Dark and Dirty - Ride Report

Last Thursday was Dark and Dirty night - as every thurday night is! I got lumped with doing a race report, which I thought was rather unfair. I was not the first to fall, I was not the last to fall, and I only fell twice! - You would think that the first time a guy is wearing cycling shoes would count for something. So anyway this is the story of my falls - at the DnD intro ride.

Everyone met up as usual at the Mall - Team Lickety Split was there in numbers - 66% of the team is pretty good to get on a regular basis. I spent a good amount of time practising clipping and unclipping - "just in case"! Off we went into the darkness - with 5 newbies (of which only 1 fell!)

This might have been my first intro ride as we went to places I hadn't been to before. Riding up and down the slopes of the park was fun. The first fall happened here (no not mine the other guy) who did a backward sommersault going up the one embankment, Nando was right behind him and pulled out of the assault on the embankment, I was behind Nando and also changed direction directly into Nando's path. Almost fall one but we didn't!

So off we went out of the park into the further darkness, single file out the gate was going well until Jacques stopped right in front of me, half in and half out of the gate, I hit his wheel, stopped (suddenly) and had my first fall (not my fault - it was Jacques fault :) )

So off we went properly into the darkness, up and down, down and up then onto the single tracks somewhere south of Pretoria! We went along the single track with the 'red rock', which for once I did see. Then it was onto "he who is first shall be last" and we reversed the queue. I enjoy doing the red rock road in the dark - ghost ride style - so pulled out of someone's way who was shining a bright light from behind me, at the time I had clipped in my right foot but not the left, then fell right, this was my second fall.

Anyway it was off home, at the Spur a long discussion was had on who should write the ride report, until I accidently said "but I only fell twice" and so I won the job!!