Rogaine Thoughts

Thinking!
You can do that on a mountain bike, and you do a lot of it while you ride.
You think about all sorts of things, like route choices and strategies.
You think about where you are and where you are at.
You think philosophy and know you are free to think.
It’s the feeling of freedom that endures. Your thinking mind is free, detached from the mechanical constraints of place and time.
With your body plugged into your machine your soul can fly.
And it does. Wonderfully.
Memories take you back to your last goodbye, flash forward to your next hello. A fragment thought about a faraway problem, and flash back to the present to avoid a branch, navigate a corner, adjust speed. Philosophise.
It was like that as we rode, William and myself, on the MTB Rogaine in the forests near Dullstroom. William said he noticed how broad was the range of subjects we spoke about. He said “We speak so much nonsense about everything”. It was true, but isn’t that the nature of friendship? Sharing nonsense. Sharing freedom. Friends in the forest. Friends of the forest.
This is how it should be. The openness of the grasslands merging with reeds at the marsh. The marsh merging with the lakes. The forests running up the hills. Green forests. Brown grasses. Blue and yellow veld flowers intense in their freedom.
Here, there are not many people. It’s like this for miles around. No others to invade our thought space, to intrude with impatience and rudeness. Brash, in your face bustle. City life. Randomly moving crowds. Noisy trucks and cars and endless tar, melting in the heat, unnatural smells that choke the senses from what life should be. Unshared selfish existences. Meaningless.
A buck runs out of the reeds, a little startled by our speed. A hop, a jump and then gone, hidden again. What else lies hidden in the marsh? An owl? Rabbits? A kite looks down at us, unperturbed. Looking for those rabbits?
This is how it should be, and that is how it was.

Profile: Mike

Name: Mike
Nick name: Apparently it's Goofy Mike
Your alter-ego name: Superman. "If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman", ..."as long as you'll be my friend at the end" from Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down and "Men weren't meant to ride with clouds between their knees" from Superman by Five For Fighting
Age: 48
Team Role: Super Second and Wilderness Guardian / preventing running injuries. If it's longer than 107km I'm seconding.
Occupation: Nerd. Writing verrry boring technical documents, in a room without windows (Except 7)
Home Town: Edenvale in Gauteng
Goals: To get out of Gauteng on every possible occasion, see the stars, feel the breeze, converse with the trees, enjoy the variegated grasslands and look far into uninhabited distances unspoilt by 'civilization'.
Best AR Memory: Canoeing across Sterkfontein dam then floating kit and all across the weir.
Worst AR Memory: Having to quit the Harrismith UGE after 110km because of ITB (iliotibial band tendonitis)
Ultimate AR fantasy: Every event is fantasy fantastic.
Strange hobbies: Cycling in gay lycra stretchy pants (according to my son, Chris)
Guilty indulgence: I live life guilt free. Indulgences ? - Every 5 minutes more sleep in the mornings!
Must-have on every race: No helmet No ride. - Cheese and Ham buns for the picnics.
Sporting history: School Rugby, Rock climbing, Gymnastics, Hiking. Sailing catamarans. 7 years of Touch Rugby every weekday, Open water swimming. Step. Cycling. MTB. Astro Turf Hockey. Sprint AR. NB. No running!
Preferred discipline: I love my bike, pity I can't swim with it!
Worst sporting injury: that ITB (iliotibial band tendonitis)
Who do you consider your greatest competition in the team: William. I like winning.
Who in the team is the best entertainer: Con. 100 moods per race.
Do you think anyone in the team has a criminal record and for what? Sue, for torturing trees and keeping them in captivity.
Motto: Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. (Goethe)

Profile: Adri

Name: Adri Van der Westhuyzen

Nick name: Mosbolletjie / Voortrekker Adri

Your alter-ego name: Adri Ferrari

Age: 28

Team Role: The Second Lady

Occupation: Graphic Designer (did I say frustrated?)

Home Town: Jozi

Goals: To Live This Life To The Fullest

Best AR Memory: The World's Viewpoint in Pietermaritzburg. Could see about 270degrees of 150kms. (We didnt finish the race, so didnt get to the other great views) Oh, and the Skeleton Gorge Night Trail run in Touwsriver!

