The Amazing Adventures of an Average Actuarial Cyclist

Racemiere finishing Day 1 Gravel & Grape is a fairly new stage race (The first event was in 2015) hosted at Goudini Spa in the beautiful Breede River Valley. I have some family roots in the valley and good memories of spending December holidays in the area so I was always keen to do this race and finally this year I got my chance.   Team Racemiere was resurrected as I was reunited with my brother Pieter again, both our families were booked into camping spots in Goudini making this a proper family weekend. Gravel & Grape has a reputation for having tough technical & rocky singletrack and a few sandy spots between the vineyards, so proper preperation would have helped but between work commitments & dirtroadie events this dirtroadie managed to train a sum total of zero kilometers of singletrack in the 3 months leading up to the event. Not exactly ideal preparation. But the plan was to just take it easy and not ride too hard but even so other than being fi...

At the end of January the seeding for the CTCT was sent out , now there were 2 more races on the calendar to prepare for the CTCT. But then out of the blue I got invited to do the Tour of Good Hope(TOGH), a 5-day stage race in the week leading up to the CTCT. 5 days of cycling, 600km, about 6000m of climbing - not ideal tapering before a big event! But this is also an amazing cycling opportunity that cannot be missed so there I was, having fun cycling every day in Paarl from Monday to Friday killing off any realistic attempt at a Sub-3 Argus! I was given the advice that the best thing to do on Saturday before the race is to not rest, but to go for another(!) ride - a light spin to work out the lactic acid built-up in the legs during the TOGH. The legs felt fine during the light spin but by now I have cycled 8 days in a row in the lead up to race day, cannot imagine that this is the ideal approach recommended by sport scientists! Sunday morning was windless, ideal conditions for...