Saturday the 7th of February was the day I recorded my longest MTB ride to date - 108km. The plan was to do 120km but the mind was willing and the body was not. There were 8 of us that embarked on a memorable ride to Irene and back - Paul, Greg, Wayne, Michael, Von, Ashley and Billy. A really hot day rushed up on us, after our early 5:00 start. The route that we took was pretty well known to Greg and I after doing a few Irene trips before. This time however we were going around Irene and not just to the edge of it, so there was a bit of clueless wondering to find some tracks until we ended up at the Irene market.
This was a great place for a pit stop as there was plenty shade and food and coffee stalls to refresh our battered bodies.
On the way to Irene when going through the bush we came upon a tame Zebra. This was an awesome sight as the Zebra was out of place and must have escaped from the nearby game reserve.
The ride to Irene I can honestly say was one of my better rides. It was pretty amazing route with a bit of everything. Unfortunately Greg had a silly fall and besides ending up in a thorn bush his knee connected with a rock and it looked pretty painful (and is still swollen today). Hope it does not slow down his training for Joburg to Sea. I managed on the ride better then I thought I would, however spending 6 hours in the saddle was a bit hectic (given that I am not fully recovered from all my injuries) but it was totally worth it.
This has been a great week as I was able to have a few rides with my beautiful wife Linda. It's really awesome that she now shares the passion I have for mountain biking. We have done a few evening rides around our suburb and today we did a 34km ride out in the plots and had a breakfast stop in between. She is now on Strava and loves competing and working her way up the ladies leader board, she has a couple of top places and will soon have a QOM as she gets fitter.
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| Evening rides around Korsman Pan watching the sun go down |
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| Linda going down 'Mark the other way' segment |
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| She loves taking photos on the rides so I will have plenty of shots of me... |
