The Amazing Adventures of an Average Actuarial Cyclist

December 2014, I was scrolling through Bikehub.co.za and discovered a "Sneeuberg Crawl" thread on the Bikehub where "Josias" posted : " Het my eerste 100km race gedoen, het die baie geniet! Tussen Graaff Reinet en Murraysburg." I have never heard of "Sneeuberg" nevermind the "Sneeuberg Crawl" before was immediately intrigued by the idea of doing this 100km mtb race in the middle of the Karoo (just like people & water, cycling events in the Karoo are few and far in between), but unfortunately the date always clashed with my cycling highlight at the tail end of every year - the Stellenbosch Cycle Tour. With the Stellenbosch Cycle Tour moving dates to January finally 5 years after seeing the bikehub thread I had the excuse to make the trip to Murraysburg. With my parents as company for the long road on the N1, we made the 600km trip from Cape Town to Murraysburg on the Friday. Murraysburg is a typical little old Karoo

The Trans-Augrabies is a 3-day stage race hosted annually at the Augrabies National Park at the start of the winter school holidays. A big positive of this timeslot & venue is that it gives participants the opportunity to take along their family for the experience, staying in the park (or nearby) while you are out riding Working long hours to meet deadlines in the lead-up to the event was not ideal and meant we only managed to leave Cape Town late morning the day before the race, arriving at Augrabies after a long drive just before sunset. I rushed to the race briefing and then fumbled to pitch our tent in the darkness. During the night the temperatures dropped drastically and we woke up early Saturday morning with the temperature at 0 degrees! After the long working hours, long drive, pitching the tent at night and freezing temperatures I was sorely tempted to stay in bed and skip Day 1! Day 1 - Riemvasmaak Start of Day 1 But I got up and saturday morning

When you do road races around Cape Town, you eventually realise that almost all races (Cape Town Cycle Tour excluded) are a variation of the same routes in a triangle around the Paardeberg area with  Durbanville to the west, Paarl to the east and Malmesbury to the north. We are certainly privileged to have a good number of races during the year but one can only ride Bothmaskloof so many times before seeking some new challenges. I looked up the Herald Cycle Tour in Port Elizabeth. One of the very few races (and the only large road cycle race in the Eastern Cape) with full road closure and an official seeding event for the Cape Town Cycle Tour. Stilbaai Systems Check On Friday 22nd February after work I set off for my road trip to Port Elizabeth, overnight at Stilbaai and setting off again on Saturday morning for Port Elizabeth. Left Stilbaai a bit late on Saturday morning so it was a rush to cover the 450km to PE to get to registration before it closed at 17h00. Sunday m