Saturday, 30 May 2015

Why we ride the Freedom Trail

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A few years back the FC promoted the race with the following sentence, "Discover South Africa, discover yourself." The first half...
2 comments:
Tuesday, 26 May 2015

How Hard - Part 2

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If we accept that the extreme nature  of the Freedom Challenge exists on a continuum then it's fair to assume there are levels of diff...
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Sunday, 24 May 2015

How hard is the Freedom Challenge?

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If we claim to do extreme riding then we need to examine how hard it really is. My experience of extreme is limited to a handful of stage ra...
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Wednesday, 20 May 2015

What Is Extreme?

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Rappelling from a helicopter in a combat zone while under fire is extreme. But it is a "don't try this at home" activity. I po...
1 comment:
Monday, 18 May 2015

The Three Why's Men

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When asked why we do extreme stuff I find it comes is three flavours.  The first is usually followed by a statement. "Why? You do know ...
Sunday, 17 May 2015

Why?

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Why? When people hear about the extreme bike adventures we do the responses are varied from "That's so cool", or "You guy...
Sunday, 5 April 2015

Post Race Reflections

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My goal at the start was to finish in 55 hours or less. It was never going to be easy. However, there was a time during the early part of th...
4 comments:

Storm Clouds Building

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Storm clouds were building around Stuttgart. As we pedalled down the road looking toward Schurfteberg where we were headed it looked clear. ...
Saturday, 4 April 2015

I learn a new Afrikaans saying

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There are certain moments in life that stand out in bold face. Once such moment occurred in April of 1973. I was in the First Form (Grade 8)...

A long uncomfortable night

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Although layered up with both a wind shell and raincoat on top of my cycling jersey I was sopping wet. I had leg warmers in my back pack but...
Friday, 3 April 2015

Doringbos Lodge.

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My exact words to Casper were, "This is not cool. I don't get lost!" I can imagine the deflating effect that had on him. All a...
Thursday, 2 April 2015

The science of getting lost

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Being discombobulated I stopped. I could well have been going the right way but I didn't have a sense of my direction. This seldom happe...

Romansfontein to somewhere dark and interesting.

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Romansfontein as a support station is a double edged sword. The hospitality and food are fantastic. While that can be said of any number of ...
Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Stormberg to Romansfontein.

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Although the wind was strong and icy we were counting on it pushing us toward Romansfontein. Exiting the blockhouse we would for the first t...

Cold, dark, wet and windy.

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Over the years Brosterlea has come to represent an oasis, a happy place in a challenging section of the race. I sort refuge from a snowstorm...
Monday, 30 March 2015

Headlong into the storm.

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When we arrived at Kranskop at 9pm stars sparkled in the moonless sky. When we came out an hour later with Casper having added sealant to hi...
1 comment:

Easy night riding.

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Out of Moordenaarspoort we had a gentle breeze that while neither hindering nor helping our headway had a pleasant cooling effect that allow...