I did a big race report on Chainwheel for the Double Century last weekend. Needless to say seems that the punctures were out to haunt me. Felt good though and was never in real trouble even with the pace being hard.



The team riding through Bonnievale.

With Desert Dash staring to seriously loom on the horizon I'm getting a bit worried about training. Make no mistake, I know I'm not really going in to the event with two weekend rides a week and hoping to win the event, but the human mind is a powerfull thing, and as such it's also dangerous. Can I make the distance, will I do ok, will I cramp, will I suffer beyond what I can manage, did I do enough? These are questions I keep asking myself. The Blur is getting more and more dialed in every weekend I take her out, and I'm getting really comfortable in the new position.

With last week being a easy rest week I only did 10 hours riding, and getting plenty of sleep. The last race of the season was the Simonsvlei Funride and I was comfortable until 20km's in when I had a puncture. Changed tubes and kept riding. 5km's later and I have another puncture. Fix it, ride back to the start finish slowly. Bought a new rear tyre, and it's ok so far. The week itself was completely rained out, with me only able to get two training rides (2 and 3 hours respectively) in. Saturday I went out with Nick on a hard long ride and absolutely died. I have not felt this shit on a bike in ages. Eventually made it back home but I was not happy. I should be getting fitter, but I just keep dying on the bike every Saturday when we do the hard mtb rides. Sunday was a easier day with myself and Nick just heading to Llundudno and back with the roadbikes. I was feeling a lot better and while tempted to overdo it, stuck with the ride plan. Unfortunately the week was not what I hoped for and I only had 11 hours training.

With the Double Century happening this weekend, I'm hoping I can up the miles to a good 16hour week again, and then start tapering, since it's only two weeks left after that before I head to Namibia.

So yesterday I set off for my usual Wednesday Killarney. Arrive at the track, watch the racing vehicles finish, including a mean V8 Mustang. 18:00 we're allowed on the track and do one warp-up lap before the race starts. Uwe says hello and that he has an uneasy feeling, so I stay on the side.



There's me, in the corner (Litespeed, blurry pic, thick tyres, new blue & white Second Skins kit), on the outside incase anything goes wrong. It was fast, we were doing about 46.7km/h and having rested well this week I was quite comfortable in the bunch. I'd say about 2/3rd's through the race there's a crash, people avoid it, then suddenly there's shouting, shoving of people etc going on. Next moment two riders are stopping and throwing apples at each other. Not good. Knowing the organiser well, I ride to her and suggests she stops the event for the night and lets everyone know this isn't on. Race is stopped, she tells the guys to chill the fuck out a bit, and then those that wanted to could do another 3 laps+bell lap. Most of us called it a day after the unpleasant event and rode home. Only 85ish (not exactly sure) km's on the clock, but good enough for the day. Hope this doesn't happen again, it wasn't the way to enjoy Killarney.

Finished off last week with another 15hrs so in the past three weeks I've done 16hrs, 15hrs, 15hrs. I'm happy with it (remember, I have a 8-5 day job!), and it's above the 12hrs minimum I set out to do a week (except rest weeks) for Desert Dash prep. This week was harder in a weird way because I wasn't recovering as well as I hoped I would. Wednesday Killarney I managed to hold on for the entire time in the normal fast scratch bunch, but it was painfull and I had not recovered from the West Coast Express race and the break-away I was in. Friday morning's ride was a sufferfest as I just had no power. Saturday Nick and myself went to magic Forest again with the mountainbikes, going the long way (riding there instead of driving), and I was suffering. We met up with Andreas again, and had a fantastic ride. The new equipment performed well, and I was quite pleased with the investment.

First on the crads for replacement was the wheels I've had for the past four years or more. They've been rebuilt several times, and while still reliable, they were heavy and slower rolling than some of the newer stuff. Shopped around a bit, and had my heart set on a pair of American Classic MTB 26's. 1.7kg's and a rider weight limit of 106kg's. Several people I know ride them and have had no issues, but I also had a few warnings of them not all that suited to me (being around 96kg's). Phoned Fred at Gecko Cycles after John recommended him to me and he hooked me up with the wheels more suited to my riding style, a set of DT-Swiss X1800's. Oh man are they sweet! Stiff, fast rolling and sturdy!



Next up for replacement was the four year old set of Shimano MTB shoes I had. I was again set on a pair of Shimano MTB shoes I saw in Sportsmans Wharehouse, but they didn't have my size, neither did Crown Cycles. Despite their reputation I visited Cycle Lab and found the salesman to be friendly and helpfull, and eventually spent quite a bit more on a pair of Specialized MTB shoes. They're pressing my joint at the ankle a bit at the moment, but are very stiff and I don't have any burning sensation in my feet at all. I'm hoping the shoe will stretch in and the one discomfort zone with dissapear. Apart from that, it's a really good value for money shoe.

