Since the Karoo to coast I've had a fairly quiet time on the bike with one thing and another I missed a couple of weekend rides due to knee and tummy issues although I did manage to keep up on commuting to work.
I also participated in the Mogale Spring Race which is held in support of WRAPD (West Rand Association for People with Disabilities) which is just round the corner from where I live. This was in the middle of knee pain so I took it easy, still managed to break a few personal records though on the 78Km trip round Krugersdorp, Sterkfontein, Hekpoort, Magaliesberg and Tarlton back to Wessies.
It seems that it's 2 weeks to go for the 94.7 MTB challenge and 3 for the Road Cycle Challenge, so that means final prep time for me, I haven't done the MTB challenge before so I don't really know what to expect especially when they seem to not be revealing the route only the route profile, possibly because it crosses private land, and property owners rightly don't want people just riding over their land uninvited. Route profiles for MTB races rarely give the full picture in any case as the surface can make quite a difference, e.g. loose gravel, and sand, and washboard tracks are far harder to ride than hard packed jeep track.
In one sense I'm a bit disappointed that the two races don't fall on the same weekend like they did a few years ago since it takes a bit away from the double accomplishment being a week apart, but I understand from a logistical point of view why it probably needs to be this way.
I rode as much of the route as I could this weekend, but started the loop at the Malibongwe, R114 junction, then not going through the 2 estates since they are still under construction and/or not rideable, also went up Louis Botha instead of the M1, oh I also rode from home to the junction mentioned and when I got back to that point turned left back towards home. Admittedly by Muldersdrift the afternoon heat got to me and by Pinehaven garage I had to admit that jelly legs wouldn't make it up the hill, still that was 146Km of riding and 1800m of climbing, so it was another Gran Fondo under the belt, that makes it 6 Gran Fondo's (+130Km) rides for me this year one of which was a 100 miler and another was just short by a few hundred meters of 100 miles on the MTB. I wanted to do 180Km yesterday but the heat beat me, I'll have to do that sometime in the future. Don't know if everyone can see this but my Strava trophy case is filling up nicely.
As I've said a few times before I will be riding the road race with the CHOC Cow herd which in effect means I'll be starting at 8h22 (a fair bit back from my K seeding 7h03) this also means I'll probably ride a bit slower than usual.
So that brings me back to the reason for all my posts this year, and although this may not be my last event, and definitely not my last post I was really hoping to raise enough to have the privilege of riding in a COW suit (see my previous posts to see the difference between suit and kit) by the 94.7 Cycle challenge. To do this I need to have raised R20,000 and at the moment I'm a fair amount short of that target. So here goes a big appeal to all and sundry.
PLEASE DONATE to my CHOC Cows project by clicking HERE to get to my GivenGain Project and click on the donate button.
If you can't or don't want to use this method other arrangements can be made please just let me know.
So I expect I'll be giving feedback on the MTB challenge next.
Oh I almost forgot ... but no one seemed to have an answer or didn't bother to let me know, but the fellow scholar at Princess High School, who is a well known South African cyclist is Robert Hunter. (Disclaimer since Robert Hunter is somewhat of a public figure: using his name in this post does not indicate any endorsement by him of any of the content, it is merely a recognition that we went to the same school)
