Adventures of an Ordinary Cyclist

A journal of my Freedom Challenge mountain bike adventures, 2007, 2009(tandem)2011, 2012(solo) and 2014. Race to Rhodes and the 2300km Race Across South Africa. The race starts in Pietermaritzburg and ends in Wellington close to Cape Town, with a 26 day cut-off. The Ride to Rhodes(2008-unblogged and 2010) is a shortened version that starts in Pietermaritzburg and ends 6 days later in Rhodes.

Sunday, 21 September 2014

Water affairs

I have started weighing myself before and after my hour long lunch rides to get a sense of how much weigh I lose through sweat and respirati...

Training observations

In the last 8 days I have cycled 430 Km's on my MTB over 7 rides. That's 23 hours of riding. On the face of it it's a reasonable...

Saturday, 6 September 2014

Let The Munga show begin.

The Munga, a non-stop race from Bloemfontein to Stellenbosch approx 1000km, through the Karoo mid summer. Teams of 2. Daily cut offs and US$...

Wednesday, 18 June 2014

Prequel to "The Mountain Roared"

The last 20 hours of the race for me were rather dramatic but it occurred to me that the first part of the race never got a mention so here ...

Monday, 16 June 2014

The Mountain Roared

So much to say about a few short days. Let's start with yesterday. Arrived at Ongeluksnek just after 8pm having left Pietermaritzburg 3...

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Carrot and Stick Challenge

From the previous post it is obvious that dangling a benefit to the Freedom Challenge Scholarship Fund makes me a soft target. To date over ...

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

The Ordinary Cyclist is Challenged

Chris Morris posted the following challenge I think Mike is full of crap! All this stuff about strategy, rest, flabby guts, over weight, ...

Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Underweight and Undertrained

I have tried the strategy of arriving at the start line overweight and undertrained and it has certain advantages but non that matter once t...

Sunday, 8 June 2014

The necessity of sleep and rest

While attempting a long period of non stop activity such as the Race to Rhodes one needs to bear in mind the necessity of sleep and rest. Fa...

Wednesday, 4 June 2014

The challenge of riding and navigating at night.

Night riding is not everyone's cup of tea. The Joburg chapter of Freedom Challenge Veterans and Friends regularly get together most week...

The Challenges of Navigating the Freedom Trail

In response to a question from Eddie Leggo where he asks "Mike how do you navigate the ride is the route marked or do you follow GPS co...

LCHF and the Race to Rhodes.

6 months ago I adopted the low carb high fat (LCHF) lifestyle as advocated locally by Tim Noakes. I am keen to see how it plays out on the r...

Strategy matters.

Strategy, strategy, strategy. Those are the 3 most important elements of a successful Race to Rhodes. This begs the question - what constitu...

Race to Rhodes! What's that?

How does Race to Rhodes work? That's an interesting question as it is a race like no other. In the inaugural event last year Glenn Harri...

2 weeks to go!

As I sit here gobbling down another Noakes approved greasy breakfast I am aware that in 2 weeks time I will be driving down to Pmb to head d...

On the road again

After a one year hiatus I am returning to race the Freedom Trail route again. Have been babbling on about it on a Whatsapp group. Will trans...

Sunday, 22 July 2012

Day 15 and beyond - the final push

For the first time since the race began I got up at a civilised time and tucked in to a great breakfast. Once everything was ship shape I we...

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Day 14 - A rest day of 160 kilometres

After just 3 hours sleep I was woken by Brian's alarm. Not quite what I had in mind but I was awake so I got up had a shower and prepped...

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Day 13 - 'Never take drugs to mask pain when you are on the bike!' - Really?

3 am and I was riding out of Dam se Drif with Tweet. One doesn't actually ride "with" Tweet. Its more a case of riding in his ...

Day 12 - getting back in to the race groove

Getting up just before 4 Tweet and I heated some water for coffee on the Aga stove and managed to make toast in the oven. With about 965km...

Monday, 16 July 2012

Day 11 - legs back online and well greased

Got out of bed at 5am and found the breakfast table set for 4 people. A quick trip outside revealed that Tweet (Graham Bird) had arrived aft...

Day 10 - a fortunate encounter

After a good nights sleep I rolled out of Grootdam a few minutes after Chris and Dawn. It was clear that my aching body had not miraculously...

Sunday, 15 July 2012

Day 9 - The wheels fall off

It was time to make up lost time so we left Stuttgard with the intention of doubling through Grootdam to van der Venterskraal. Allen and Ric...

Day 8 - A brief encounter with the flat karoo

We faced a long ride today over Aasvoelberg, through Hofmeyr and on to Elandsberg. We were hoping to get through that section quick enough t...

Day 7 - We get to ride our bikes again

6am start with us dressed for the anticipated rain. An hour in to the ride it seemed like it was shaping up to be a gorgeous day. As it got ...

Friday, 13 July 2012

Day 6 - the mud wrestling continues

Day got off to an interesting start. After arriving at 01:35am we got to bed at about 2:30am. I asked Trevor what time he was setting his al...

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About Me

Mike: Johannesburg, South Africa; Just an ordinary guy who started riding in 2005 at the age of 45. I started with the ambition of completing the local 94.7 Cycle Challenge (94.7km). This is an annual road cycle race in and around Johanesburg. Some where along the way it become a race and not merely a completion excercise. I clocked a 2h54 in my first attempt only 6 months from my first trundle down the road and back. I was hooked and then discovered the magic of MTB. While my efforts on the road were credible, MTBing humbled me. Having said that, over the last 24 months I have competed in 9 multi-day events. I'm a very middle of the field rider, but I enjoy every minute of it.

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