Spinning Again

After what seems like a long period of inactivity and demotivation (I think it's called 'post Epic blues') I'm back on the bike and managing a couple of decent rides each week totaling about 7½ hours. I'm still struggling with the motivation side of things but I am really enjoying the riding once the legs are warmed up.

I'm planning to ride the AMA Rider 100Miler with a friend next Saturday which is a mountain bike ride from Durbanville to Paarl via Malmesbury. The route is non-technical on rolling district (dirt) roads and farm tracks so it shouldn't be too hard other than the sheer amount of time in the saddle. It should be a good test of my post Epic fitness levels.

In other news... I won a short cycle race organised by my boys school in aid of Miles For Smiles. The prize was a weekend away in a luxury tented camp which we're looking forward to. Read more on my other blog.

UCI MTB World Cup

Round 1 of the UCI MTB World Cup has been held in Pietermaritzburg here in South Africa over the Easter weekend with some surprising results in the cross country category. Julien Absalon was beaten into second place by the Spaniard Jose Hermida riding for Merida Multivan.

Burry Stander managed a credible third place but I was disappointed by Christoph Sauser's 4th place finish. I'm quite a fan of these two (not just because of their Epic performance) and would have liked to see them both do better. Still, at least the frenchman was beaten.

Full story and results can be seen at the World Cup SA webpage.

Learning To Ride A Bike

The title pretty much sums up my Cape Epic. I feel that for the first time in my life I actually learnt to ride a bike properly and it felt great!

I've already said it a lot but will keep on telling anyone who will listen that riding with Paul was a real privilege particularly as he has a very natural racing mentality. Paul could strategise and see opportunities to pass teams and drop other riders whilst I was happy to sit back, relax and get my heart rate back to normal. Riding with someone like Paul is a real education as suddenly you realise there's a whole lot more going on than merely pedaling your bike.

My lowest point was on Sunday evening after Stage 1. I blew my ride by spending over 4 hours in the orange zone and burnt almost 8000Kcal's, most of which I failed to replace. I was left wondering how on earth I was going to get back onto my bike in the morning and was convinced it was physically impossible! Somehow my mind overruled my body and I did indeed ride again on Monday in Stage 2. I really didn't enjoy it much and after burning almost 5000Kcal's was getting myself into a real mess. I knew I had to eat but each small mouthful I took caused me to gag. I really wanted to puke big time but somehow managed not to. Not sure how but I held on. Stupidly Stage 3 was pretty much a repeat with a ridiculous number of Kcal's being burnt and nowhere near enough being consumed. I really was hitting some very low points and simply not helping myself. My only other really tough day was Stage 7 when I felt like I simply had nothing left to give. Somehow I had to dig very very deep and with a bit of help from Paul (pushing me uphill again) I managed to get myself up to the top of Wedderwill which was the very last hill. Hooray!

After getting my nutrition sorted with help from Polar we began to race properly and Stages 5 & 6 were far and away the best days. The riding was proper mountain biking with plenty of technical stuff and great singletrack. I really enjoyed these two days, particularly the singletrack leading into Oak Valley and the stuff in Lebanon both of which are local rides for us.

The 'Bum Tent' run by the Medi-Clinic was an interesting experience. By the end of Stage 2 I really needed some help as my saddle was set incorrectly and my bum was getting very sore! The initial visit to the bum tent was a bit odd but very quickly you lose any inhibitions and really don't care who's got their hand up there. I got to know the Dr's quite well and Sharon was an angel. Initially they gave me nappy cream then I moved onto an anti-septic cream but by Stage 6 my bum was screaming with pain. So on seeing the Medi-Clinic 4X4 at a waterpoint I jokingly asked for the 'under the counter stuff' to which the medic said "OK" and pulled out a small tube of cream. Within 2 minutes of applying it my bum was numb. Blessed relief! I forgot to ask what it was but that night (I was staying at home) I saw my GP and she gave me a prescription for what she thought the cream was. Sadly she was wrong, so the next morning at the first water point I grabbed the medics and made them give me a LOT of the cream. It turns out it was a purely anaesthetic cream but it was glorious and I managed to continue riding pain free.

