Variety is the spice of life

It takes all kinds to make the world go round.

Today's ride at Welvanpas reminded me of this truth. The trick is to celebrate this variety and what better way to do this than on a mountain bike?

We had hard-men. Fresh from another Epic, XC racers, endurance riders who are made for the long haul, riders training for Sani2C and then of course, Werner and myself with our eyes on BC Bike race.

The bikes were just as diverse as each of us. Racing hardtails, lightweight carbon dual suspension bikes, trail bikes, expensive bikes, entry level bikes, big wheels and smaller wheels, all present and correct and each as unique as the rider on top.

The interesting part comes when these ingredients mix, you add a trail like Welvanpas and what you get is a really awesome ride.

Welvanpas is one of those trails that make you work, but gives ample reward as well. The trail takes you through a series of single track sections combined with jeep track. The climbs are short and steep and the descents are fast and flowing. The terrain varies a lot, like most of the trails in the Western Cape and 1200 angry buffaloes that charged through the trails less than two weeks prior in what is known as the ABSA Cape Epic ensured that you could not trust the usual lines like before. All of this served to heighten the senses and sharpen the skills. The wind came up half way through the ride and was blowing a gale in sections of the trail. This made the conditions even more unpredictable as you would turn a corner to be faced by a wall of wind. None of this detracted from the ride as we made our way around the white trail.

About 3 hours of riding got us around the white loop and from Welvanpas we moved up the road to Doolhof for a wonderful lunch, great wine and really amazing company for the afternoon. With war stories exchanged from races past, social banter between old and new friends and simply all having a good time we closed off the ride.

Out on the trails there are no dividing line between pro's, amateurs or hard core racers and weekend warriors. We love what we do and enjoy making new friends along the way.

Thanks to all for today's experience. It was certainly a great
privilege to ride with each of you

Greyton weekend!

Wow!

What a weekend! On Thursday morning we packed the car for a long weekend in Greyton and oh boy! Did we give it a good go.

With no TV to distract us, we could get a few hours riding in every day and in between we would follow the ABSA Cape Epic feeds on Twitter and the epic website for what must have been the most exciting Epic since inception of the race. Well done to every one that competed and finished, I enjoyed the drama up front and also enjoyed following friends and fellow Tygerberg Mountain Bike Club members via the website.

A quick recognizance ride on Thursday gave us a good perspective on the weekend's riding, so on Saturday we started off with the Green route (with my wife) and proceeded onto the Red route. The climbs were brutal and the views breathtaking. We took a breather at the top and took the exhilarating single track down into the valley. The trail is cut quite narrow ensuring that you never quite get to top speed. This keeps you honest and probably ensures that the trails are not ripped up too quickly either.

Down in the valley a series of fun singletrack sections keeps you entertained all the way back to the tar road heading to Greyton. After less than 100 meters of tar you are on the gravel and jeeptrack roads again. We had a close call just after the old bridge across the Sonderend River with a farmers fence that was erected across the trail with absolutely no markings on it. Fortunately Werner shouted a warning and I managed to stop in time without "clothes lining" myself. On one of our following rides we marked the section with Duct Tape to warn other unsuspecting riders.

The section West of Genadendal would be familiar to Greyton Tour riders. The trail cuts out most of the boring dirt road sections and takes you through a series of jeep and single track sections all the while snaking up.

Eventually we turned towards Voorstekraal and Genandendal and stopped for a Coke at a corner store in Genadendal. It felt like we were really exploring as the town was buzzing with its usual weekday activity while we were out riding. Some more fun sections took us back towards Greyton and we cruised through town back to the cottage we rented. Werner whipped my butt on the ups, the downs and the straights, so I guess that I'll have to step up the training a bit to be able to keep up.

On Saturday we explored the Blue alternative after some early morning rain. The back section followed the trail used on the Greyton Tour first day on the eastern side of the tar road and also cut out some of the bigger climbs through the rest of the western side of the trails.

Sunday we rode the blue again before heading home. We explored what looked like an alternative to the jeep-track and I ended up over the bars on a rocky descent. The first fall on the new bike, so after a bit of a giggle about it we found our way back to the recognized trail.

