RIP swampdog Allan

Swampdog founder Allan Laudin died of a heart attack last night.

TimesLive quoted him last week in an article about mountain biking:

What gets Laudin onto his saddle is the "freedom of riding the trails in the company of fellow mountain bikers with a passion for single-track ... meeting new communities, seeing beautiful and panoramic vistas, resting beside the streams and sharing food and conversation".

I will remember him for the pretty trails that we rode together, for the greetings and laughs when we saw each other in the Spruit, and for his sense of humour.

May there be lots of singletrack where he is now.

Woof.

The Micra finally grew up

Got tired of having to choose my paddling buddies* according to whether their cars could transport boats - so the Micra got a roofrack the weekend. Here's the K2** (and the hardtail) ready for action at Emmarentia on Sunday.

Now isn't this just the sexiest Micra out there?

* Pablo you're still my favourite paddling-buddy; it's just that you're not always available.

** That's Mummy-man's cradles on the roofrack; i'll get my own cradles as soon as the credit card recovered from the Himalaya-thingy.

Ghana: 1 Socceroos: 1

The coolest part was all the South African flags being waved at the game between Ghana and Aus :)

Dhulikhel

Yesterday morning at the top of Thang La in Tibet it was about -10°C. This morning in Nepal jnext to the river, ust before lunch it was 41°.

The downhill continued, through the border where we swapped the truck and landcruiser for a bus. Was also where I gave Calien's bike back and got the rented bike.

Soem more downhill followed (I could get used to this) and then some very pleasant riding next to a river.

For lunch we stopped at a local restaurant - where we duly followed the local example of eating rice with our hands.

Was a monster climb to Dhulikhel - was very hot and i soon ran out of water. Luckily met Herman the Flying Dutchman about a tenth up the hill, and he emptied his 1.5l bottle of hot water into my bladder - 'twas enough to get me up the hill. With gears slipping, and brakes holding onto the rented bike's rims, I was not very impressed every time there was a downhill after we've gained some altitude - and very glad to finally reach the top a few hours later. The resort was absolutely beautiful (but we couldn't find a swimming pool anywhere) .

The food was once again great - and the view of the mountains around out of this world :)