Besides crossing the finish line in Lourensford, one of my key highlights was being told by Paul that he was 'happy to follow me downhill as I was picking some sweet lines'. Now I'm not normally noted for my downhilling but for some reason it all came together on the Epic and I was really happy to throw myself (plus bike) down the rocky loose hills with almost complete abandonment. Wolfkloof in the Kogelberg on Stage 6 was exceptionally good fun. Part of it was born out of the confidence I have in my bike, the BMC Fourstroke 02 is a very sweet machine!! But I think mainly it came from the many hours I spent in Jonkers and Eden practising my technical skills on singletrack and rocky downhills. The Rock-garden that links Eden and Coetzenberg was great practice as nowhere on the epic was worse than that.

Having said all of that, the best thing by far was crossing the finish line in Greyton on Stage 3 being cheered on by Paula and my boys! I knew Paula would be there but I hadn't expected her to take the boys out of school for the day. I was so emotional on seeing them and they really lifted my spirits. Later as they drove off home I realised just how tight we are as a family and how much I really adore them!

Post Epic Riding Begins

I rode my first post-Epic mountain bike ride yesterday morning with Petie from the bike shop. It was one of the regular rides but only the two of us rocked up which was great. We rode for 2½ hours around the southern side of Stellenbosch starting from Paradyskloof onto Onderpappagaiberg and around the hills through the vineyards. A lovely ride and a fairly gentle reintroduction but man I was exhausted afterwards! I think it may take a while longer to fully recover than I had anticipated.

The photo is looking towards Gordon's Bay and Hangklip point from Stellenbosch.

Stats & Facts

I’m still coming to terms with exactly what it is that Paul & I have done in completing the 2009 Cape Epic and as my thoughts crystalise over the next few hours and days I will write about some of my experiences, the highs and lows etc. of an amazing journey.

For now here are some cold hard facts:

600 teams of two were due to line up at the start of the Cape Epic Prologue on Table Mountain on the 21st of March but for some reason only 598 made it. Apparently there were a number of serious accidents the day before during the test riding of the route. Of these, 503 made it to the finish line at Lourensford.

We finished in 278th overall and 180th in the Men’s category with our overall time being 46:29:21.0

Officially the race is 743kilometres long with 16650m of ascent. However my Polar heart rate monitor disagrees with the official stats but I’ll go with them. What my Polar can confirm however is my calorie expenditure which stands at a whopping 35539Kcal for the whole event. That is about 14 days worth of food in 8 days! Amazingly I lost no weight at all.

We had two key aims at the outset and a third one of lesser importance. These were: 1) To finish 2) To have fun along the way & 3) To finish in the top half. We achieved all three and as such are very pleased with ourselves.

We had agreed at the outset not to hit the Prologue too hard and were reasonably pleased with our time of 1:11:32.3 This put us in the G starting group which was the last seeded group followed by the Open category. By Stage 3 we had worked our way into the F start group and for Stage 6 & Stage 7 we were in E. Each day we managed to be in the front of the start pen and this really helped on a few occasions, particularly around Greyton when there was a bit of chaos which we were able to take advantage of and work our way through the group in front of us.

We were very blessed not to suffer with any technical issues as our bikes ran perfectly and neither of us picked up any serious injuries besides sore bums, stiff legs and a number of scratches and bruises. We had a Face Plant Sweepstake which meant whoever fell off the most had to buy the other a bottle of champagne. Sadly I lost this 2-1 but Paul more than deserved the bubbly!

Other than pushing ourselves way too hard on Stage 1 on Sunday, the only day we didn’t really enjoy was Stage 4 which was around Greyton. This stage favoured roadies and sprinters of which we are neither. Also by this stage I was seriously struggling with my nutrition. Thankfully the guys at Polar were really helpful and after a lot of eating to get myself sorted Stage 5 was fantastic, definitely our best day! We crossed the finish line with stupid grins plastered across our faces on that day. Stage 6 was also a highlight as we entered the Kogelberg Biosphere. The Wolfkloof descent really played to our strengths and the long sandy patches which followed allowed us to drop a lot of other teams around us and again we finished with huge smiles on our faces. They were two fun days on the bike and more than made up for the pain of Stage 1.

