Dirt for Tar

Yup it is that time of the year where I trade dirt in for tar and do the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge road race. This year it has been harder then normal to do the change and I have only managed 3 road bike rides before the race next Sunday. 2 weeks ago I had a fantastic 101km ride with George, Nadine, Gary and others. This ride I got dished a plate of pain by George and co and it made me realise the difference between road biking and mountain biking. Road biking is a lot more intense, it is a lot quicker, but there is no respite and you keep peddling or else you are dropped from the group. 

Last Saturday I once again did the Nissan Down and Dirty 70km mountain bike race from Irene. I love this race as it traverses the routes that we ride on our longer training rides. Unfortunately at the start of the race when I switched my Garmin on, there was no battery and it switched right off again. This meant that I had to ride the race 'blind' with no idea of how far or fast I was going. It is amazing how  much you rely on your Garmin and it was difficult to gauge your pace and plans to beat previous times.

Well, I did do better then previous times (3:30) even though they changed the route the last few kms via a rocky hill and I got 2 punctures. Great race, well organised and marshalled even with 3000 odd riders. The best part was having a few beers with Mark, Adam and Mike at the end of the race. 

Grumpy when realising that my Garmin was dead...

Today was an awesome group road bike ride loaded with personal records (click here). We went to Bedfordview and up Kloof road and Fishers hill to try get the legs hill ready for next weekend. It was fantastic riding in a 20+ group of riders, except the cars/traffic was not that great and made me more of  a mountain bike lover then ever. Hopefully I have done enough for next Sunday, I haven't done long road rides with hills like last year but have been kept busy on the mountain bike so we will see if I can improve on last year's time of 3:25......

Nissan Down & Dirty 2012

What a great way to spend the first day of spring. The Nissan Down & Dirty mountain 70km race was held at Cornwall College at Irene just outside Pretoria.  The weather was great, RIP to the leg and arm warmers and welcome back to the sun screen. This is a very popular event, with over 2500 mountain bikers hitting the tracks and making loads of dust.I really enjoy this race, as we do a lot of the route, that we do on our longer rides when training for Sani2C i.e. Benoni to Irene and back. We had to have a batch start, given the number of people, Greg and I started in batch D with Adam and Marco in batch C. It  was good to see our Olympians, Burry Stander and Philip Buys starting this race also (in batch A of course).

 

The race started pretty fast as we rode on the outskirts of Cornwall Housing Estate, we paused for a bit of congestion when getting onto the single track along side the highway, but nothing too serious except a welcome relief to catch our breath. I rode with Greg for the first 20 odd kms but then I latched onto some guy's wheel on the long dirt roads through the windy farm fields in a bid to up my average speed. It was great to meet new people on the ride - I rode with Paul from Kempton for awhile and I finally met a friend from twitter @DaleClark643 on the route. Just before the second water point I passed Adam, he was having problems with his seat post as his clamp broke just before the race - the duct tape was not providing the permanent fix he was looking for. At the 50km mark we were joined by the 40km race riders, which although caused a bit of conjestion, it was good to ride past them knowing that a few months/years ago I was the one being passed by the 'marathon riders'.

 

At 60km I had managed to up my average speed to 21km/h by pushing it on the long jeep and dirt tracks. But then my race pretty much came to an end, when going down a pretty hazardous steep downhill (with loads of rocks and loose rocks sand) I went over the handle bars when trying to avoid the girl that was braking in front of me. Wow, what a tumble, beside being winded, I had hurt my right hand quite badly.  The rest of the race was a pure nightmare. My hand was hurting like hell and I struggled to hold the handle bars, never mind changing gears, this resulted in me having another great tumble, hitting the ground so hard that I am sure it should have registered on the Richter Scale.

This picture I found on the Internet is pretty apt for how I feel...

My average speed plummeted as I struggled to stay on the bike for the last 10km of the race. Almost there, with only 4km to go, but then there was this massive queue of riders. Very disapointing indeed, as this happened last year, I was hoping the new route would resolve the tail backs. The organisers should have anticpated that sqeezing a couple of thousand riders through single track with technical obstacles near the end of a race would end up only in delays and frustration. I realise that one of the reasons for the hold up was that the bridge that was made for the race was broken and you had to dismount and walk through the river. But even if it was fixed, the bank on the other side was so steep that most riders would not have been able to ride it. Bad planning @MTBseries.   

