2nd League event of the season. A fast flat one up the West Coast Road to Atlantis and back to Table View. Despite only managing about 5 hours of training per week for the last few weeks I wasn’t feeling too bad and didn’t have any problems with the pace. I tried to stay up front to keep out of trouble in case of any splits.

But it ended up staying together the whole way. Then about 500m from the finish a truck turned right into the sprinting bunch. How no-one went down is a mystery. Robby unfortunately didn’t get good position into the finale and finished a few places down.

Another Tandem League event today. Only 5 racing tandems at the start and we shelled Patrick Gaertner and son Nick within 25kms. Robby and Peter were clearly the strong ones, and they put in repeated attacks of which we countered all.

Something had to give somewhere, since Robby & Peter and ourselves were the ones doing the most work. Eventually the other 2 tandems couldn’t match the pace on a hill, and the two BikeMax tandems went clear. Then through a slip of concentration we let them get the jump on us, and we couldn’t close the gap.

So Robby & Peter took 1st, with myself and Uwe at 45 seconds. Hard work, but I seem to be getting used to the position on the bike, as I’m definitely less sore after this one than 2 weeks ago.

Flash preloaders always seem to cause problems, especially with AS2 classes, and when using library items exported for actionscript.

This tutorial at senocular.com explains and solves ALL the common problems and has been a huge timesaver, putting all the relevant info in one page. Thanks Trevor!

Got my Cape Epic Race DVD in the post today and watched it over dinner. The coverage of the race at the front was excellent, and I think it may have triggered some training motivation somewhere inside of me. Watching the action has definitely got me thinking about needing to get fit again, and getting out on the mountain bike some more.

It’s been a bit of a bummer without a proper training partner since Kevin decided to take winter off, but now that the racing season is in full swing again I feel the urge to get out again and clock up some big hours. Its been a bit stressful at work lately - we’ve been extremely busy - so the training has suffered a bit and have had quite a few weeks with not quite enough training hours. Hopefully I can shake that habit now and get some miles in my legs again

The 2nd tandem league road of the season, and we had a bit more competition this time. Here’s an (edited) race report from Robby:

The Male Tandem race this weekend saw a record number of 9 male teams at the start line. The biggest surprise of the day was the couple of Adrian Enthoven and Shan Wilson from Team Bowmans.

It was a very tentative start as all the big guns were watching each other which allowed Francois Esterhuizen and Andrew Gouws of Team Vineyard BikeMax to slip off the front. They were soon followed by Adrian and Shan from Team Bowmans, Uwe Schmidt and Nick Coyne also from Team Vineyard BikeMax and lastly Patrick Gaertner and Chad Gordon of Team Microsoft 100/ Virgin Active. This made it 4 tandems up the road with Team Vineyard BikeMax having the upper hand. This left it up to Gary Marescia and Tim Carter of Cycle Lab/ Virgin Active to chase with the rest of us getting a free ride.

Once we turned left after the klapmuts hotel onto the R44 Gary and Tim put the hammer down to get across to the 4 tandems up the road. Only Robby Rodrigues and Peter Wright from Team Vineyard BikeMax managed to hang on and get a free ride across to the break as they had 2 tandem teams up the road. This made the break now 6 tandems but Robby and Peter obviously fresh after getting a tow across immediately attacked as they got on to the back of the group. The others were caught by surprise and were slow to react but it eventually came all back together again. On the last roller on the R44 Robby and Peter put the hammer down again and this time only Adrian and Shan were able to go with. The 2 tandems formed an alliance on the road and worked together to hold off the chasers. Once the gap was big enough the cat and mouse games began with Robby and Peter applying all the pressure on the big rollers on the Paardeberg circuit but they were not strong enough to get away from Adrian and Shan. The 2 tandems up front stopped attacking each other which slowed the pace down and the chasers were starting too close the gap.

In the last 2km the 2 BikeMax Tandems bridged across which set it up for a nail biting finish with BikeMax having 3 teams present. Uwe and Nick led the sprint out with Robby and Peter on their right shoulder. As traffic blocked the way Adrian and Shan jumped past the left hand side and got into the last turn to the finish first, with Robby and Peter accelerating past them after the turn to take the win and the best time of the day at a healthy 44km/h. Adrian and Shan finshed second with Uwe and Nick in third.

“Definately the most exciting tandem race I have ever been in” said Robby Rodrigues afterwards.

Although I was pre-entered for the 55km route, after an evening of rain and still feeling sore from Wednesday’s tandem torture-session, I decided to chicken out and do the short 30km Lourensford MTB route.

I went out at a moderate pace only and found a comfortable rhythm that didn’t involve too much risk, and let me enjoy the scenery a bit. It was very muddy and very slippery. The quietness of the countryside was punctuated by the occasional “Whaaahiiiii” as successive riders lost grip with Mother Earth. Fortunately I was not one of them and I managed to keep the rubber bits pointed downwards.

30kms ended up taking only 2 hours, which was a perfect way to loosen up my legs, which were still a bit tight from Killarney. Its been a long time since I did an easy race and it was really enjoyable

It only took 50 minutes on a tandem, but I’ve never been so sore after a ride as I was after Killarney criterium racing today. There was a howling south-easter keeping our average speed down to 42kph, but we were sitting at threshold (and above) for the entire time. And finished off with a looong sprint - I think we held over 60kph for about 100m!! But we got beaten for 2nd anyway. When I got off the bike I discovered that I could hardly walk - the legs were broken. My knots had knots. It was even painful to sit, my glutes were so sore!