Welcome breather...

Rebecca (with a train in the distance)

Quickie breakfast (for R20) with an awesome group of people

I even managed to play waiter and went and fetched Sean's food that was taking too long 

Where the $%#* are we?

Early ride last Sunday with Rebbecca, Juan, Nadine and Gary, we met at the BP at 5:30 and headed out towards the mielie fields. Weather was great besides a bit of a headwind. I decided to detour from going down next to the train tracks like last week and instead went venturing over Bapsfontein road and past the Polo Fields. This where I came a bit stuck as we did not cut across a farm on the route Greg and I did before (the farmer had a few stern words with us), instead we headed straight and ended up getting slightly lost, after jumping a few fences we managed to eventually find our way back in the general direction of the brick yard. Fortunately the group did not hassle me with my bumbling tour director duties and welcomed the extra kilometers that we did :-).

3 other highlights of the ride were:

1. Accelerating past some (unfriendly) road bikers and leaving them in our dust when coming back on the 'Roller Coaster' road towards Dunblane.
2. Gary buying a farm when going through a ditch (ok I stopped and this put him off)
3. Platkop Mucha coffee at the Hava Java cafe at the Brentwood Pick & Pay center afterwards.

Gary, Nadine, Becky and Juan taking a breather and refueling

Gary after he bought a bit of a farm (Nadine had a good chuckle)

Well deserved coffee afterwards...

Awesome to be out riding with great company, I finished on 80km, click here are the stats of my ride.