From: Gerrit van Niekerk
Since nobody wants to write, I’ll briefly report on the three November rides I did.
Not that I earned the right, except for last Thursday when I put my foot down at the traffic light and the cleat skidded on the wet tar with a resulting landing on my elbow. Later I had a more spectacular landing, but I’ll draw the curtain on that one.
3 November:
I was still recovering in Nature’s Valley from the attempt to do the Eden Duo.
10 November:
About 10 riders turned up. Stealth was leading and I swept. Stealth took us down to Python and then halfway up Holy trail and down the jeep track after which followed an exiting loop which was new to me. The track that Eric shall name with the rocky option to the left was done in reverse and in ghost riding mode. I was glad to be sweeping as I could be warned about the rocky parts by the front riders getting into all kinds of problems.
We then went a bit down the Queen’s dice and then up over the hill and down the other side. As Stealth likes it, we did the tar uphill and downhill on the Rietvlei dam side. As can be expected with Stealth leading, we were back at the Moo Mall quite early.
17 November:
The weather was threatening with a pre-rain wind blowing and that limited the riders to four. We decided on an urban bash and set off along Van Ryneveld Avenue, but we at least rode the track next to the airbase wall, End-of-the-world and Gauntlet before tackling the old King of the Hill. Being the only one knowing it, I had an unfair advantage. For historical reasons we went through the previous D&D center and then up over the N1 next to Hans Strydom Drive all the way to Garsfontein Road, East to De VillaBois Mareuil Drive and up the hill for a lengthy climb. Via Piering Road, Boeing Street and NellmapiusDrive we arrived back at the Moo Mall having to face only a few occasional stray drops of rain.
That was a different, but still very enjoyable ride.
24 November:
This time the rain was just clearing up at 19h00 and five riders had enough guts to attempt the ride. As it turned out, the clouds quickly cleared and it was a beautiful if somewhat muddy evening. Once more I was leading by default and failed to find the Cruiser singletrack, but found the next one meeting up with Cruiser near the top. To avoid Vetseun-se-rol we went down the very washed out trail on the other side of Dirt Rider’s track to the new road and then up Big Dipper.
The Mieliemuur RUSH claimed two victims, but fortunately not of a human nature. A light stopped working for at least the night and a tubeless tyre hit a rock in a way that could not be fixed – not even with a tube. As we were too few to continue we decided to call it a night and walked/rode back to the Moo Mall for a total distance which must have been a record – a full nine km!
Come on people, you are missing out; we never once got wet!
Oupa Gert
