Bad luck strikes again!
Tire problems seemed to be the flavour of the day for lots of riders, myself included - I paid special attention to getting a tire that would work on this course. Its quite tight forcing you to use a lightweight tire but the rocky nature of the trail also means that you have to use something with a strong carcass. So its all about compromise - as always, performance comes at a price.
The stakes were high with just a couple of points separating Marc Bassingthwaite, Brandon Stewart, Renay Goustra and Craig Paul - the SA title would come down to the last of the 5 race series. No pressure!!!
The race started out well, I settled into the racing for the first couple of laps then started pushing the pace up a bit, dropping Marc and Philip(Garmin) to take the lead. Then i burped my tire, and again ... and again - forcing me to slow down on the technical stuff to avoid pinch flatting. Marc started clawing back and passed me just into lap 6. I stopped to bomb my wheel, losing around 1min30 sec ... On the last lap, I managed to catch back slightly but not enough! Thats the way it goes.
Marc rode a solid race and deserves to have a good win - he had technical issues at the World Cup and his form is good... its just a pity that a Namibian wins the SA XC Cup ! :-) Good work Bass. But watch out next year! hehehe!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
KKC ... KarKloof Classic
Awesome showdown. These timber/dairy farmers know how to put on an event. Everything ran super smooth. All of the courses were perfectly marked and prepped ... each year it just keeps on getting better.
Burry cleaned up in the Sprint Shootout and cracked Kevin Evans in the last km's of the classic to take home the bacon.
I managed to take the XC race... Brandon Stewart made it tough work for me though! The legs did take a bit of extra time to warm up on the classic as a result. Pete Smith managed to take 5th overall in the classic amongst a star studded field, placing in amongst the full time pro's - nice work brother! Dave had a solid ride to finish top 15, I came 8th.
Shale is riding like a machine - 8th in the ladies - way to go sis! Respect!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Houffalize World Cup
They say that Houffalize is the Grandfather event in the World Cup - it is definitely the most exciting WC that I have been to! The crowd is insane! It is said that cycling in Belgium has more supporters than football - well, i can believe it! Spectators were 4 deep on the main climbs, the atmosphere was electric... if you ever have to choose a European event to spectate, i can recommend this one!! The Belgians even know how to braai :-)
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Preparation for Houffalize WC #3
Much better! Its been an interesting week for me in Europe – day after Offenberg, I took a relaxed recovery spin and caught up with Michael Broderick and Mary Mc from USA ... we did a yoga session in the birch woods and drank some freshly ground coffee :-) aaah, the simple pleasures!
I then headed back out to Tom's place (old german friend) near Stuttgart to catch up with him and his youngster Luke who is a real character and a typical 2.5 year old! It was good to chill out there, the weather was KAK but I still managed a 3hr ride in the rain... GPS is a wonderful thing when you are in another country! Tom suggested a route and I took to the hills donning a rain jacket and GPS... its awesome to just go exploring trails without worrying about not finding your way home... especially when the sun is in the wrong hemisphere!
Mad Tom took me for a flip in his YAK 52 – an old aerobatic plane... its a good thing I know him otherwise I would have been kakking in my broek... we arrive at the hangar and the engine cowlings are off. Tom puts on his work jacket, out with the pliers, hammer and takes to fixing the engine! At this point, its good to know some of Tom's history – he has flown down through africa from Europe in his Antonov WW2 cargo plane... TWICE ! So he should know what he is doing with the engine covers off.... hopefully!!
Unfortunately there are no pics of our flight – tried to take some before takeoff but they were severely blurred due to engine vibration (or shaking terrified hand!). I thought that I had a strong stomach... before I got into a stunt plane! We pulled 4G's through the bottom of a loop, flew inverted, couple of loops, Axle roll (he flew 2 of them and I flew the other 1 !!) It was all good until about 10 min into the session, you know when you feel flushed and get all hot? Even when its 5 degrees C ? Yip, one of those. I don't know how those jet fighter pilots do it... evidently you get used to it.
Then it was off to Houffalize... sans booked accommodation :-) The accommodation online was either super expensive or full – so it was better to just wing it when I got there... Things worked out in the end – after a lot of searching and asking around, I found a Guest House about 15km out of town with some Dutch speaking hosts. There are 9 kids running around and the little 1 year old has a cold – so its all fun and games! Lots of action and laughter with the kids – speaking zulu and entertaining them... I even had a conversation with the one kid in Chinese !!??!?!!
On the racing side, I did a practice lap with Burry on Friday – he is looking strong, Todd is sick so I think he is a little concerned that he is going to catch it too.... but so far so good. It was lekker to catch up and ride with our local WC superstar!
Today, I did one loop with Hannes Metzler, then managed to shadow Absalon for a lap – its a real privilege to ride amongst these guys – hopefully more South Africans will get inspired to greater heights and come and join in the action! Houffalize is a crazy place – the town is in a valley and the course weaves up and down, in and out cobbled streets, along the river and its pretty technical too. Usually it rains for Houffalize but this year it looks like we are going to have fine weather, Murphy's law now that I have bought a set of mud tires ! :-(
Anyway, its time to hit the hay... life is good here in Belgium – check out my Yoga spot... somewhere near Houffalize !
I then headed back out to Tom's place (old german friend) near Stuttgart to catch up with him and his youngster Luke who is a real character and a typical 2.5 year old! It was good to chill out there, the weather was KAK but I still managed a 3hr ride in the rain... GPS is a wonderful thing when you are in another country! Tom suggested a route and I took to the hills donning a rain jacket and GPS... its awesome to just go exploring trails without worrying about not finding your way home... especially when the sun is in the wrong hemisphere!
Mad Tom took me for a flip in his YAK 52 – an old aerobatic plane... its a good thing I know him otherwise I would have been kakking in my broek... we arrive at the hangar and the engine cowlings are off. Tom puts on his work jacket, out with the pliers, hammer and takes to fixing the engine! At this point, its good to know some of Tom's history – he has flown down through africa from Europe in his Antonov WW2 cargo plane... TWICE ! So he should know what he is doing with the engine covers off.... hopefully!!Unfortunately there are no pics of our flight – tried to take some before takeoff but they were severely blurred due to engine vibration (or shaking terrified hand!). I thought that I had a strong stomach... before I got into a stunt plane! We pulled 4G's through the bottom of a loop, flew inverted, couple of loops, Axle roll (he flew 2 of them and I flew the other 1 !!) It was all good until about 10 min into the session, you know when you feel flushed and get all hot? Even when its 5 degrees C ? Yip, one of those. I don't know how those jet fighter pilots do it... evidently you get used to it.
Then it was off to Houffalize... sans booked accommodation :-) The accommodation online was either super expensive or full – so it was better to just wing it when I got there... Things worked out in the end – after a lot of searching and asking around, I found a Guest House about 15km out of town with some Dutch speaking hosts. There are 9 kids running around and the little 1 year old has a cold – so its all fun and games! Lots of action and laughter with the kids – speaking zulu and entertaining them... I even had a conversation with the one kid in Chinese !!??!?!!
On the racing side, I did a practice lap with Burry on Friday – he is looking strong, Todd is sick so I think he is a little concerned that he is going to catch it too.... but so far so good. It was lekker to catch up and ride with our local WC superstar!
Today, I did one loop with Hannes Metzler, then managed to shadow Absalon for a lap – its a real privilege to ride amongst these guys – hopefully more South Africans will get inspired to greater heights and come and join in the action! Houffalize is a crazy place – the town is in a valley and the course weaves up and down, in and out cobbled streets, along the river and its pretty technical too. Usually it rains for Houffalize but this year it looks like we are going to have fine weather, Murphy's law now that I have bought a set of mud tires ! :-(
Anyway, its time to hit the hay... life is good here in Belgium – check out my Yoga spot... somewhere near Houffalize !
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