Chasing Oupoot

Some people seriously don’t know how to take a holiday. Send them to Mauritius and instead of sitting at the pool bar with a Pina Colada cocked and ready, they go rent a canoe and paddle across the bay against the wind and tide. The brief was to try and avoid that category and do all the fun stuff and still hit the pubs running. Throw in 6 events in 7 days, and it’s easy to see why there was mild relief at the lack of bums on barstools midweek.

First up was the 85km MTB race, the MacDaddy cheese puff of them all, part of the national Mazda marathon series, and a classic. This bad boy pretty much does the last 30kms of the marathon route before hitting some severe singletrack sections in Petrus se Brand forest. Then it’s a rejoin with the speedbumps from the 50km route, cross the N2 and you’re almost home - if you can grit your way through the final muddy hills without losing your sense of humour.

Got up in the morning to see the predicted rain had come, and it was really chilly – 5’C kinda chilly. Luckily it disappeared about half an hour before the start, and we got going 5 minutes behind the elite riders with a massive bunch of probably 600+. The red zone was visited going up the first climb past Simola Golf course, with the front bunch within sight. The first 18km has something stupid like 700m of altitude gain, and the KOM marker is quite a relieving sight. That’s pretty much the last thing Jimmy saw, as he pulled off a great wipeout on the descent – breaking a collarbone going down at 52kph. Tough takkies for the poor sod who organized the whole week! By now the field had been sorted out, and I yo-yo’d between a dozen riders in a mad sequence of racing across the flats, and the inevitable splits down the hills and big moves up the climbs.



The waterpoints flew by, and at about 50km it hit me how much of an undertaking this was going to be. Feeling rather poked, there was also the worry about now running out of liquids. It would take forever to refill the camelback, so the next waterbottle found lying on the ground was duly picked up – a dodgy but necessary move. The two courses converged, and picking a way through the back end of the 50km field became a side issue. These guys (and girls, in plentiful numbers here) will get off and walk for anything resembling uphill. There was the slight issue of crossing the N2, at which we were told 12km to go. Either my speedo was reading wrong or the organizers had cocked up the distance, as I was banking on 23. The latter was true, and while it is quite pleasing to know you are closer than you thought, it’s pretty unprofessional for a big race to state distance falsely – especially when the route has been used before.


The last climb is a bit of a snorter, really muddy and you’ve had enough by then. Crest the hill and it’s a bomb down some steep field to the finish. I did my best to try and sneak under 4 hours, but just missed out. The bonus was that I missed the first 3 minutes of the SA/Aussies tri-nations game, so just in time to find a seat/powerade/beer. Very disappointing to hear Kevin Evans had been in for over an hour, and even worse – bike chick Sara had some mechanicals and I almost caught her – will never get another chance like that. We hung around for a while, which helped me win a(nother) hydration pack in the lucky draw – but miss the R25k road bike by a whisker.

The 100km road race has a smaller field than the mtb, probably because it’s a really kak race. Start with the lekker hill going east past the squatter camps. Rolling up down till you get to Plett, do two more hills and come home on the same route. Yawn…., not recommended.

Despite the massive R280 pairs entry fee, Dave and I jumped in for the Petzl Nite bike. After chilling on Noetzie for the day it became a rush to actually get there. Way more admin when you need to sort out lights/batteries etc. The mercury went down with the sun, but there was quite a buzz round what turned out to be a bona fide olde English pub.
These dudes really went to town, all checkpoints were timed by using a dual entry transponders. To top it off, some teams had Sportstrack units for the crowd at the start/finish to monitor on the big screen. We headed off with superhero Hanlie Booyens getting dropped on the first corner, proving it doesn’t help to be superfit if you go the wrong way. Luckily it was dark, as the course went through some ridiculous hay fields, even the moo cows knew that it was not for mountain biking.