Overall credit for our performance must lie with Paul and his instinct for racing. Having done the Cape Epic last year as well as the Cedarberg, Sani2C and years of adventure racing he has a good handle on how to play to his strengths and maximise any opportunity to gain ground on his competitors. Paul would often see a gap and go for it whilst I would have been happy to sit back and get my heart rate back down. However Paul would always say I could rest on the downhill which was frustrating at times as they were often nowhere near as long as the uphills! One of Paul’s key tips was to ‘ride over the hill’ as opposed to ‘riding to the top of the hill’. What this means in short is that most riders (me included) would ride to the crest of a hill and then back off and freewheel whilst attempting to recover. Paul’s technique is to ride for 5 pedal strokes beyond the crest, working on the theory that if you freewheel at 5k’s you’ll do 5k’s all the way down whereas if you freewheel at 25k’s you’ll do 25k’s all the way down and thereby drop a number of other riders. Trust me, this works like a dream!

A few more facts (or rather, stats of friends and other teams I was watching).

Matt (& Ryan) - Snowmen 130th
Dan & Anka - Hansgrohe/SantaCruz 277th (one place ahead of us)
William & Jannie - Oak Valley Wines 226th
Mario & Andy - Mondipak 348th
Vic & Mark - Pimp My Ride 466th
Erica (& Willie) - ABSA/JAG Legends 81st
Johan Cilliers - DHL Logistics - Individual finisher: 39:57:12.6 (would have been 125th if partner not dropped out)

Cyberspace friends:
Roons & Wimpie - Google 452nd
Paul & Dennis - Times Boardman Halfords Bike Hut 478th

Stage 5

Today was a great day for us! After spending time with the amazingly helpful guys from Polar discussing my energy expenditure and nutritional problems, I simply was not eating, I managed to get myself sorted last night and then we put a plan together for eating on the route. Basically we made sure that we ate on the hour every hour, grazing at least one energy bar but topping that up with GU's and Jellybabies etc. Last night I ate more than I thought was humanly possible as well as drinking gallons of electrolyte drinks. Thankfully it all paid off and today was near perfect. We took the first half easy but steady and gradually worked our way through the field. Then as we climbed out of Botrivier we caught sight of Hansekop which really lifted our spirits as we knew we were close to home. After Botrivier we stepped it up a bit and gave it some horns. We finished in 233rd today which takes our overall placing to 287th which we're pleased with.

Today was meant to be one of the tougher days with 2200+ metres of climbing over 111k's but it was my easiest day yet. Today was a proper MTB stage (unlike yesterday which favoured roadies and sprinters) which played to our strengths with plenty of technical climbing, fast descents and some gorgeous single track right at the end. Initially we were stuck behind a fairly nervous rider in the singletrack but naughtily managed to get past which was great. Now we're really looking forward to the next two days, especially finishing in Lourensford.

Tonight we surprised our wives by coming home. No more camping!!!

Ride Photos

I have been intending to take the camera out on a ride for a while now but I keep forgetting. This morning I finally got my act together and was gutted to see how thick the fog was! Thankfully it burnt off quite quickly and the morning turned into another perfect day in paradise!

I took this picture quite close to Stairway To Heaven looking out towards Table Mountain which is totally obscured by the fog. The fog made for an eerie ride but it was quite spectacular as it burnt off to slowly reveal the landscape.

I never tire of the beauty of the Western Cape especially here in the Helderberg and Stellenbosch areas. It really is a privilege to be able to ride around here.








This is one of my favourite views taken looking backwards from the start of 'Never Ending Story' in Jonkers. The views all around at this point are quite stunning and this is a popular spot with mountainbikers to stop and refuel etc. before hitting the glorious singletrack!



This is looking North(ish) from the same spot and again it's absolutely gorgeous!


This is the start of Never Ending Story which is a fantastic piece of singletrack. Look very carefully at the tree directly above the sign. On the first branch off to the left there's a bird of prey (can't work out exactly what it is).


I got off the bike and walked as close as I could to the bird but I still can't identify exactly what it is. Regardless it's a beautiful creature and I feel very privileged to have been so close to such a magnificent creature


As I got closer it turned its back on me providing another great shot of it


What a joy and a privilege it is to get so close to such amazing scenery and wildlife!