Thursday we enquired about trail fees and where to get bike boards only to learn that the bike boards were not quite ready and our weekend riding would be for free. As nice as this was, it was evident that the trails are in need of some TLC, and the only way to do that would be from fees generated from trail users. Hopefully the local community can get the admin sorted out so that we can pay to use the trails and ultimately see the trails being looked after to ensure that we can keep on using the trails.

We are already thinking of our next outing to Greyton and hopefully we can get to ride these trails again before we leave for Canada in June.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2dOVG8Z2XE&feature=youtu.be

When is a bike versatile

For very long time I did not have the money for multiple bikes, so I always looked for a bike to cover all my riding I want to do. I do enjoy the a stage race now and then so it must be long distance capable. I very much enjoy technical fun trail/AM riding as well so must be strong enough to take a beating.

I start on xc hardtails when I start mountain biking. After about a year I have bent the one frame and cracked another. This  made me realize I need to go full suspension and my first attempt at versatile bike.

I got  a Trek Fuel Ex8. Going from a hardtail to full suspension made a big difference. It boost the confidence so much. For two and a half years I rode this and it served me well until some idiot decide he wanted it more and stole it.  Being 120mm travel bike I had some awesome fun on it but on bigger stuff I was always was afraid I could hurt it if pushed to far. I chickened out on some stuff the bike could possibly handle but if I got it wrong badly I could damage something.  Another other side of the requirements, it did well too but was a little heavy at 13.5kg for a long distance bike. That said I did a W2W and Sani2C on it and came out alive.

When the FuelEx got stolen I really want its  big brother, the Trek Remedy Carbon but with the bad distributor trek had in past meant there was very very few in the country. After dealing with the new distributor for Trek, The Bicycle Company which was very help full, I found that it fell in bad time. It was in the cross over time between 2012 and 2013 stocks for new bikes.

After a while I spotted a good Ibis Mojo SL (140mm) deal( post while back on blog). Its a great bike. Out of the gate I was doing bigger jumps I did before. On reviews of the FuelEx, people said the bikes suspension felt bottomless and bigger than it is and never understood as it was my first bike. With the Ibis I started to understand. Ibis is very capable but when you take a hard hit you can feel the bottom of the travel. The build of the Ibis is very solid, heavy(12.9kg) but solid with mavic 729 DH rims en rockshox pike fork it can take a good beating.

I always keep an eye out on the classifieds and on last day of 2012 I spotted a Trek Remedy 9.9 for sale. My head said no and my heart screamed YES. On 1 Jan 2013 I went to have a look and took it home with me. The Remedy is a light and tip the scale at 11.9kg for a 150mm all mountain bike. The rims are ztr 355 which is bit light duty for an AM bike but till now the have lasted. I will ride them till something go wrong. The fox Talas on the front is also not to great.

The remedy feels so solid through the ruff stuff, and pedals well too.  Taking flat landings I can again feel what some reviews say about treks suspension design. It feels bottomless. It feels like the bike go sits down in soft butter, its just so smooth.

In February I did a downhill race on the Remedy. It handle well. Yes I skip some of the jumps and stuff as I did not want to hurt myself but the bike can do it. The light weight meant that I could accelerate much quicker and in the end I have beaten a few DH bikes and came 26/34 in open men class.  If I took some of the jumps I would have gain another few spots.

Past weekend was my first time that I attempted the anual  big road event, The Argus Cycle Tour. I have always push away from it as I dont like massive amounts of people stuff in small area, but people say the atmosfeer of it is great. I decide to give it a go. Did BurgerCycleTour in december on the Ibis to get seeding for the argus. That gave me a nice 7h00 start on the argus in group S.

Race day. I decide to do it with my Remedy with 2.2 Geax saguaro knobbly's and a crank with big blade. Soon after my start we encounter the first stupid roadie for the day. Being in the middel of the road decide he must go the side and just went for it, no matter the few hundred people around him. People screaming, cursing at him quickly paused him in his track but now the bunch already pulled a gap. From there on it was chaos till top of edinburgh drive dropping down on blue route. A group of about 8 of us form and cruised until muizenberg, collect more and more people along the way. One roadie commenting that I sound like a 18-wheeler coming down the road with my knobbly's.

