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.  

2012 is here

Yup time flies when you are riding your bike - ok so we did over 300 hours last year on our trusty steads and 2012 is definitely going to be a whole lot more.

New Years Day ride - Greg and me had organised a ride to Heidelberg with Ian (Procycles), unfortunately the weather caused us to cancel the ride early in the morning and Greg and me settled for a 60km ride on the tar later because of all the rain the night before. As you can see below even the roads took a hammering.

2nd Jan - I did a solo ride on the tar and went to Bedfordview to tackle Fischer's Hill, was an awesome ride on the MTB with 350m ascent in just over 40km.

Clarens - we were fortunate to have a family holiday in Clarens in the Southern Free State province for a few days. I managed a few rides and the scenery was spectacular. The hills were pretty hectic and really got the heart pumping. On one ride I got chased by three dogs when I rode past a rural village - quick interval session with lots of shouting and I managed to escape their evil fangs (once bitten twice shy). 

The little shack we stayed in......



Yes we had to take the trailer so all six bikes could be bought with..




Photo taken on one of the rides



  



The town of Clarens in the distance...



Thaba Trails - to finish off the first week in January Greg and me went to Thaba Trails in the South of Johannesburg for the first time. Wow is all I can say, it was really hectic - we did the green route and really struggled as there were a lot of rocky climbs and descents. Really good training as our heart rates were being pushed to new limits every hilly climb but unfortunately I also walked a lot as I did not trust myself on some of the technical stuff (both up and down hill).

View from one of the many hills at Thaba Trails..