AWESOME STORY, Oupa Gert, a ride well told! Hope you dont have any burns from the raging bush fire!
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gerrit van Niekerk Sent: 08 July 2010 11:52 PM To: darkanddirty Subject: [D&D-chat] The Trailmeister who wasn't and the Broken Saddle It is not often that the Trailmeister has to write the ride report as a non-voluntary volunteer because he was the first to have not mastered the trail too well. But let me not make a short story long as this turned out to be quite a short ride; to be blamed on (or thanks to) the Broken Saddle. On the stroke of seven at the venue commonly referred to as the Moo Mall, only six riders had assembled for the Mild2Wild ride on a mild night for July which is supposed to be the middle of winter. All went well riding Cruiser single-track, the tracks next to Nellmapius drive, the last part of the Mieliemuur R.U.S.H., the speedzone up to the second road on the right and the road up to St Georges in order to ride Roetter's Route going up. At the South-Eastern corner of the St Georges estate, I earned my writing rights. I would have loved to have beeen able to say that it was my concern for the riders following me, but to stick to the truth, I was more concerned getting into one of my few non-slipping gears appropriate to scale Roetter's. As it was, my attention was not on the loose rocks and gravel on the turn and... While going up Roetter's, we had to rush through a raging veld-fire. Ok, the fire wasn't quite so dangerous, but who wants to spoil a good story with boring facts? The rest of the ride up to the bridge, on via Blairwitch Forest, the district road and the start of the single track short-, or rather long-cut proceeded smoothly, but we were interrupted by a radio message from the sweeper to the effect that a saddle had been lost. We turned around to help search for the missing saddle, just to discover that it had actually broken off. With only six of us, we could hardly split up safely, so we decided to all return via the shortest route, avoiding any paths not officially labeled as roads. As a little consolation, four of us quickly completed the single track loop before joining Jaco with the Broken Saddle having to stand all the time or sit on the saddle-less frame at his peril. In solidarity with Jaco I also did not sit down from Sesmylspruit to the mall and I hardly made it. Well done Jaco with your 10+ km of doing it! So we arrived back at the Moo Mall a little after nine having done a whopping 23.4 km, but it was still an enjoyable ride as it always is. Oupa Gert. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DarkAndDirty" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/darkanddirty?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DarkAndDirty" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/darkanddirty?hl=en.
