Mankele

Spent the weekend at Mankele - not riding the tracks, but criss-crossing them on foot and on mountainbike in search of adventure racing controls on Saturday. On Sunday morning, while Will was cooking up a storm of a breakfast, the other team members explored the cross-country tracks on sunday morning - WOW what a cool place!!!

For R50 pppn you get
- a camping spot
- warm showers and a communal kitchen with kitchen stuffs
- cold showers outside, for you and the bike after a mudday ride
- permits to all the trails
- well-marked trails for all abilities and training needs
- tubes, if you want to go tubing

Here's a summary of their trails ... and here's a map (it's a rather big pdf)

I will certainly take another weekend or 2 to explore those routes.

Groenkloof - still my favouritest singletrack in gauteng

It rained a little on Sunday.
But i had a ride arranged, and wasn't gonna miss out on some fun singletrack.

The parking lot looked a bit scary.


But soon we were paddling on sweet singletrack-rivers.


the signage in groenkloof is always clear - no doubt as to where the route's taking you :)



and a convenient bikwash at the finish

bikepark tuesday night

The MTN bikepark is open on Tuesday nights till 8-ish.
Leave the office early to get through the traffic, and i can be on the bike by 5-ish.
Play till dark, fit a light, and play some more.

Few things beat being on your bike on singletrack and awesome little bridgies, riding tight corners or steep short hills, while traffic's not going anywhere on the N1 next door.



Here's gerard on one of the bridgies, with Pablo underneath.

Zombie birdhouse is open, at last! Lots of new tight turns and short steep climbies.
Oh, and wetlands now has a narrow bridgie-thingy, yaaay!

R300 for a 10-entry-ticket over 6 months. A little more than groenkloof, but excellent for safe midweek-trainig, especially if the open-till-late means you can add some training-time to the short winter-days.

Still the best R18.50 you can spend

didn't want to get off the bike after the second lap in groenkloof today ... but needed some run-time too.

the running trails are superb!

For R18.50 you can get:

- a vida coffee

OR

- friendly cyclists with big grins
- free therapy from what-ever work-stresses of the past week, and clear your head for the week ahead
- have 4 zebras divide the cycling group
- train your river-cycling skills (where does all that water on my favourite piece of singletrack come from?)
- watch 9 giraffes not minding the cyclists
- bridges, technical climbs, one boring climb to keep the roadie-friends happy
- verry nice hiking trails for trailrunning

- and get to call it 'training'

- AND moyos just next door for after-ride munchies.

Freedom

Late autumn, a perfect day for playing in the Spruit. The muddy patches are mostly dried up, the winter dust hasn't dusted yet, and brown and yellow leaves all over the singletrack.

Sunday morning was a most beautiful day in Jozi. It was a windless day with clear blue skies and a few irresponsible mountain biker buddies that know where to find all the juicy technical bits. And know how to ride them.

'twas a ride to celebrate freedom - Freedom of the Spruit, Freedom to ride Mellville-koppies, Freedom to be outside in winter, to ride proper offroad right in the middle of Jozi. Freedom to start the ride only at 8:30 - and not the ridiculous early hours that the freedom challengers seem to think is appropiate to start a ride :)

And Freedom to play rather than train, because it was only a week to go to r2r, and finally - finally - it was too late; training would not make any difference any more.

A late long lazy brunch afterwards.

THIS is why I mountain bike.




On the academic side:

• found a map board, hoping to fit it tonight
• finally we have some bad weather here - may test some of the winter-gear tomorrow morning on my commute to work
• finally downloaded the maps and instructions
• capestorm stuff is on it's way
• camera is still at customs - hope it gets released on time
• bike needs a wash after sunday's ride only a pleasure to wash the bike after a ride like sunday's :D
• top up the stan's in the tubes
  

Results of the accidental front-brake-experiment:

Accidently used the hardtail's front wheel on the Trance yesterday.
Juicy five brakes are compatible with hayes disks :)