# MAMILs on the African Highveld.



## Globalti (5 Mar 2011)

Five on a Saturday is a hard time to get up. I drink coffee, dress, make up drinks bottles and sneak out of my hotel room, enjoying a cheeky ride down the corridor while everybody else sleeps. 

It’s still half dark as I cruise round the block to Cycle Lab bike shop here in Johannesburg’s Fourways suburb. I’ve been told to ask for Deane and I am expecting to find a handful of riders mucking about and pumping tyres so I am amazed to find the entire car park full and about three hundred riders hurriedly forming into groups, controlled by a bloke with a loud-hailer. Nearly everybody is wearing identical blue Cycle Lab club jerseys. Somebody says I must join the newbies group, which consists of about twenty ill-assorted and unfit looking riders hanging around shyly at the back.The others go off and we follow but within two minutes our ride leader is urging me to catch up with the faster group ahead, so I hammer down a long hill and join a bunch of about fifty blue-clad riders. 

Even at six the traffic is a pain, knackered cars and dodgy minibuses racing past with stinking exhausts. A minibus gets hemmed in by riders and the driver sounds his horn aggressively. We ride in a north-westerly direction out of the city and within a couple of miles are cruising down long straight roads, the sun rising in the north east.The African highveld here is gently undulating and the straight roads swoop up and down long hills as we click up and down our gears. Motorcycle marshalls race past and stop traffic for us at junctions; I’ve never seen such a massive, well-organised club run, there is even a broom wagon for casualties. 

The temperature is about 24 degrees, the roads are dry, well surfaced and clean except for grit along the sides, which I do my best to avoid for fear of punctures. We are at around 5000 feet above sea level so I am breathing faster than usual; a rider tells me that there are gold mines around here that go down to sea level, they are so hot at the bottom that attempts have been made to air condition them. The scenery becomes gradually wilder, lush African grass waving in the breeze and red rock outcrops on the horizon. Local people stroll along the verges and the pesky minibuses are still with us, darting in to the roadside to pick up passengers then pulling out carelessly on us. I chat with other riders, mostly they ask where I’m from and surprising numbers of them have worked in the UK and even visited Manchester. 

After 20 miles we reach the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site; hominid fossils 3.5 million years old have been found here. At a roundabout at 23 miles the riders turn and head back for Johannesburg. We pass a small game reserve, I smell rotting meat and a lion roars – not something you hear in Lancashire! There are hundreds of cyclists going both ways along the road, our own Cycle Lab teams as well as teams from other local shops and smaller groups and couples. Out of the hundreds of riders I see, only two are black. I find myself alongside a heavily built black guy in his thirties who is suffering on the hills and we chat for a while; he doesn't know why there are so few black cyclists and we get separated before we have time to talk any more. 

My first drink bottle has lasted beyond the halfway mark, I drain it and swop it on the down tube for the second bottle. We are heading into a gentle breeze so I put in an effort and join the back of the leaders of the bunch, chatting with one of the ride leaders for a couple of miles. We pass an accident, a Cycle Lab rider is lying in the road, head supported, surrounded by other riders, bikes scattered around. He’s on a climb so I assume he must have crossed wheels or become ill. A private ambulance is racing towards the scene, lights flashing. I realise that apart from my cellphone with a couple of ICE numbers, nobody knows who I am and I have left my medical emergency card in the hotel room safe. Must remember it next week for the Cape Argus. 

I feel a twinge of cramp in one thigh and my back and neck are aching; I’ve been in the saddle now for two hours so on the long downhills I stand up and stretch. The Argus will be 66 miles in much hotter and possibly very windy conditions so I’m wishing I was better acclimatised to the riding position; the UK winter and family and work commitments don’t allow enough long rides though. 

In the distance I see the towers of the vulgar Italianate pastiche village of Montecasino where I’m staying. I’m looking forward to some breakfast. At 46 miles I peel off at a major highway junction and cross, checking carefully both ways for rogue minibuses. I cruise into the gated compound of the hotel and leisure complex and arrive at my hotel where I stretch for a few minutes, before heading up to my room for a welcome shower. Might spend a few minutes in the car park later fettling handlebar position and cleats before dismantling the bike and packing it in its case for trucking down with thousands of others to Cape Town where 35,000 riders will compete in the Cape Argus on Sunday the 13[sup]th[/sup].


----------



## perplexed (7 Mar 2011)

Interesting post thanks!

Funnily enough, as a kid in the early 1970's in Sheffield, the first time I recall knowing a "proper"cyclist (ie with team sponsored lycra or it's equivelent, drop bars and what have you) was a lovely black guy who lived next door. I thought that was pretty cool, even back then.


----------



## neil earley (11 Mar 2011)

thouoghly enjoyed reading you biking blog iin JOBURG well done on completing your ride


Globalti said:


> Five on a Saturday is a hard time to get up. I drink coffee, dress, make up drinks bottles and sneak out of my hotel room, enjoying a cheeky ride down the corridor while everybody else sleeps.
> 
> It’s still half dark as I cruise round the block to Cycle Lab bike shop here in Johannesburg’s Fourways suburb. I’ve been told to ask for Deane and I am expecting to find a handful of riders mucking about and pumping tyres so I am amazed to find the entire car park full and about three hundred riders hurriedly forming into groups, controlled by a bloke with a loud-hailer. Nearly everybody is wearing identical blue Cycle Lab club jerseys. Somebody says I must join the newbies group, which consists of about twenty ill-assorted and unfit looking riders hanging around shyly at the back.The others go off and we follow but within two minutes our ride leader is urging me to catch up with the faster group ahead, so I hammer down a long hill and join a bunch of about fifty blue-clad riders.
> 
> ...


----------

