After 3 long months of hard work demolishing my house (while packing away some hard training) I spent a week on my parents farm to say good bye to them and Africa before hitting the US for some serious racing.

Because internet in Africa is slow, expensive and hard to get, this story (and a few to come) are only seeing the interweb now. Also, if you only have a week in paradise with your folks, sitting on the computer is like a prison sentence…

Here are some of the highlights:

My dad would join me on my recovery rides, and let me tell you, I was on the ropes most of the time! Quite something for a 66 year old “ballie” who beat colon cancer 3 years ago. As you can see, he also rides for Specialized Factory Team as he is the one with the REAL genes in the family. My friends calls him “Tarzan”.

My mom and I did some cool stuff too. She is has an acute sense of business, which I try my best to learn, but it somehow doesnt come as easy as carving single track… Finally we got good rains, and here, on our way to town, (Lydenburg) we stopped to take some pictures of the mist on the mountains and the pink Kapokboom… (Dont know the English name)

Of course I had to say good bye to my other girlfriend. (Amber accepts this wild red head into the 3 wife harem, but only just!) Actually, part of my justification is product testing- here I’m testing Oakley Goggles and the Specialized Deviant downhill helmet. As most of the riding I do is low speed, technical riding in hot, humid weather, I love the great ventilation and light weight of the Deviant.

Of course, there was that other, pedally part of training which also had to get done… My coach Ian gave me some big sessions in preparation for this weeks Sea Otter MTB Classic, so I feel much more prepared for the pace changes and hectic start of the Short Track than last year. This is my Africa bike of choice: Specialized Sworks Tricross Carbon.

For the South Africans who dont know what cyclocross is: Its mud, grassy fields, sleet rain, thousands of drunken Belgians… no wait, go Wiki it…

Why this is my fave Africa bike:

- It rides dirt like its smooth road. Thanks to the Zerts dampers built into the frame, a special carbon lay-up and that massive fork- it will eat bumps for hours.

- Mountain gearing. Our farm is in the mountains and with the cyclocross gearing, I can ride up passes as easy as I want- like when recovering from a 10 minute interval.

- Wide tires (which I ride at 50psi for even more comfort) with small knobblies for dirt roads or when that overladen minibus taxi pushes you off the road.

- Its amazingly light- I can not imagine how they make such a sturdy bike so light.

- Good strong V brakes- Like that time the baboons ran in front of me and I had to throw out the anchors to avoid catastrophe.

This day I did a 4 hr ride with 7x 10 minute repeats up a steep mountain. (too bad I dont have the Power Tap anymore…)

Since I’m back with Clif Bar (YAY!) and dont have any product yet, I trained on Caveman energy food: Dried peaches and compressed dates. That block of dates will give me about 6 hrs worth riding and it costs about 80 US cents.

Lastly, before leaving I had to tame the local leopard. No seriously, I was training after dark -like I often do (unintentionally)- this day. It was April 30 and this pic was taken at 10.08- I think I was still training at 8pm. The pic is taken by a game viewing camera we set up to study the wildlife on our farm. There are 3 resident leopards in our part of the valley and this the the male- Called Groot (Big) Gert after my dad. Despite their destruction to my dads herd of cattle (about 15 calves a year) we are happy to have this treasure in our midst.