Along the sea there was bit of a headwind. Here a lady cut me off that my handle poke in her ribs, all sorry sorry but then it's too late and lost my slip. I had to work hard myself into the wind up too St James where i got some people going a good pace for me and between the building was much less wind.  Prior the the race lots of people made it sound like smutswinkel hill is so bad. Getting there I started passing people going up, feeling strong. The part that got me was going down other side. Is not flat and not steep down. I was struggle to keep with anyone. Just past ocean view the wind was an angled headwind again somehow. Suspect the mountains channeled it.  There was no hiding behind anyone here people were weaving all over so riding too close to anyone could be risky.

Next was Chappies. Here I was not pulling so strong anymore. Having had to work so much myself and trying not  too losing to much time has taken its toll. I made it up chapmans peak but not at the pace I would have liked. Going down I had to navigate around people as I was much more confident in the turns at speed. Maybe the big fat tires was a factor.

Hello Houtbay. Now I knew the big one everyone always suffer on was close. In houtbay still there is a little up and with no warnign at all my hamstring decide to cramp. I use my gears and start spinning to help the cramp out. This meant that I took suikerbossie easy. I want to give it horna but at the risk of a cramp I decided against it. Going down the other side I found a rider going a good pace for me and I slipped him all the way to Seapoint at the big left right turns. Here he was cornering to slow. I past him on the outside and knew we are close to the end. I put the hammer down as much as the legs allowed me. Not sure if he hanged on but I was not looking back.  Head down, home stretch. At the finish I was tired and I did not had a feeling of accomplishment. The atmosfeer for me was not great. Did not see anyone that look very glad or excited. Every one is just a number. I guess that is the result when you so many people and with so many people that have done it so many times. Part of it might have ben also that road riding is boring, all you do is head down and pedal pedal pedal.

Now I have done it and not sure that I would want to do it again.  Final result was  03:46:46 overall position  6900/31473. Not a bad result for a mountain bike on knobbly's.

I believe I'm done with road races forever unless someone convince me for something , which is not going to be easy. I have done the big 3 road events of the Cape on a mountain bike with knobbly's, Double Century (203km), Argus (109),  Burger(92) and after each I had same reason why I did not enjoy is much, its BORING.

Now back the the title. The definition of versatile:


ver·sa·tile  (vûrs-tl, -tl)
adj.
1. Capable of doing many things competently.
2. Having varied uses or serving many functions: "The most versatile o vegetables is the tomato" (Craig Claiborne).
3. Variable or inconstant; changeable: a versatile temperament.
4. Biology Capable of moving freely in all directions, as the antenna of an insect, the toe of an owl, or the loosely attached anther of a flower.



Now having done from downhill race to 109km road race to long day in the mountain I fairly sure a Trek Remedy 9.9 can be described as versatile with definition #1 in mind.

But the Ibis mojo is shortly on the Remedy's heals. The "problem" with Ibis at the moment is the weight and that can be easy fix with lighter wheel set and fork but then my current problem I have owning this two bike is even more so. They very close to  the same class of bike. Ibis has a little longer top tube length which might make it beter for the longer distances.  To sell one of the two would be very hard as I love the Trek suspension design and the Mojo as been a dream bike for so long and is so beautiful, now that I have it I dont want to let it go.... but I'm also itching to get a single speed bike and the Ibis Tranny has caught my eye.....

Till next time

A new set of rules

Recently Werner posted a "new" set of rules when it comes to cycling. I found this quite amusing: http://notsoseriouscyclist.blogspot.com/2011/01/rules-for-mountain-bikers.html?m=1 This was re-written from what has become a bit of cycling folklore, namely the rules: http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/ I suspect that both sets were written tongue in cheek and that we as cyclists were being told not to take ourselves so seriously. Today 35 000 odd riders did the yearly pilgrimage around the Peninsula in the world's biggest timed event. Well done to Werner who completed the ride in good time and to each and every other rider that got on their bikes this morning. I opted to go for a ride at Hoogekraal instead. I had a few good rides this week and I'm really enjoying the bike at the moment. 16 weeks to BCBR means that at this stage I am making the most of the Cape late Summer and trying to keep things low tempo and fun. I am looking forward to a bit of riding this weekend while my friends are suiting up to do the Epic. Some have done up to 8000 km with 80 000 meters of vertical ascent and average 15 hours a week in the last 6 months. That's more than what most people cycle in a lifetime. At this stage I'm very relieved (and slightly jealous) that I'm not lining up for this race next week. Good luck with your final preparations and may each one of you taste the sweet taste of success in 2 weeks time.