The long queue waiting to go into the forest

I saw Greg a few places behind me in the queue and waited for him for a chat

Waiting patiently inside the forest, the smile is there to mask the pain of my swollen hand

All in all it was a great race besides the last bit, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, great to catch up with so many friends. My mates Craig and Mieke were cooking the boerie rolls and hamburgers at the finish which went down very well. My riding stats took a plummet after my fall and the 30 minute wait at the end, but here they are anyway Richard Garmin stats 

Thanks for visiting Winter but Summer is here so.....off

Finally those months of riding like deformed Eskimos have come to an end. Time to shed those bulky winter clothes and enjoy the warmth of our South African summer. 

2 weeks after riding in sub-zero temperatures, the temps have shot up to over 20 degrees Celsius in the day. Greg (2), Mac, Brad and me had  a very nice ride this week to Befordview in the morning before work. The average temperature was almost 16 degrees for our 2 hour MTB ride - leaving at 04:30 in the morning. Nice fast ride, averaging 24km/h for the 47km (Garmin details here). Great to be out in the morning with like-minded souls and push the boundaries of your bodies' endurance.

Today Greg (1) and me went for a fantastic ride past Serengeti Golf Estate and we did parts of the Nissan Down and Dirty MTB race, that we will be doing next weekend. So nice to do some new routes and the spirit of adventure and exploring numbs the bodies' plea to slow down. One part of our new route was a bit nerve racking as we had to ride with barbed wire on the one side and a 2 meter drop on the other side. Nevertheless we both rode over with no problems.

One part of this route was a bit dodgy, as we went right up to the outskirts of Tembisa (a local township) with the highway just between us. We know for a fact, that some mountain bikers had been attacked here before. My heart was in my throat when we saw two guys armed with big pangas wading through the long grass with a bunch of dogs. Fortunately these guys were only hunting for small game and rabbits and were not bothered by us. Further on we went through a forest with a small rock garden on the route. After riding through, I looked back and could not see Greg - my first thought was that he had been bike-jacked. What to do, oh what to do? Go back and help him or ride on and phone for help? Phew!! a few minutes later I could finally see him, he had stopped to pick up the bits that had fallen out my saddle bag, as I had not closed it properly when I used my Multi-tool to tighten the bolt on my rear shock. Well I am thankful that I got my stuff back and I am not too sure I will be riding in this area once again, it is just not worth it.

Greg catching up after picking up the contents of my saddle bag...

Was really a great ride, we are so blessed here in South Africa to have wide open spaces that we can ride from home to. We did just over 67km, here are my Garmin stats of the ride.

Railway track meander...

Greg 'powering' up the small drag...



Nissan Down and Dirty MTB Series race report

It is not often that everything just seems to go right in a race and you feel invincible. Well this was the race that will go down in history, where Richard Dawkins rode faster than his mates and stayed on his bike the whole race.

The race started at Cornwall College in Irene just outside Pretoria and then headed under the R21highway towards the Eastrand (some parts Greg and me had the privilege of exploring the Sunday before). There were one or two hills that got the heart beat up in the first half of the 70km route, but fortunately our few excursions to Suikerbosrand had helped me not to be scared of hills (I passed a twitter legend @MTBBarbie_44 on one of these hills and introduced myself while riding past).  

At the 40km water point, to my surprise I caught up with Greg (he had started 5 minutes ahead of me in group D seeding with Clint). I was good to ride with him most of the way back to the finish, all the races we have entered before, I haven't even come close to him. I was averaging over 20km/h, which for a race I had not done before (in about 700m of climbing). I felt good and could have carried on, but unfortunately at 60km, we met up with the 20 and 40km riders and this was very hazardous trying to pass them on the single track next to the highway etc. The final single track near the river at the end was also a big disappointment (not because I had to walk over the bridges) everyone was off their bikes and there was a big bottleneck at the river crossings. We wasted at least 15minutes here. Last little hill back to the College was no problem - it was so cool to pass some of the slower riders (didn't think I would ever say that, as I am usually the one being passed). I also managed to finish ahead of racing snake legend - Clint which was also a big surprise (he had mechanicals but I will take the win anyway).

After the race it was awesome to meet some of my twitter mates @hopeleighm @gmyburgh and had a beer with @clintcosgrave, @jacquescoe etc. Really chuffed with my time - moving average time (less the stops for the bottlenecks) was 3:27 - an hour faster than my last Nissan race at Hazeldean.