Navigation wasn’t too hard, as the intermittent throb of red taillights lit the way. A fair amount of overtaking was achieved before one wrong turn sent us bombing down some path. As much fun as it was hacking a route through virgin bush, the turn around vibe killed it. We rejoined the route with some losses, and returned to overtaking whenever possible. A mad navigational dead end brought stacks of teams together, at what can only be described as the three dams foul-up. Water is black in the dark, how no-one rode into one is a mystery. We then got hit by a serious mechanical bummer – my daylighter had had enough, and Dave’s wheel had spokes looser than NPA’s lassoo on brother Jacob. So spoke tightening on the side of the road it was, we did feel a bit better when some dude came running past pushing his bike (long way home!). The next stage was a bit bizarre – water section. Jump in a canoe, get passed two bikes and a teammate….slowly pull across the water and get out other side. Quite an ordeal, and it was a little bit chilly, hard lines to the dude who fell in.

There was a rushed out and back course to an orienteering section, which was quite easily followed, but with another long stop to retighten spokes. Tough takkies to the team not listening to race briefing, and fell off the map into a kloof….and kept falling! The pull to the finish a formality, only to be ridiculed for losing to a girl (but that always happens?!). Then they give you a print out of route timing, as if you have just bought a trolleyfull at woollies. Next job was to get stuck into the rhino priced draughts, hit the potjie and the oh so obvious war stories of where everyone got lost. Great fun, there’s another one in Grabouw soon, sort some lights out.

Next up was the Xterra Offroad Triathlon. Despite the luxury of a rare lagoon, there would be no water events and it would be a duathlon – run/bike/run to the clueless. It was hosted by Pezula Estate, at their ‘Field of Dreams’. In the classroom of golfing estates, Pezula is the spoilt little rich kid. The have the best view in Knysna, the best golf course, a private nature reserve, a hotel and spa and soooo much money. I almost forgot to thrown in the two castles on their own corner of a beach. Despite this, I was actually quite impressed by the lack of development. It’s all tastefully done with endemic vegetation and the plot sizes are really huge to spread the housing density out. It was quite a miserable day, windy and cold; but once again the sponsors had gone to town. Huge marquees with heaters and full-on bar with free stuff, all missed as I hit the rush to get ready in time.



The ‘lite’ event had just finished and a nervous huddle of about 150 waited and waited for the start. Letting the real hotshots go, the pace was quite comfortable until we hit the first climb. They don’t do flat round here, and the pack thinned out quickly by the time the bike transition hit after 3km. Managed to overtake quite a few early on in the bike section, clearly some runners had never seen singletrack in their lives before. It was a windy rolling course, and quite scary to see how huge their property actually is. The real bonus was overtaking the guy who had come into the transition first, didn’t look like he’d ever been on a bike before. Transition was fun, mainly because I couldn’t find my shoes – with all the lite people removing their bikes I got a little lost! The second run is always hard, as the hammies suddenly pull up. Starting off with a real steep road, it was all about keeping up with the dude burning up the hill. Better news yet, he was running in a team, so had just started. The rest of the run was a little bit wasted on me - really beautiful terrain, but none of it flat. In the final stages, I realized I was close to the 2 hour mark, and managed to dip under it. First stop was the bar for a well earned burger and beer. Really cool race and the goodie bag was beyond ridiculous.




The Camel Guys who did the night race put together the Twenty20 of Adventure racing at the Knysna Waterfront:
Roll down a ramp in a whitewater kayak, paddle round a few buoys
Jump in a ‘floating hamster wheel’ and hydrobronk round a buoy.
Run over ‘lilypads’ to another canoe which takes you to a climbing wall.
Climb the wall.
Looked easy enough, what am I kidding – they only gave me 20 minutes to get ready and I got to watch one heat to see exactly the order. The one guy fell over in the kayak and had to be rescued by divers in wetsuits – so he lost to a girl. Luckily I managed to stay floating from the ramp, but snaked the kayak round the course – my competitor mocking me with his whitewater skills. The hydrobronker went a bit pear at times, really hard to control; and I hadn’t banked on the lilypads sinking so easily. Using my long lost knowledge from Venture Club at junior school I caught up a bit of time on the climb but came in a bit behind him. The bonus was that I had a second round the next day, to be squeezed in between the half marathon and one mother of a braai. At least I knew what the deal was the second time around. The tide was low now, making a massive drop from the ramp and the start to the climb that much higher. It all went a lot easier, save the climb as the legs were just not happy and I probably owe the belayer a beer. All in all a time six and a half minutes was only 90 seconds out of qualifying – saw the finals the next day, those guys made it look so painfully easy.

