Wow

So after having quite a torrid time with my 'old' Giant Anthem with all the bearings needing to be replaced (thanks to Greg for doing this for me) the rear shock needing a drastic service and the front shock to be replaced, I took the leap and purchased a brand new 2013 Giant Anthem X Advanced 29er 1.

WOW, this is my absolute dream bike, it has carbon frame, aluminium rear triangle, RochShox SID 29 RL with the Giant OverDrive 2 steeerer suspension fork, RockShox Monarch Rl rear shock, full Shimano Deore XT (2 x 10) componentry  etc. The full specs can be found here . I went for my first ride this morning and it was incredible, hard to believe that a new bike can handle so well and feel so great, I am so chuffed at the moment.



My old front FOX shock has some nasty grooves on the sanctions

My new pride and joy



The beauty of our morning rides is sometimes ignored because of urge to race..

With regards to the last few weeks, I have had some incredible rides:
2 weeks ago we did the USN Mountain Bike Cup race at the Big Red Barn. This was one of the best races I have ever done, not by the result of where I came, but because of the awesome riding and single track that was in the race. The route was incredible, over 40km of single track in a 47km race. Greg was our local champ and gave us all carrots, followed by myself, Mark, Grant, Justan and Waldi.  

Some dirty boys after the USN MTB Cup at the Big Red Barn

Last week because my MTB was in the shop, I did a bit of road biking. I joined Jacques in the mornings for a couple of 50km rides before work and then rode the 103km Macsteel Carnival City Classic race on Sunday.  This race is relatively flat and extremely fast. I started in group DL with Renier (who ended up wining the group), the pace was really frantic in the beginning for the first 20km we were averaging over 45km per hour. This gradually slowed as I got dropped from the leading bunch  and was picked up by other bunches. Total time was 3:13 with an average of 31.8km/h for the 103km. Chuffed that I finished in a faster time then last year, but still aiming to break the elusive 3:00 barrier.



Reward for the 103km sprint  

How not to do a drop off

Ok so we went to Central Park Trails (Modders) on Sunday. The new starting point and track are absolutely awesome. Greg and I had an incredible ride. I had my iPhone filming in my Optrix cover and got a good 1.5 hours video coverage of the ride.

Below is a short clip of a 'drop off' that I had problems with, it doesn't look too steep in the video (but to me it seemed enormous),  it was grassy with a kink at the bottom. First in the video is Greg showing you how it should be done and then me making a real hash of it....unfortunately, I panicked after taking a tumble here once before and didn't keep my line and then proceeded to hit the front brake sending me tumbling over the handle bars (bruising my ribs on my handle bar in the process). So long story short....this is how you should not go down a drop off, rather keep your bum off the back of the saddle thus putting your weight on the back of the bike, look ahead and gently feather the back brake (leaving the front brake alone)....

Edenvale Serengeti MTB Challenge 02-02-13

Awesome race today at Serengeti Golf Resort. Greg, Chris, Adam, Marco and Mark all had a go at this race on our backdoor. In fact these are the routes that we ride on every weekend so it was  exciting to do this race today. The race was extremely fast, we averaged over 23km/h for the 61km - which Greg and I did in 02:45 (click on link to view Garmin stats). Chris was a few minutes later as he lost his legs the last few kms. Marco and Adam were shunting at the front and took a wrong turn and ended up doing only 44km with a few other guys. The route was badly marked at one point and many people went the wrong way. We missed the turn once and had to ride back, fortunately I knew the route and we turned done the correct road where the other guys carried on straight (so I reckon the are a few unhappy mountain bikers out there today). Quite a few guys were disqualified (incl Adam and Marco) and this pushed us up the finishing order giving me my best result ever in a race - 33rd overall and 9th in category, really chuffed with my result.

Great race and we pumped it the whole way, only resting a bit when Greg had to plug a puncture. Below is a edited video of some of the race taken with my iPhone.

 

 

Nice action shot - you can see it was a bit muddy..

Greg and me at the finish line.....