FedGroup Redhill School MTB

[Chris NewbyFraser]

Held at Avianto, this ride, only 40km long at its max, had a touch of Dr. Evil - of Epic fame. Dr. Evil (Kevin's dad) had the nasty habit, together with several other habits that were equally painful, of making the second half of stages harder than the first half or so it seemed.

 

Richard Beswick clearly borrowed some potion from the good doctor.

Firstly, he arranged some good cold highveld weather at a really nice venue. Then he lulled us into some form of comfort by describing the routes as being easy, sweeping, fast, not challenging, no nasty hills blah blah. All of this was true, well....sort of. He forgot to say that the second half is where all the sharp knife edge rocks lurked. Nor did he tell us that these rocks are also in the hilly part of the ride. Maybe he is just forgetful but I suspect otherwise..............

 

So, complacency was the norm! The first third was real green route stuff. Fast, easy and pretty boring. Challenging for newbies, nice for weekend riders, deceiving for the experienced. The second third got really nice. Lekker single track.

The last third brought out the rocks. Lots of rocks! On rough narrow single track. Big wake up! This was tyre cutting country. Now the fun started and experienced riders came to the fore. Some of the others even walked.

 

Probably because of the thoroughly vicious cold snap the Cape had sent to us the previous week, the event had a very disappointing entry which is sad, as the cause was a good one and the ride quite acceptable for a mid-winter ride.

 

Hopefully FedGroup sticks around for next year.