117 Days...

With BC Bike race creeping ever closer (117 days to be exact) things are falling into place. The main things that we still need to attend to are arranging Visas, unaccompanied bike transport from Vancouver to Cape Town after the race, shuttle service from Whistler to Vancouver Airport, New York and Vancouver City passes for public transport and sight seeing and Broadway tickets (my wife keeps reminding me...). Last week I managed to check another box on my to-do list as I finally decided to replace my trusty Zula with the Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Expert 29. I decided against overhauling the Zula with new wheels, replacing key components and trying to turn a 120mm travel bike into a Trail bike. I was truly impressed with the Stumpy as well as the service from Specialized at the ride-before-you-buy day Sunday a week ago. Since numerous shops and suppliers promised to arrange test bikes after I posted my blog on my Facebook page and a few online cycling forums last week and none of these shops and suppliers made good on their promises I decided to go with my gut on this one. I probably paid 15 to 20% more for a similarly spec'd bike from some of the other brands out there, but I ended up buying exactly what I wanted in spec and feel of the bike and I know that I will have no issues later with warranties, servicing and availability of parts in Canada. The weekend past was a test of my resolve to do well in the Two Oceans Half Marathon. It was my last chance to do a seeding run with the Century City Express 10km on Saturday. Fast, flat and every chance of doing a PB would have made this a no-brainer any other weekend, but this weekend was different as there was a brand new Stumpy in my study that begged to be ridden. Saturday morning I woke up at 5am to get to the 10km run nice and early and almost canned the run to go for a ride. ALMOST! We love to complain at cycling events about organisation or lack thereof. Running still seems like chaos to me. I arrived at 6am to ensure that I had enough time to get my registration card and that I could get a decent placing at the start line. Unlike cycling where there are often seeded starts and electronic timing, the runners still do mass starts and manual timing. The run started at 7am and the pace was hot right from the start. I knew that starting off too fast would cost me, but I also knew that my first 3km in every race or training run feels like hell anyway, so I just let rip. For once I did not have to weave too much to get past over optimistic walkers and slow runners. Today I was being passed by many more runners than what I was passing, so I guess I was for once that guy that didn't belong at the front of the race. After 2km I felt my rhythm was quite good and I decided to push to 5km to build a bit of a buffer for when my legs were to implode on me in the last 5km. I made it in 29 minutes to 5km. 1 minute ahead of pace and 2 minutes buffer to the 61 minutes cut off for a seeded start at Two Oceans. Miraculously my legs kept going, so I just kept running. With 2km to go I knew that this was going to hurt later. It was hurting now, but for once I decided to push through the pain to the other side where pain becomes a dull afterthought and where you feel like you float on endorphin and adrenalin into the finish. I ran a 58:23 which was by far my fasted 10km ever. As I crossed the finish line I felt the pain catching up with me. Another 200m and I would probably have stopped short to walk the last few meters in, but as it turned out I paced it to perfection. My legs were going to hurt on Sunday, but it was worth it. Saturday was spent recovering and doing as little as possible. I checked my new bike for Sunday's ride and packed my gear. The venue was Jonkershoek where I met up with Werner and another friend who cycled in from Somerset West. We went up to the fire trail and I eagerly put the Stumpy through her paces. Apart from having an under torqued seat clamp and saddle clamp (I'm very careful not to over tighten clamps) she swallowed everything I had the balls to throw at her. Being able to drop the seat post helped me to negotiate some of the steeper descends with much more confidence and I found that the 130mm travel was more than what I was prepared to use right now. Werner had a nasty fall half way through the trail and after some more play time on the lower slopes of the mountains we made our way to Somerset West on the bikes where my wife picked me up. With 117 days left the excitement seems to grow exponentially every week. Hopefully we will be able to cross off all the to-do's in the next few weeks so that we can simply focus on training for the race.