The whole big shebang of going to Knysna is all about the forest half-marathon, the entries open in April, fill up in two weeks and then become available again through the grapevine as people realize they actually couldn’t make it in July. Some people miss the point and do the full marathon. This is quite unnecessary as we all go to the same party in the end anyway (my word, what a bash it is). The second biggest social scene of the week is the race registration on Friday night, with half of cape town offering their excuses for bunking work early to make it to Knysna early enough to pick up race numbers the night before.

Most races have a common start/finish point - logistically it just makes sense. One of the key attractions is that the race is run through the forest, and the taxi/busride to the start is part of the experience. Queue up in the cold for half an hour, cram into a hi-ace that’s seen better days and try not bump your head on the 6x9 that’s dangling from the roof. It’s quite a din at the beginning, 5000 nervous souls trying to ignore some idols reject who’s been given a microphone, the five sponsor’s names and the personality of a dishcloth. Was it really necessary to continually inform us that we were indeed at the start of the race? Pour pity on the fool that only worked this out from his blabberings. Of course the real fun is had by those trying to do some sort of warm-up and the anxious few trying to get a last visit to the john. Using stubbornness gained from numerous clogged startlines and not wanting to ruck overzealous walkers, we find ourselves 10m from the front with a minute to go. About 100minutes later I am sitting in the Knysna Rugby Club bar watching the haka. Must admit I did have to push it once I realized Mickey Mouse was right behind me coming into the stadium, there’s nothing wrong with letting girls beat you, but I draw the line at an 80 year old cartoon mouse. The highpoint was probably getting out of the bath to answer my phone – my sister had just come in and wanted to know where I was. Also a big russpect to big daddy rich who managed to find Jimmy’s jockey wheel on the route – lost a week earlier in the middle of the forest!

Le Tour de Farce

It’s in the paper for all the wrong reasons, its very existence in doubt.



Rasmussen – very shaky, but has returned 14 negative tests so far. He missed two local and two international tests during his training. Three by any body is an automatic positive and suspension, so he was on thin ice. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and he’s like a Cuban Snooker Bar – lying to his team manager where he was training? These guys do dodgy training in far flung parts of the world, and you just don’t know what they do behind the scenes. But they definitely don’t just have pronutro for brekkies and energade in the bottle.

If this is the look of a healthy person in peak physical condition, then I’d hate to see him when he’s sick. Yes you guessed it, he does bear a striking resemblance to Timmy, that’s why they call him ‘The Chicken”.


There’s a big showdown come Saturday for the Yellow Jersey. Cadel Evans won the last Inidividual Timetrial, and has just under 2 minutes to pull back Alberto Contador. Anything less than 30 seconds delta and we could actually have a race on Sunday’s final stage. They’re probably both on untraceable jungle juice, and who wants an aussie to win anyway?

Luckily our Barlowworld boys have far exceeded the predictions. Juan Maricio Soler from Colombia had the Polka Dot Jersey sewn up before the Chicken got fried. Of course he’s also on some sort of crack, climbs like a praying mantis. Then our very own Robbie Hunter, is second in the points classification. He’s 22 points behind the leader, Tom Boonen, but needs some real luck to overtake him. He just can’t compete with the Quickstep leadout team on his own, and should probably just try hold onto second.


Not from this years tour, but this is why the Argus is such a non-event, Suikerbossie looks like a pimple.