Worst AR Memory: Running out of snacks and a near-drown

Ultimate AR fantasy: Wartrail 2010

Strange hobbies: I send people photos of my 1 year-old Jack Russel? I travel with a small bag of extra-fibre breakfast cereal in my handbag. (family thing)

Guilty indulgence: Good, strong coffee... and Cremora.

Must-have on every race: Water-purifying tablets & vaseline

Sporting history: Bit of this and that at school. Then the "I only run when something is chasing me"... about 8 years ago. Then I started running and must have done close to 9000kms since. Long distance swimming, and in 2009 MTB. Now addicted and loving it.

Preferred discipline: Running... but the bike also got hold of me now.

Worst sporting injury: Broke both my arms at the same time in grade 6 (long jump) and couldn't swim that summer.

Who do you consider your greatest competition in the team: Sue... because she's female? If not then Mike, coz his jokes are funnier than mine.

Who in the team is the best entertainer: The one that races behind me!

Do you think anyone in the team has a criminal record and for what? Hmm... Mike? (Smoking dubie in his twenties?)

Motto: "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us."

Profile: Con

Name: Con Loubser.

Nick name: Fridge Midget.

Your alter-ego name: Pienie.

Age: 38 (but I feel a lot older).

Team Role: Ships' Anchor.

Occupation: Yes, more or less.

Home Town: Joeys.

Goals: Not yet.

Best AR Memory: Seeing daylight on my first 24 hr AR.

Worst AR Memory: Watching William disappear into the abyss at SwaziX '07.

Ultimate AR fantasy: Being able to transition in under 5 minutes.

Strange hobbies: No comment.

Guilty indulgence: Romantic Comedies.

Must-have on every race: strapping tape, sunscreen.

Sporting history: Standard school sports, canoeing (transvaal junior), rock-climbing, mountaineering, MTB.

Preferred discipline: MTB.

Worst sporting injury: Broken collar bone, tennis elbow.

Who do you consider your greatest competition in the team: Fernando feeds us all dust regularly. Now that William has cleats, he'll leave me behind as well.

Who in the team is the best entertainer: Goofy Mike.

Do you think anyone in the team has a criminal record and for what? Anyone other than me?
Motto: Takhare vir vrede!

Profile: William

Name: William Cairns

Nick name: William, cairnswm

Your alter-ego name: Morgan McKenzie

Age: 40 (just)

Team Role: Captain, hanger-on

Occupation: IT Architect, and Business Owner

Home Town: Randburg

Goals: Finish races - lots of them, one day I'll run one Comrades Marathon

Best AR Memory: The finish of the first race, stumbling into the finish, badly chaffed, tired, sore but we finished!

Worst AR Memory: Not finishing, getting lost in the forest and not getting to the next transition.

Ultimate AR fantasy: XPD Australia, a 900km race in 7 days

Strange hobbies: I am a Computer Dame Designer and Game Developer, I enjoy playing online computer sport-management games

Guilty indulgence: A block of cheese or a packet of raisins in one sitting!

Must-have on every race: Rehydrate

Sporting history: 6 'long' ARs, 2 Marathons, 1 Ultra marathon, 1 stage MTB race, used to play rugby and soccer.

Preferred discipline: I enjoy navigating, an AR is not an AR unless it has navigation. I cant do any of the disciplines well - so dont mind any discipline - they are all just hard work. I do sit on a fence and pass bikes over really well.

Worst sporting injury: ACL playing Rugby, Broken ankle doing an AR (Swazi X)

Who do you consider your greatest competition in the team: Mike, he is supposed to be old (= slow) but he still seems to make me look slow.

Who in the team is the best entertainer: Adri, she never seems to NOT have something to say.

Do you think anyone in the team has a criminal record and for what? Con, probably murder - he is intelligent enough to have covered it up properly.

Motto: On AR: Finish the Race. Personally: Don't be scared, be careful (also applies quite well to AR)

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!!

Capestorm Rogaine - Race Report

Mike and William represented Team Lickety Split at the Capestorm Rogaine event near Belfast over the weekend. (In both the 6hr foot event on Saturday and the 5hour Mountain Bike event on Sunday).

We left early on Saturday morning, driving through persistent rain, and with one stop for breakfast we arrived in time for registration. We were a little rushed getting ourselves ready in time for the start but were standing in the rain on the start line as the event started.

