Family and friends,

    It's been a while since I have written last, so I am going to get everyone up to speed on what has been going on.

    Well as far as my riding, it's been going very well. I have been training very consistently over the last few weeks and I have been enjoying some great riding weather. I have started to ride and train with the HSBC team. They are a DIV III UCI team and the best in South Africa. So all is well with training, but no racing right now. I will have to wait till the new year to do a little racing.

    Other than riding I have been busy helping to re-tile the garage of the Bole's house. It's a slow going process, but it's been fun because I have been having some great conversation with Steve, Sheldon Bole's brother-in-law. I have also redesigned and updated a lot of my website, www.cyclinglinks.com. I changed the format and added a lot of new links.

    Ok, now onto the real reason for the update, small little ride from J'burg to Ballito. My friend Sheldon talked a great deal about this ride while he was in the States, so I was very excited to do the ride and see a lot of the out of the way places in South Africa. The ride was to be with seven other guys including myself and it all started on Friday night when we all meet for dinner at a local pizza joint to get aquatinted. The group started out well with everyone enjoying a great meal and exchanging some small talk, but we all worry about the weather because of some bad rain as we all leave the restaurant.

    Saturday, Dec. 15th - I wake up at 4:50 am, ten minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. I look from under my covers to see a beautiful sunrise. No rain, the day was starting off very good. It took us some more time to get all our stuff in the van and trailer than we expected, but we started off at a reasonable time and went at a good pace. The idea was to average 28 kph every day and today we had 275k planned. That meant a long day in the saddle.

    The ride was going very well, the pace was brisk, the conversation was going well and the weather was a beautiful 25 C with sunny skies. We stopped in Hiedelburg after 70k and had coffee, while there we were all still full of excitement and joking about the distance ahead of us.

    Soon enough we make it to our first stop for lunch in a very small town. We have an unofficial sprint competition going for all town sign sprints. As we roll up to the town I look over at Sheldon and ask, "Is that the town sign?". He immediately stands up and sprints away. I think to myself, well I guess that answers my question. The town is very small, with a few small café's which aren't what you would call westernized and a small bottle store. We have ridden 120k with 60k to the next town, but we make the decision to go on to the next town for lunch.

    After some long, long riding we make it to our first lunch. The sun has been beating down on us all day long and it's now time to get some food in us. It was here that I was introduced to a Wimpy, the comparable place is a Dairy Queen back home in the states. I down two chicken burgers, an order of chips (french fries) , one large coke, and chocolate ice cream. After a 2 hour break we all get back on our bikes for some more torture of the legs. We spent the next 3 and half hours riding along in the hot sun on rolling roads. One of the members of the group was suffering bad toward the end of the day and I decided to help him by giving him a push up some of the hills. After some harsh suffering he made it to the end. I was very happy to see him make it to the end. As revenge on Sheldon from earlier in the day I won the final town sprint of the day as we roll into Volkrust. The best part was we only did 256k as some of the distances turned out to be shorter than planned.

    We stayed at a wonderful B & B where the hosts were more than gracious to help us out. The family cooked us all dinner and we all sat around the dinner table. Tony was the most talkative of the bunch, as he would be throughout the trip. I had a wonderful 300g lamb and two large glasses of chocolate milk. We all called it a quick night and jetted off to bed.

    Sunday, Dec 16th - I awoke to very suspect skies in the mourning. Not the best way to start off your birthday, but the breakfast was wonderful. The house had a big Beagle we just called "Droppy" who would sit on his hind legs and beg for food. During breakfast everyone congratulated me on my birthday and turning 20. We all got ready and rolled off on another fun filled day. I have never felt that sore in my life, everything hurt … feet … legs … and especially my crotch.

    We start off on a light climb as all the clouds from earlier had dissipated. I had a very groovy decent of almost 3k about 30k into the ride. While going down I hit a piece of metal in the road, but continue on fine down the decent. It wasn't till the uphill a little later that I heard a loud, BANG. My front wheel went flat. I inspected my tire and found a nice 1 cm gash on the sidewall. Someone was really looking out for me that day, I could have flatted going 65 kph dowhill, but I flatted going 25 kph uphill. Sheldon pulls out the camera and says, "Hey Gregg, I bet this is the most scenic flat you have ever had." I proceed to finish fixing my flat as everyone makes a comment on the two horses "necking" in the field next to us.

    The roads were nice and long with some great climbs. I enjoyed having so many kilometers to talk and get to know all of my new friends. After some time we arrive for lunch and I down two milkshakes, one chicken sandwich and a liter of Coke. It is very hot and we are all getting tires. Our lunch runs longer than planed and we get a late start to the finishing leg of the day.

    During lunch the wind had picked up and changed to be right in our faces. The one guy who had been suffering the day before was again in a bad position with the head wind and out average speed was getting worse and worse as we went along. I soon as pushing him up the hills with assistance from other members of the group. He was determined to finish. Soon enough we make it to Weenen, the final town before our stop for the day. We had originally planned on 28k to Muden from Weenen, but it turned out to be 40k. To say the least it was dishardening. We had an hour to hour half of light left, and a killer head wind. After about 7k of riding we decide to get our struggling rider in the van and have the rest of us press on and try to make it to Muden before dark.

    The next 30k of riding was the longest of my life. At one point we were riding downhill and going 18k an hour because the of the massive head wind we were having. In first 10k had two massive uphills to deal with. After suffering up two major climbs we regroup at the top of the mountains to a terrible wind, very cold temperatures, and the threat of rain. We now have a long 20k decent into the Muden Valley at the Mooi River, with only 15 min of light left. Not the best situation.

    We set out and start a small rotating paceline and try to keep up the speed. About 5 k down the road the van has it's lights on to be able to drive. We book it at speeds of around 40k after 240k of riding while avoiding rock, animals and pedestrians who are in the road, supported only by the light of the van! We finally arrive, in pitch black dark, to the B & B in the Muden. I expected a some small little cottage with some smaller cottages as rooms for how out in the middle of nowhere we were. As it turned out it was a huge plantation style home which was more than just a little shack in the middle of no where.

    We all pile into the louge as out host shows us to the bar/ waiting room. As I have now ridden for almost 10 hours I wanted something very good for me health wise. I get a Castle Lager. We all quickly change and are treated to a great wine and pasta dinner with even better conversation. A great end to a even greater birthday.

    Monday, Dec. 17th - After two days of nothing but sun and blue skies I awake to the sound of rain, not just normal rain, very heavy South Africa rain. I didn't want to be riding in this weather, but I knew we were going to have to. The host greeted us that mourning and made us some nice coffee before we left. We left in light rain, dark skies, cold temperatures and a nice 10k climb out of the valley. I stated out the day by taking some pictures as I wanted to prove how bad the weather was.

    The 10k climb was quite nice to do despite some very stiff legs. My body actually felt better the third day than the second. I say it was because everything went numb by the third day. I ended up getting another front flat going up the hill from a small piece of glass. I couldn't believe the number of flats I had been having, but the rain was pulling all the small glass pieces to the surface. The mist was so bad that we could only see about 20 meters ahead of us at the very top.

    We pulled into the next town to have breakfast, unfortunately we weren't able to find any café's which were open because of a public holiday. Finally after 30 minuets of searching we found a B & B which would serve us breakfast. We were hungry, tired and cold. We devoured a ton of food and drinks that mourning. We decide then to cut the route short by 30k so we could finish at a reasonable time.

    After breakfast we went off into the "Valley of a Thousand Hills". This is area runs through the Black homeland area of South Africa and is some of the beautiful area I have ever ridden through. It was ironic to see lush green rolling mountains and valleys outlined by housing of a third world nature. As we rolled over some climbs of 4k and longer and descents of even longer distance we eventually made our way toward the coast as you could feel the salty sea breeze.

    Toward the end we knew we had made it. The temperature began to go from a chilly longsleeve weather to just a short sleeve jersey. We rolled into Ballito for the final sprint that never happened because they moved the sign for the city limit and we sprinted for no reason. We finished on the coast after 160k of riding with the beach a stones throw. It was a wonderful trip which I could have written much more about, but I am to tired to do so. I really hope I will be able to do this trip again.

    Well right now I am at the Bole's flat in Ballito recovering from all the riding, watching the sea waves and enjoying the sunny skies. I will be here till the 2nd or 3rd of January and I plan to enjoy every day of my holiday.

    Cheers,
    Gregg