Weekly Summary

Considering that the week didn't start too well it ended up as a pretty decent week with two good rides to Jonkershoek. My aim at the moment is to do more quality rides as opposed to quantity and the main way to do this is to increase the intensity of my rides. This involves getting out of the saddle and standing for the climbs and hitting the hills in bigger rings. I got out of these habits when I started building my base and feel that I lost quite a bit of my climbing ability. I had become a bit of a mountain goat and could quite comfortably beat most of those I rode with on the hills. I originally started riding in the bigger rings on hills in training for the Karoo To Coast but continued afterwards as I enjoyed it so much. Yesterday I really enjoyed climbing up to the waterfall in Jonkers in my middle blade and third at the back.

My aim in all this is to increase my lactate threshold prior to the Epic as there is still time to do this. Hopefully I'll also improve my VO2max which I will get tested again in a couple of weeks. I'm also trying to be careful not to overtrain and stay within the limits of the Polar training programme. Putting in big weeks of 20+ hours isn't really the cleverest thing to be doing at this stage. Also, the base fitness is in place and well sorted so only needs to be maintained with one long slow distance ride a week. The rest can be higher tempo rides getting ready for race pace on the day.

Yesterday's ride was great as I took about 1½ hours off my usual ride time to Jonkers' and still felt fresh and strong at the end of the ride. One aspect of these rides I really enjoy is the smug feeling as I see cars with bikes driving up to the Jonkers' gate, knowing that I've ridden there and will be riding home. My stats for yesterday's ride aren't quite right as 8k's into the ride my speed sensor was ripped off and I didn't notice until about an hour later. Thankfully I managed to find the lost sensor on the way home as it got ripped off on a short sharp hill which most riders choose to bypass so noone had picked it up. Thankfully that saved a few pennies as they're not cheap.

Stats for (load) week:
Ride time: 12:14 (target: 14:00)
Distance: 190km
Kcal's burnt: 8200
Total ascent: 2745m

The Wheels Are Still Spinning

Being new to this training lark, I'm not always sure what to expect, So I was quite shocked after Sunday's ride when I just felt flat and like I had no fuel in the tank. To compound my frustration about this the first half of this week felt a bit like the wheels were coming off. I know this isn't really possible (barring something major) but with a few missed rides and the hours simply not being clocked up I was wondering where the week was heading. I managed to ride on Wed with the local bike shop but it wasn't a great ride as we were baby sitting a group of Dutch guys on a cycling holiday. Some of them were quite fit and were up for a challenge on the hills but they mostly backed off after the first couple of hours. The ride was also very stop start as we had to wait for a straggler or two. Having planned to have ridden 10 hours by today I was left wondering where I would be able to make up the hours.

This morning my alarm went off at 5am and my body was telling me to switch it off and go back to sleep. Somehow I managed to get up and sort myself out and drove to Mooiberge (I'm trying to vary my early morning riding routine for safety reasons). I then sat in the bakkie for ten minutes trying to convince myself to get out and ride in the rain. Yep it rained, not something we normally expect in summer! It wasn't Jo'burg type rain, more a steady drizzle but it was still very wet. Anyway I eventually got on the bike and within five minutes was really happy I'd made the effort. I rode to Jonkers' had a lot of fun on the wet and slippery single track and then returned to Mooiberge absolutely drenched but very happy! It wasn't raining in Jonkers so much as the place was smothered in low cloud which made the riding interesting at times!

So the wheels are not coming off and this morning's ride was shorter in time but a good high quality ride which is what I'm aiming for now. I'm also looking forward to making up those missing hours over what remains of the week!

As I said, I'm new to this training lark, having never trained for anything before in my life, so I'm drawing on the advice offered (of which there is plenty) whilst also making a certain amount of it up as I go along. I look forward to seeing how it all works out at the big event.

Weekly Summary

This week was a recovery week on the Polar programme so I made a real point of resting as much as possible. That said, I nearly killed myself at Stellenbosch Uni see 'Tortured Cyclist' for more on that.

I only managed one mountain bike ride this week which was an early ride this morning. I rode with Paul (Epic partner) and a young Swiss guy called Martin Fanger who is in South Africa for the MTB World Cup in Pietermaritzburg in April. That says enough about him and his abilities! He is a nice lad and fun to ride with but he lifted the pace of the ride too much for me. Paul was keen to toy with Martin on some of the climbs but I wasn't in the mood for that.