Knysna Pearlers Part1

There are festivals dotted all over the country. It’s a simple recipe that’s printed on page 1 of the dummies guide to local tourism authority management.
Step 1: Find your acorn(something unique and abundant in your area)
Step 2: Pick a week(end) of the year during acorn season
Step 3: Find some other stuff to do, when people are bored of acorns
Step 4: Tell everyone in the area to charge double for any acorns(and everything acorn related) during the week
Step 5: Spread the word, and wait for the acorn frenzy (repeat every year, but put price of acorns up)

Hermanus has whales, Lambertsbaai kreef, Riebeck-Kasteel olives, Montagu muscadel, Stellenbosch wine, Grahamstown culture and Oudtshoorn kultuur (aka dronk boere). The list goes on and if you are itchy then this week-end you can head to Calitzdorp for some Port. It’s not unheard of to mission to Calvinia for the vleisfees. There’s a bunch of gypseys following this circus too - selling tannie Marie se kafferwaatlemoenkonfyt, sheepskin slippers, orgasmotrons, coloured sand in jars, catapults and other useless peripheral items.



The Knysna Oyster Festival is one of the big Kahunas on the circuit, with a full 9 day program. Having dabbled on either side of the week before, it was time to send the team there for the whole shebang. It’s billed as a large sporting and fun festival for the whole family – with oysters on the side. Not content to call this a holiday, we managed to squeeze in a few races, including:
85km MTB marathon, 100km Road cycle race, 25km Night MTB race, Xterra off road triathlon, Landrover Waterfront Rush sprint race and the Forest Half Marathon.
With so much material, it’s not feasible to report on it all, so we’ll start with the ‘cultural activities’ in part 1.



Somehow they let me drive a R540k nissan patrol round this hectic course. I had a passenger with a broken collarbone and an instructor who kept telling me to slowdown. What a jol, even if they knew there is NO chance i'll be buying one of these in the next decade.



Not content with running around the forest we jumped into some of the more cultural items too. The Mardi Gras had nothing to do with flashing and bead necklaces, but was actually R150 a head all you can eat and drink gourmet oyster competition. This was only apparent once we snuck inside, and a desperate effort was made to blend in with the surroundings by getting stuck into the available spread. Orange vodka shots(with little oysters), mojito oysters, chocolate chilli oysters, garlic mayo oysters, smoked oysters and (the winning) oysters benedict all got the attentions of the tasting committee. Still not sure what the hell wine estates were doing there, but not complaining. All in all, great training for the Xterra.


the world's biggest tabasco bottle










The one big institution at the festival is the Longbarn Oyster Eating. The stock price for cultivated oysters is R11/8/5 for Large/Medium/Small each. Wild or ‘coastal’ ones are about 30% more, and worth it. The night is split into three events: The pairs, the two dozen and the 10 minute.
Pairs is the main event – you have a shucker (who opens the things with a very sharp tool) and an eater (who consumes them). They had qualifiers on three minutes for a spot in the semis. Top result was 55 from the 7 time winning couple who looked like they were waiting for Jerry Springer to discover them. They went on to win again, but faced harsh competition from Gloria, one of the kitchen staff who could shuck like her job was on the line.
The Two dozen is 24 open oysters pasted liberally with Tobasco(headline sponsors) and then timed. Winning split here was just over a minute.


The 10 minute is a bit of a sideshow, and very very stupid. The current oyster record is 46 dozen, held by the ‘Black Widow’ from the states. Two guys stood up to the plate here, and the kitchen staff were opening oysters like sweat pores after a vindaloo curry. Trays were dumped in front of them by the 5 dozen. Varying techniques of the stab/slurp/gulp/scoop method were employed in this stamina event, and it was apparent early on that the record was a mountain too high for these two. They soldiered on, and returned with fairly respectable totals of just over 27 and 35 dozen each. The skinny dude who had just swallowed 428 of these delicacies in 600 seconds was asked what he was planning on doing for the next week, now that he was champion – “Not eating Oysters, bru” – being the hardly surprising reply.



