Hehehe
I was the leader of the aforementioned 60km group. We must hook up a bit
there.
I ended up with with 66km (but I did a 5km extra singeltrack loop
beforehand through Hedianga) in 3:47 (for anyway - I started and
finished at home, which is about 7km from the shop, plus my extra 5km).
We had 2 puntures: One Crossmark, and one lip (from a bee...)
We did push the pace a bit. Man, I tell you, I was supposed to be
leading the ride, but I lead it from the back more often than not. Those
okes were seriaasly strong, especially up the hills past Nkwe (nasty
blimming 4km climb that, cos it always happens near the end of a ride,
not to mention the Singletrack climb near the Vineyard).
Chatted a lot, especially along the train track up to Boschkop. The mist
there was amazing. One moment, sunshine, the next you're in a different
country...
I must say, though, we started off with 8 riders, one disappeared within
the first km, and the second split off home at about 10km... I hope...
He sped off on the old Bronkies road when we went straight across (we
were waiting for him) and no amount of whistling or shouting could
entice him to turn, or even look around...
A small group does however mean much less waiting for okes, seeings how
everyone was warned that we wouldn't be waiting much, and we really
didn't even have to.
________________________________
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Donald Klopper
(GMail)
Sent: 05 July 2010 12:37
To: [email protected]
Subject: [D&D-chat] Ride report: Awesome Singletrack
(Silverlakes / Boschkop area) - Sat 3 July 2010
Ride report: Awesome Singletrack (Silverlakes / Boschkop area) -
Sat 3 July 2010
I had an awesome ride with Bennie's group from Single Track
cycle shop on Saturday morning, starting at Hazeldean shopping centre
next to Silverlakes.
This Saturday there were only two groups starting out, a 60km
group (who wouldn't wait much) and a 30km group that would accommodate
the others.
So being intimidated by the tough riders of the long ride (the
guys aren't particularly chatty to strangers), I opted for the shorter
one, hoping to play with the front guys as much as possible to make of
for the lack of distance on the day.
I was not disappointed.
This was to be my third ride with this crowd, and even though
not quite Dark and Dirty, they at least seem to care about who gets
stuck behind. They never have a sweeper, but every now and again they
seem to try and see that everybody regroups before they ride on again.
We haven't lost anybody yet in the three rides that I have done with
them, but towards the end of the rides I always seem to be at the back
helping out. Just my nature, I guess.
In any event, the riding started out with a rather mixed ability
group, but everybody seemed fit enough to cope with the eager "slow"
pace. We stopped often to let the slower guys catch up, or the faster
guys would ride another short extra / fun loop / climb instead of just
waiting for everyone else but them meeting up ahead somewhere.
I could see from the start that there were some really strong
young guys that were in a playful mood, way too strong for the group,
but probably they opted for the short ride due to fitness / recovery /
illness issues.
Halfway through (around the 15km mark), the "slow" group split
up and the faster guys went ahead mentioning something about riding the
bike park route.
Now I couldn't miss out, so I chased after them.
I probably looked out of place, always 10m behind them, but they
never tried to drop me too hard, they just kept looking back every now
and again.
As expected on each climb I had to dig really deep to keep up,
but on the flats, twisties and downhills I had zero problems.
Finally we hit the "bike park" section, which is 100% single
track, all the way.
I've been on portions of this single track "course" but I think
we did the whole thing this time. A couple of small bridges. There's
even supposed to be a see-saw which I neither saw nor have seen....
One little bridge in particular was quite interesting. Around 6m
long, and 50cm wide, and just above the water surface, this water
crossing in itself wasn't that daunting. The entry was the interesting
part, with a mild drop-off not quite straight, you had to land the front
wheel securely before turning onto the bridge. As I'm usually the first
guy to bliksem off these things, I just kept my speed up and front wheel
in the middle, and it worked. The squirt of adrenaline that this
provided took me to the top of the little climb that followed.
Route markings were awesome, usually with little blue or black
arrows showing the direction of flow. There were some other very short
"rocky" sections that were marked as "Sharp Jagged Rocks" and the like,
but none of the route was dangerous, even for a night ride. I think
it'll be awesome if we can do a night-ride in that area some day.
Anyway the guy leading the group wasn't REALLY pushing hard on
the twisties. I think he had confidence issues... but the pace always
picked up nicely when the path straightened out.
Just after the end of the bike park section (around 11km of pure
single track!) we headed out on the tar, up the false flat back to
Hazeldean.
The group of people weren't very chatty to new people; I guess
we do the same at DnD rides. You have to earn your welcome by becoming a
more regular show. I wouldn't mind, because it's just a 12km warm-up
ride from my house to the start, easily turning into a 60+ km ride, when
doing the SHORT shop-ride. (This time I took the car ...)
The "workout" has been shared for your viewing pleasure on
Endomondo.
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/jXt36pU6T2w
DeeKay
PS: I wouldn't ride that section with a group with fewer than 5
riders. It's right next to Mamelodi, so there are a number of people
that live in the veld around there, and we passed at least one large
dumping site. As usual, everybody that we passed were very friendly, and
we did pass a couple of lone riders on their MTB's as well.
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