Anyway, this morning's ride was from my house onto Sir Lowry's and the railway servitude road, over Sir Lowry's Pass into Grabouw and up Nuweberg which is a monster climb. I was feeling pretty lousy on the bike as if I simply didn't have anything in my legs. I really don't get why I had such a bad day out as I was well rested and had been eating well. I guess that my base fitness is what saw me through so in a way it was quite a good test before the Epic. I still managed 5½ hours with total ascent of 1835m which is good simulation for the big event.

Much of the route this morning will make up a large part of Stage 7 on the Cape Epic this year so it's good to spend some time on familiarising ourselves with parts of the route. This is local riding for us which is a real bonus! We're very blessed to be quite familiar with this part of the world and what it has to throw at us. One thing for sure about Grabouw, you will be doing lots of climbing!!

Stats for (recovery) week:
Ride time: 14:45 (target: 14:00)
Distance: 316km
Kcal's burnt: 10227
Total ascent: 1835m

The Only Way Is Up!

This is a typical view of the riding in Grabouw, beautiful dirt roads which always seem to be going uphill! A taster of what is to come during the Epic next month. Only 35 days to go.

I stole this photo from Wine2Whales.

Wines2Whales

Further to my previous post New MTB Trails about testing part of the route for the Wines2Whales three day MTB stage race from somerset West to Hermanus, I can tell you that their website has just gone live and can be seen at: www.wines2whales.co.za

Personally I'd love to do it but my wife would have a serious sense of humour failure if I did so maybe next year for me.

Weekly Summary

This week is my biggest week of training with 21hours being the goal. Suffice to say I rode the hours and am just a bit tired now! This week was a bit unusual in that I was at Stellenbosch Uni' again on Tuesday morning and did the 100k time trial for Christa. This involved strapping my road bike onto the spinner which is hooked up to a computer which measures power output etc. Having done 7 hours on Monday morning and then 3 hours on Tuesday's night ride I was fairly exhausted by Wednesday morning. However, I managed to drag myself out of bed and joined Petie (owner of Helderberg Cycle World) for the usual Wed' morning ride, but I bailed out after 3 hours. At the time it felt like the right/easy thing to do but I do regret it now.

This week has involved one 3:30am start, two 4:30am starts, one 5:30am start and a night ride which finished at 10pm. I'm beginning to realise that the really epic thing about the Cape Epic is the commitment and dedication required to train for it.

My last ride of the week was this morning, yet another 4:30am start! Once again I rode over to Jonkershoek, but my route was severely disrupted by the numerous fires in the Jonkers' mountains, but it made for a nice bit of variety. Sadly, two young lads were apparently trying to get a braai (BBQ) started and somehow managed to burn down a HUGE chunk of Stellenbosch's glorious mountains. Despite the behaviour of two prats, I and many others were still able to ride in Jonkers' where the fire crews are doing an incredible job of containing the fires. After feeling exhausted on Wed' I felt really strong today which goes to show how important it is to recover well. Next week is a recovery week and I will be taking it very seriously, making sure that I'm well rested for the following week.

Stats for (overload) week:
Ride time: 21:59 (target: 21:00)
Distance: 369km
Kcal's burnt: 14423
Total ascent: 4460m

Cape Epic Route

The Cape Epic route has been public for a while now but in the last day or two they have added the profile of each day's ride. As ever the profiles look really intimidating, but it wouldn't be the Epic if it was easy.

This particular profile is of the first day, which also happens to be the biggest day covering 110k's with 2770m of climbing. That big hill in the middle is Groenlandberg, and it is a BIG climb!

The whole route can be seen here.

Weekly Summary

I'm really enjoying my riding at the moment and had a great week this week. I hadn't given too much thought to just how fit and strong I would become on the bike, especially once the base fitness was sorted. Right now I seem to be able to ride for hour after hour with no fuss and I'm also enjoying the back to back riding (Mon early, Tue night ride, Wed early) which should help for the Epic.

