The Amazing Adventures of an Average Actuarial Cyclist

Day 2 of the Wines2Whales is known as the "fun" day of the event. Only 68km with no major climbs and loads and loads of singletrack in the mtb heaven of Oak Valley. I wouldn't claim to be the most proficient technical rider so talks of big drop-offs, singletrack sections named after snakes like Mamba and Boomslang had me a bit worried! Its fine when you ride in the middle of the field because there will always be some bloke around with worse technical skills, so if you feel a bit out of your depth you just fall in line behind him and let him take the pressure. However the closer you get to the sharp end of the field the less place there are to hide, you have to throw caution to the wind and gun down the singletrack as fast as possible as not to hold up anyone behind you. We set off from the Oak Valley Race Village at pace, the open gravel roads makes for fast riding, maybe too fast because after a few kilometers there was a sharp drop-off with a tight turn at t

The Wines2Whales MTB Race is the Western Cape's answer to the Sani2C. 3 days of fun mtb'ing starting at Lourensford near Somerset West (the Wines), crossing the Hottentots Holland mountains into the picturesque Elgin valley and finally finishing at the beach near Onrus (this is where the whales come in). My teammate for this adventure was Dewald de Goede, my ex-neighbour from the previous complex we lived & a very handy cyclist to boot. Registration was on Thursday evening at the historic Lourensford Wine Estate. The weather for Day 1 looked promising, in contrast to the W2W Adventure that was held the previous weekend which started in monsoon-like weather (which wreaked havoc on bicycle mechanical parts and prematurely ended a number of competitors races.) Registration at Lourensford Wine Estate Looks like the rain will stay away! After registration it was back to home for some last minute packing and figuring out how to fit 2 29ers into & onto a Pali