It was WET

The Foot Rogaine

We had been looking at some of the terrain on a 1:50000 map and on Google Earth and had decided to use the southern side of the forests. This was supported by the fact that there were 3 check points worth 5 points in that half (check points were rated 1-5 points based on how much effort was required to get them).

We trudged through the rain heading south with a goal of trying to cover the whole South Eastern portion of the map. A bad route choice before the first point saw us sinking ankle deep into the marsh while there was a road not more than a 100m to our left going in the same direction. We got the point and adjusted our goals slightly based on the difficulty of the terrain just covered.

In the Forests

However once onto the forestry road we picked up our paced and quickly reached the far corner and our first 5 point Check Point. Up to here we had been on our own, but moving toward the second 5pt Check Point we started meeting the traffic. It seems everyone else was going counter clockwise while we went clockwise.

We had a few opportunities to take shortcuts through the forests, most were quite easy to hike through but a few had thick underbrush and were extremely difficult. After collecting all the 5 pointers on our list we got to the next 4 pointer and stopped for lunch (right near the check point we found a horrible snare that we removed). We were healthily ahead of schedule and decided to add a few extra points to our list, includeing a few points on the northern half of the forest which we had not originally planned on. The rain had finally stopped, and just a very light drizzle was falling.

We hiked off in search of the points but by now we were both starting to feel a little tired and our speed was significantly slower than previously. At one point a road was missing which made us walk a small extra loop while I tried to make sense of the ground vs map, but other than that some spot on navigation got us all the points quite quickly.

We thought we had enough time to collect a last 1 pointer on the way to the finish but my watch and the organisers watch didn't agree on the time and we were 74seconds late, losing us two points. We colelcted 60 points in total minus the two penalty points gave us a final score of 58. We were second in our age group - the winners scoring 119 points (there were two Mens Vet teams competion).

The MTB Rogaine

A cute bedroom to sleep in

We slept overnight at a farm on the other side of Belfast. We had good comfortable beds even if the room was tiny. We had rolls for supper but had eggs and bacon for breakfast.

After a good nights sleep (Mike got something like 11 hours) we headed off to the start and this time had more than enough time to get ready. The sun was out and it looked like it would be a very hot day. Due to our error on timing the day before I made sure that we timed ourselves a lot better. I used my stop watch and started it as we started. During the day I had to remember that the time on the stop watch was the time we were racing and not actual time.

After looking at the m ap Mike and I decided that our goal was to get the 3 x 6point value CPs that were miles away to the North. My quick guess put is at about 2 hours to get to the furtherest point and off we went. We collected a few CPs on the way. A bad navigational mistake was due to me not adjusting to the new map scale and we went hike-a-biking up a road covered in fallen logs, while the road I actually wanted was about 400m further along.

At one stage we were ahead of the winners!

We reached the first of the 6point CPs in only an hour - way ahead of our schedule. We decided not to change our routes and continued to the next 2 CPs where we stopped and had a picnic. This time we seemed to be following the standard route that every one was following. While having our picnic a few teams passed us and made comments. On the way back I chose what looked like the move direct route out of the northern section and ended up on the most technical route in the area. A route higher up the hillside would have been a lot easier.

At the next point we had a choice of taking the easy or the difficult route back. The difficult route would have been worht about 4 points more than the easy route. This small difference and the tiredness in my legs made me choose the easy route. (In the end 4 points would have placed us a position higher in the final standings). We went down into the forest, took a shortcut under the trees and over the stream clipped the point and stopped for lunch.

Lunch in the forest was great!

We took the easy route home, down toward the dams, and collected all the points on the way back as well as a few that were off the route but were relativly easy to get to. The water point we needed for Mike to fill up was missing and we finished relativly dry. On the way to the finish on the paved road Mike decided to see if he could break the 40km/hr speed limit, he reached about 42hm/hr but I struggled to reach 30!!

We finished with about 10minutes to spare. Very happy with what we had accomplished. Our final position was 3rd of 5 teams, 12 points behind the winners and 1 point behind second.

DONE

We are very tired. Got the points we wanted and a few more.

Lunch

We are tired. Now we are going to take the easy road home.

Technical

X

Rest time

Our goal achieved. We have got 3 cps worth 6Points each. This last one probably used up more time than it was worth.

Our first 6 pointer