My favourite ride at the moment is from Home in Somerset West to Jonkershoek in Stellenbosch. Aside from a few k's on the R44 and a bit on Jonkershoek Rd the rest of the ride is on dirt roads, jeeptrack and lots of singletrack. It's the single track that I'm really enjoying as it's a lot of fun but also great for developing those all important technical skills (apparently we'll need them for this year's Epic). For those that know Jonkers', once through the gate (R20 to get in) I go straight onto the Canary Path and ride this piece of singletrack all the way to the top. Canary is made up of three parts and is a very technical ascent. I then turn right onto the contour road and after a couple of K's turn left and climb (a big climb) up to the waterfall. This is also a great place to refill the waterbottle! I then descend the other side and rejoin the contour road to the Never Ending Story which I ride to the end. This is fast and free flowing with some good switchbacks and other technical obstacles. At the bottom I turn Left and after the oak trees join the Patula Path. This is in two parts and whilst it's mainly flat it's very very rocky making it quite technical. Having followed this to the end it's back onto the dirt road to the dam wall where I turn left again onto Taeda Path, the single most rocky piece of singletrack in Jonkers. Most riders skip this path as it's very rocky and once the rocks are dealt with it becomes very sandy, but it's well worth it! This path also takes you right back to the gate. Once I've done all this I then set about riding home along the river in Stellenbosch to Coetzenberg where I turn into the University's farm and do the rocky climb back into Eden. Once there I do a bit more singletrack before retracing my steps over Stairway to Heaven and farm tracks all the way back to Mooiberge where sadly it's back to the tarmac of the R44 all the way home. That is my early (4.30am) Monday morning ride which sets my week up very nicely.

Stats for (load) week:
Ride time: 17:45 (target: 16:30)
Distance: 267km
Kcal's burnt: 13350
Total ascent: 4675m

New MTB Trails

I've had a cracking few rides so far this week and have now done 13½ hours of my 16½ hour week but more of that in my Weekly Summary at the end of the week.

Today I did my usual Wednesday morning ride with Petie from the bike shop only this morning was a little bit special. Petie had been asked to test ride part of the a new route for the 'Wine to Whale' mountain bike stage race from Somerset West to Hermanus. This is a new race on the calander with entries opening soon (sadly the website is not online yet).

As part of this ride we had one-off access to Morgenster winery which is normally forbidden territory. We also rode onto Mount Rozier, Journey's End, Wedderwill and onto the Sir Lowry's Pass servitude road before going into Mola Mola's estate to ride the single track in there, much of which is brand new. BIG thanks must go to Morgenster for allowing us access this morning, it really was great! Also, the single track at Mola Mola is brilliant and we'll definitely be back as this will make the usual Sir Lowry's ride much more interesting.

One added bonus of all this is that much of what we rode this morning is also part of the Cape Epic route and will be part of the last day after crossing over the wagon trail on the Hottentots Holland mountains.

Weekly Summary

This was supposed to be a 'Load' week on the Polar programme with 16 hours of riding but after the disasters of Monday & Tuesday's rides (see post below) I was really down on my hours. Had both rides gone to plan I would have ridden 11 hours but as it was I was almost 6 hours down. I had also planned to ride with the local bike shop on Wed morning which was planned as a 4 hour ride but without my bike I thought I would have to bail out. However I had a bit of a brainwave and decided to use my Giant Boulder (the bike I use for the the school run) for the ride. So after a couple of hours on Tuesday night spent prep'ing the bike I had a decent ride of 4½ hours with Petie (owner of the bike shop).

On Saturday I managed a short and gentle 2 hours on the road bike with Paul (Epic Partner) which was great as we rode to Stellenbosch and back. It was good to do a gentle road ride to keep the legs spinning.

So after all this I finally managed to get 13 hours in, leaving me just 3 hours short, so I've re-jigged my programme and decided to make this a Recovery week and bump the programme forward by one week. Thankfully my taper period at the end of the programme has enough space to allow for this. So next week will be a 'load' week.

Hopefully I'll have no more weeks like this one!

Stats for (recovery) week:
Ride time: 13:13 (target: 11:00)
Distance: 203km
Kcal's burnt: 8854
Total ascent: 2725m (ish)

Not A Great Start!

The start of this week has been one I hope not to repeat - ever!

On Monday, I set off early for my usual 6 hour ride and all was going well until I got to Jonkershoek. The Southeaster had been blowing quite violently for a few days. Anyway, as I entered the park I was about to turn left when I heard a huge gust of wind and a strange noise so decided to go a different way. Just as I moved one of the big oak trees fell down right where I'd been.

