Tyler Hamilton

The jury is still out at camp cyclemaniak about our friend Tyler Hamilton’s doping affairs. The man sure does look guilty from a scientific point of view, even though there are some scientists that aren’t top confident in the trust worthiness of the test. I hope that the truth of this matter will come out and I hope that he will be cleared if he is innocent.

5 big climbs

On Saturday we did a fairly easy 54km ride during which I spend the majority of the ride riding at the front. It was quite a change for me from the role of merely trying to keep up with the group that I use to cycle with in Pretoria. With my new group I get to ride at the front for big parts of the ride and that is very hard work. My 50km ride left me more tired than I though it would have and I would have really suffered if it had gone on for 100km

On Sunday we did another 55km ride but this time it was all different. The ride was centered on 5 big climbs. We cycled to the location where the climbs was and then did the climbs and afterwards cycled back home. Each of the big climbs was about 1.5 - 2.5km long and rather steep. In the area in South Africa where I live a climb of 2 km is thought of as big, but where I lived in Pretoria a climb of 1.5 km is quite common and I only really felt one of the climbs. Fishers hill is a climb of 2.5km with a very steep section at the end that goes for about 400m. The steep section is as steep as the steepest climbs that I have done but nothing that I have done that is that steep was longer than about 100m. The added length at the steepest gradient that I have cycled, certainly made Fishers hill a climb that I will visit again and again.

All and all a very nice cycling weekend

Paris-Roubaix

The first time I saw pictures of the Paris-Roubaix cycling classic I thought it was some backyard brutality contest. I couldn’t believe that professional cyclist would take part in something that crazy. The only thing that seemed remotely as brutal was a rugby match at a wet Nuweland (Rugby stadium in Cape Town South Africa) in the middle of the winter. But a rugby match doesn’t go on for 7 hours and is therefore child’s play in comparison.











All images by Graham Watson

However, the more you learn about cycling the more you learn that cycling is a modern day battleground where the main objective is to hurt those that you are competing against as much as you can whilst still maintaining your image as a gentleman. It’s a battleground where there is space for both pain and immense respect for your rivals and even camaraderie. I believe this is because the battle is first against the boundaries of the human abilities and secondly between the competitors. It’s both a festival of the human strength and an effort to stand out amongst those competing, as the strongest one.

I try to have a similar little festival every Sunday. It’s just me and my friends, but it’s the only think the modern man that I am has left of the ancient hunter, protector, warrior that I would have been if I lived 500 years ago. Our society is making it ever increasingly difficult for a man to be a man. The difference between men and women has been reduced to pants shape and breast size at the cost of men because men can never take the role of motherhood way from women, yet women have joined men at an equal level as providers for their families, and society has grown, thank God, to a point were the role of protector has mostly been reduced to emotional task which men and women can fulfill equally well. It’s just the warrior in us that still has a place in this world, but most of us would agree that we’d rather fight our battles on the bicycle than in Iraq.

I love cycling.