Good week of riding...

January 2014 is rocking, the last 2 weeks have been really great with over 620km ridden already. Last weekend I did my longest ride so far of a 116km, when I joined the Checkers road group for a ride to Midrand, Sandton, Sylvia's Pass and Bedford etc... Nice big group of 20 riders, led nicely by Clint for a hard but very rewarding ride. Click here: for the stats of the ride.

The next day was my birthday and we went for the short ride to a new MTB track that they are busy establishing at the Benoni Country Club. Nice short technical track with lots of twists and turns. Great turn out for a trial ride of the route established by Cliff.



Group ride at the Benoni Country Club MTB track

4 early morning rides before work this week, teed me up for a great weekend. Saturday I was fortunate to share my mountain biking passion with my ever patient and understanding wife. We went to Modders together (on one of hottest days of the year - Garmin recorded a high of 37 degrees) and had an awesome ride together. She is riding really well and will hopefully be doing her first 30km MTB race soon. 

Better half...

Today was a chance to do a different route from the normal spin out into the Benoni mielie fields. I was fortunate enough to be joined by 2 stalwarts of cycling Rebbecca and Juan for a +90km ride out to Heidleberg and back. I have done this route before and it is never easy as it is fairly flat and you have to constantly pedal with no respite. After the long downhill to Heidleberg there is a tiring spin up to the radio tower hill, over looking the town. Great to get up there, enjoy the view and then replenish the energy levels. The ride back home was very wet as we got caught in rain for most of the ride back. It was a very light rain and and a lot better then the sweltering heat of the day before. Here are the stats of this ride to finish off a really great week of riding.

Juan and Becky on the top of the 'radio mast' hill

Hill top selfie

View of Heidleberg from the top of the radio tower hill

Happy birthday me...

What an awesome week this has been (besides going back to work). January the 12th was my 43rd birthday and it made me realise how riding has taken over my life. What better way to start off my birthday with a early ride with my good mate Greg - I decided to do something different and we rode from Benoni to Bedfordview and back (up Fischers hill), the hills added a little diversity but the traffic was a mare.

Home to my lovely wife and kids for a wholesome breakfast and a whole lot of incredible riding related pressies - new First Ascent Pro-Elite bib, Camelbak bottle, bandanna, 4 pairs of socks, bombs, energy bars etc...My mom gave me a voucher for Procycles and renewed my subscription to the best magazine around - Tread. Mates at work organised me another skills lesson with Dylan Victor, so all in all they are all riding related and exactly what I could have wished for.

Sunday 15th January

Today Greg and I did our longest mountain bike ride ever. We each left home at 05:15 before meeting up at the Wimpy at Lakefield. Our objective was to have at least 4 hours in the saddle. We headed out towards Irene and turned around at the Rietvlei Nature Reserve which was 45kms away from Benoni. We were averaging over 20km/h until we came to a really muddy stretch of track (next to the railway line by the Bapsfontein road). Here we struggled as my bike got really clogged up by all the mud and the net effect was,  it took almost an hour to do only a few kms.   

Bike was so full of mud that the wheels stopped turning.



The bike tan is somewhat accentuated by my muddy sun screen.

Was great to see that we can do over 90kms and still walk around afterwards. Start of our training for Sani2C and I think we will be doing a lot more of these.