A little while later on some single-track I was almost taken out by a bok who was running straight towards me at a phenomenal pace. I think he was a bit confused and didn't realise quite how fast I was going at the time. Thankfully he missed me.

Frustratingly this was all topped off 4½ hours into the ride when the hanger ripped off leaving me in a bit of a pickle (the gear set-up on this test rig has never been right). I managed to make the bike into a single speed with the aim of completing my ride but this only lasted for about 30 minutes before the whole gear setup jammed. Thankfully Paul (my Epic partner) came and picked me up and took the bike to the shop.

I got the bike back on Tuesday ready for my usual night-ride with Paul, but after 1½ hours the derailleur cage got caught in the back wheel and was ripped in two (see photo). Thankfully the wife came to the rescue and got me home.

Hopefully the rest of the week will improve, although I'm not sure how as I'm supposed to be riding in the morning but am without bike.

Weekly Summary

This week has been a load week on the Polar programme and my target was 16½ hours which I managed very comfortably. I'm really enjoying doing longer rides, mainly because I love being on the bike so much but it also means I get a decent amount of rest between rides which is great. Something else I'm really enjoying is an amazing level of fitness which allows me to do certain rides that I would never have dreamt of not so long ago. One such ride is my new favourite of riding from home to Jonkershoek, playing on the single track for up to 2 hours and then riding home again. Twice now I've been a bit naughty on the way home and sailed past some roadies on the hills coming out of Stellenbosch. I've then really stamped on the gears to make them work really hard to stay with me, however they've not yet succeeded. That's very childish (and not great for the heart rate) but lots of fun!

Today I also did my first ever ride on a soft-tail. Paul (my Epic partner) works at the local bike shop and has been talking me into trying a softtail so eventually I agreed to try a BMC. The shop had a Fourstroke frame lying around so they transferred the components over from my Mongoose to the BMC. The jury is still out but there were certain things I did enjoy. I liked the comfort but at 40+ who wouldn't? The longer wheelbase makes for a more planted feel on singletrack and on rocky climbs and it was great on some really rocky singletrack to be able to just bounce over stuff that I couldn't on my hardtail. Sadly, the bike was very poorly setup so I'll need to tinker with it to really appreciate its finer qualities. Also, my XT front derailleur wouldn't fit so the bike shop stuck a crappy Deore derailleur on the front and I struggled to change from middle down to granny which was frustrating. I'll give it several more goes before I finally make up my mind, so stay tuned.

Stats for (overload) week:
Ride time: 16:57 (target: 16:30)
Distance: 254km
Kcal's burnt: 11840
total ascent: 3745m

Pure Pleasure!

My riding is pure pleasure at the moment! Since making the conscious decision to leave the road bike alone (for a while) and concentrate on the mountain bike I'm really enjoying my riding again. Don't get me wrong, I love the road bike, but mountain biking is where my passion is and let's be honest, mountain biking is a whole lot more fun than pounding tarmac.

I made the conscious decision a couple of weeks ago to do the rest of my Epic training on my mountain bike. Basically my base fitness is in place so it's time to get back to building my MTB skills and getting some intensity work in. In doing so I've also opted to do fewer rides but longer in duration. So this week for example is an 'overload' week of 16 hours and I've already done 11½ hours in two rides which is fantastic! My next ride will be a 5 hour ride on Saturday afternoon. Also, in deciding to do longer rides to get the hours in I'm finding that a 5 to 6 hour MTB ride is a very different ball game to the same amount of time spent on the road. Not least the sheer rolling resistance of the knobbly tires makes for a different kind of ride. Mainly though, I was finding 5+ hours on the road quite tedious whilst on the MTB one simply doesn't have time to consider the tedium of turning the cranks for hours on end. Having said that, it is much easier to manage the heart rate zones on the road.

I'm also quite excited as I'm going to be trying out a BMC Trailfox for the next week. My bike shop (Helderberg Cycle World) are transferring all my bits off the Mongoose onto the BMC so I can get a feel for the differences and make an informed decision as to which would be best for the Epic. I'm picking the BMC up on Friday and hope to have a ride over the weekend. If not, I'll definitely get to ride it on my normal Monday morning ride.