For the first time in a few weeks I could make it to Killarney again. The last few weeks I was sick and then work commitments prevented me from attending. The riding has definately become harder and with my legs still sore from Sunday's breakaway effort it was hard times holding on to scratch bunch. I managed to hang in there finishing with the group. Quite happy. It's like Michael Phelps said when he was inerviewed at the Olympics:"During training you're putting money in the bank, small deposits, then when you hit your goal competition, you make a large withdrawel". It made sense and it's simply how I look at all the prep work being done for Desert Dash. I'm simply putting deposits in to the bank at the moment, one week at a time, and come 12 and 13th December I'll be making one huge withdrawel. Let's hope I don't have to go in to overdraft come December :)

Wrapped up another hard week of training with a very good West Coast Express race. The first half of the 80km's wasn't that eventfull. A few moves tried to go off the front, but wouldn't stick. Going through Atlantis I went with a Anderson Transport rider, bridging over to Uwe from BikeMax and and Conway riding for Cycle Lab. There was another nuetral but unfortunately I don't know his name.

The five of us kept maybe 30seconds on the bunch down the old Atlantis / Malmesbury tree lane, but the bunch wasn't letting us go. With the gap closing Daiken and SHE-Cape jumped two riders across along with Gary from Cycle Lab and with every team having riders up front now, we managed to open the gap to about 45seconds. This part of the road is notoriously shitty and it was hard going for a bit.

Luckily when we turned to Melkbos the gap started growing, with the teams in the following peleton trying to slow the speed down for their riders up front. At Blouberg Beach we had 1min45sec gap and knew we had a good chance of making it. Luckily no-one in the escape tried any funny business, all rolling through and off up to the last 1km when the sprinting tactics started. I tried to take a flyer with about 300meters to go, but they quickly closed on me again and then passed me like I was looking for parking :) Eventually only got 8th place (of the 8 in the break), but I was very happy to have been in the move of the day and that I was able to make the racing, not sit and watch it like 50 of the other riders in the group.

Had a hard week last week...managed to ride every day of the week, except Friday when I took a rest day. Then on the weekend I met up with Nick and John on Saturday and did 100km's to Chappies and back. Sunday we took the mountainbikes to Magic Forest again, but this time we cycled there and back, adding an additional 2hrs to the ride. By the time I got home I was so shattered I could hardly walk.

The flu finally cleared completely, but now my wisdom teeth are acting up and aching like hell making everything very unpleasant. I've got a bout of fatigue I can't explain. Still riding strong this week, but when at work etc, I just can't seem to get going. Tried to take a few days leave and it got canned due to having a meeting on one of the days I wanted to cancel. Yeah work is super shit at the moment and I'm constantly looking for new employment. Remind me in my next life not to specialise in something! Just makes you less marketable :(

Been a bit quiet the past week or two due to actually not having all that much to blog about. About two weeks ago I came down with flu, and took about 5 days off the bike. Bad sinus infection and the related sore throat etc. Luckily by last Thursday I managed to get a normal commute in, and now commited to riding earlier one day in a week with Nick so either Thursdays or Fridays I get up at 4:40am, meet him at 5:15am and then head out the long way to the office, via Llundudno climb and then Constantia Neck, before going to the office. In total I get about 87km's in for the day.

Last Saturday I went to Magic Forest with Nick, and got a really good ride in. The photos can be found here.. I'm still not 100% recovered after the flu, but the training for Desert Dash is coming along, albeit sometimes I still worry that I bit off more than I can chew.

One good thing is that the rain finally stopped. Some days are glorious sunny days here in Cape Town, but more often than not it's now a windy day. Sometimes I wonder, did I mind the rain that much, or do I prefer riding against the wind more or less than riding in the rain.

Well I haven't actually done a lot of Eve playing lately. Training and racing and resting for races ha taken top priority and with some sort of form coming I'm actually feeling good. So what have I been up to? Well, I'm building a Phoenix dreadnaught in the game. Its a capital class ship and usually sells for a decent enough price. I'm more interested in keeping one for myself though. I have to buy most of the scarce high-end minerals and I mine all the low end stuff available in empire space. I load up my mining character (Ridley)'s Hulk with mining laser upgrades etc, and then use my combat character (Serotta) for hauling duties at the moment. With the kick-ass pc I bought last year I can run both clients in a window mode on the one screen, and have Sharon running missions on the other screen. With all this going on, each client still gives me a good 45 frames per second. Here's a screenshot of the standard mining evening: