September 2010

up in jhb

by dart under

i managed to put in a few good three hour rides at the start of this week and on wednesday said goodbye to cherise who flew to australia for the road world championships coming up next weekend.also on their trip is the commonwealth games in india which at this stage looks shaky.

i then booked into a hotel in sandton with oakley for the onesight clinic.onesight is an international organisation partnered with oakley to bring vision care to those in need around the world.i joined many of sa and the worlds top athletes to help out in the clinic for two days.

on thursday morning we headed into mamelodi(a township just outside pretoria)and arrived at a hospice hospital built by and amererican church.the rows of people were stagering and the enormity of the project was obvious.the goal was to provide 10 000 mamelodians with eye tests and then the appropriate spectacles aswell as a set of very fashionable oakley sunnies.

we got a crash course on every station inside the clinic and got to work.per day we had to try and move 1500 people through the building which meant that efficient flow was key.onesight has realy perfected the prosedure to such and extent that we were able to many many of the testing stations with no problem.by the end of the day i was rather tired.it is incredible that the volunteers there were up for 8days of the same.

after a great bon fire dinner among some wild cats in the bushveld i headed to oscar pistorius' house for a drink.the guy is truly and awesome athlete and an inspiring person.i was alo very impressed by is automobile collection including a prestine 67 mustang complete with chip fuse wheels!

on friday we hit the test stations again before heading into the township to do hospice visits.we got a taste of the many issues these hospice workers overcome to provide much needed care to those in need.it is realy awesome to see what a difference these people make and the passion with which they do their job.after we did some more work at the clinic before heading back to the lodge.we had another great dinner and even got to pose with a cheetah.

thanks to oakley sa and onesight for letting us help out,also thanks to davey weare for rooming with me over the few days.davey is a surfer from durban who has spent many years on the world tour.much respect.

this week i get back to training full on for a couple of days,or trying atleast.ive got a slight cold which im trying to shake which isnt ideal when you only have 8 days to get some form back.the event i need some of the form for is the roc d'azur bike festival in france coming up...

till next week...

burry

christophs diary from our trip to spain

by dart under

http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/photos/freeriding-into-the-off-season

world travelling

by dart under

had a blast the last week after world champs.first i got to see specialized team mate sam hill win the world downhill champs and end off the world champs meeting.the party was also pretty good!

christoph,sam and i then all headed to montreal and spent a day checking out the city and doing some shopping before flying out at 5pm on tuesday afternoon.a 6hour trans-atlantic flight took us to zurich in switzerland where we took trains to christophs house in the swiss alps.we picked up some sweet specialized stumjumpers and spent the whole day on thursday freeriding.the downhills were incredible and sam couldnt get enough of all the steep climbing!haha

on friday we were back to flying,this time the destination was madrid,spain.we spent the weekend at specialized days.the event was organised by specialized spain and was basically a huge expo with us doing mtb and road group rides with the public.alberto contedor tagged along for the road ride aswell.the people of spain treated us so well.they are so psyched on racing and specialized there!on monday morning i flew home at 1 30am and am now looking forward to alittle rest and recovery before joining oakley and their programme called onesight to bring much needed spectacles to some disadvantaged communities in sa.

cheers

burry

bronzin it...

by dart under

it wasnt long ago that i stood next to the track in amzament staring at the pro riders flying by at the world champs...this years world championships has been a very exciting proposition for me ever since an after winning the u/23 world championships in canberra last year i set two optomistic goals for the 2010 season.i wanted to win a medal at both the marathon world championships and the xco world champs a month later.

last month i managed to achieve my first goal,however i knew i wasnt going to be as lucky at the xco champs with that sort of form.i went home,got re-focused and set about making it happen.after last weeks dissapointment in windham i knew i had some good shape and the motivation was sky high.

i have raced at mont st anne for a couple of years now and i think they did a great job of the course for this years worlds.the loop was shortened somewhat which meant we would do the two big climbs more often than before.the course also had the sweetest bridges ive ever ridden over.it was like a skatepark out there!

the specialized team did an awesome job again this week.our bikes had to be race ready not once,but twice this week as we had team realy on wednesday.i had a pretty solid lap in some traffic as sa had a third row call up.the rest of our sa team did a good job and we just missed the top 10 and ended 11th.

for bike setup this week i went for a single ring in the front.a 34tooth rotor ring mounted to a specialized carbon road spider did the job perfectly.i was again aboard my 2010 stumpjumper 29er.i ran a new prototype mud tire on the front dubbed "winston" by the team.on the rear i ha my fast rolling renegade setup.sram hooked us up with some new xx world cup edition black box brake last week which rounds of the package superbly.the bike weighed in at 8.2kg and handled the rough and technical track like a dream.

in the morning of the race it had rained quite heavily but it was drying out alittle whilst the women were fighting it out on the course.we started at 2pm and the clouds were threatening.i had a great jump of the line and got through the first turn in the lead.i held onto the the front until the first climb where i settled into the lead group before dropping into the first single track.we did two start laps which comprised the half of the full lap with the most climbing.after the two laps i was in third trailing by around 10 sec.i had settled into my own pace on a track that offered very little drafting.with riders positions swapping for most of the race i just tried to stay relaxed as i knew it was going to be very tough at the end.by midway through the full laps of which we did 6 i hit the front of the race again.on my heels tho was jose hermida from spain and jaroslav kulhavy from check republic.it was indeed a tough battle at the end in which i had to settle for second bronze medal of the year!it was an incredible feeling to end the season by achieving the goal i wanted most!

heres some pics from the race courtesy of gary perkin at http://www.flipper.co.za/. rights reserved.