Now despite the promise of decent weather, Knysna can get quite chilly once the sun goes down. Living in a concrete nuclear fallout bunker, we got the brunt of frosty mornings. The upshot was that it actually snowed enough for us to get some snowboarding in. Being spoilt with endless terrain in large resorts, a run with 10m vertical was met with slight derision and there’s no alpine sports coverage on local medical aids. Even worse they had some really kak boards with soft edges and loose bindings. Throw in 60 Brandhouse reps who have been on the company sauce all day to dodge and you actually have a challenging run. Needless to say, our athletes looked like Shaun White in that crowd, and the local ski school were very impressed. They even offered us some free lift tickets, which was odd as we weren’t paying anyway.

While some would say that golf is actually a sporting event, they usually change their mind once they see John Daly.
course was in magnificent condition, except for the bunkers
The third annual Dave Invitational Beach Golf Challenge took place on Sunday the 15th with contestants proudly striding out from Uncle Tom’s to the course with a full belly. Sh1t Steve and Dirk came through the qualifying round the previous day after opting out of the run and focusing on this event instead, Cool Steve still carries exemption as 2005 winner and Dave is of course patron of the challenge. Defending champion Geofferson was not present due to him being a techno IT geek.
the view of the clubhouse

All present swore that their Beach Golf membership dues were fully paid up, amidst protest of an archaic and totally autocratic governance body.

The ongoing drive debate was hotly contested with the safe ‘floater’ technique employed by most. The odd ‘skipper’ sent a low flying ball all over the show, with mixed success. The first hole was split by Dave and Sh1t, Cool came back with the next two before a rally on the back three brought the final hole up with Cool and Dave ahead by one. Sh1t could force a playoff if he clinched the hole, a scorching par 10. Alas Dave held his nerve with a solid third shot thudding right next to the brown, and the goose was cooked. His request for a victory dance in this his inaugural triumph was turned down due to a mad dash to the finals of the waterfront rush.


Dave ½ 0 0 1 ½ 1 3
Sh1t ½ 0 0 0 ½ 0 1
Dirk 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Cool 0 1 1 0 0 0 2

The town has apparently returned to a crawl, look out for part two next week.

The Wheel Deal

It's the silly season in Europe right now. The sun makes an appearance, everyone bunks work and goes on holiday. Somehow they managed to squeeze Wimbledon into two weeks between all the rain. Stu managed to co-opt ms Sharapova into a Cape Storm photo shoot. Note how he handles the pressure, very hot under the collar and barely a bead of sweat is visible - that's when selectively porous membrane is your friend.



Another crazy buddy from the Whistler 2004 crew is also travelling, currently following le Tour. It does him no justice, but I'll include the email below...he's got plenty of panache in real life, and is a real ladies guy.



"hello my friends, I hope you are all having great time! I am follow the grand madness tour de France. My friend from village of Bourdonogov, Andrej Kashechkin, is cyclerider on glorious Team Astana - pride of Kazakhstan. Astana is capital (Premier Ugdomev lives in big palace there), and team is great friend with money from Kazakh Railways and Oil company. Andrej is strong man, but he cut hair on legs and we throw him in ditch with cow after he visit from europe race. He now on state television, and big hero. He will have lots of girlfriends when he homecoming to village, and we will forget about he make sexy time with goat in barn.

I have all important job on Astana to be man massage. I do comrade Alexandre Vinokourov, Team Captain and number three popular man in all of Kazakhstan (after Premier Ugdomev and smoking chimpanzee, Jonny the Monkey). Vino has legs so big like tree trunk, that no woman can massage and I get top job (there are plenty woman big enough, but Team Astana not happy to have woman who look like wood stove - bad for public relationships of Kazakhstan). It is a lot of good times, but I have problem trying to be with women who hand out teddy bear lion everyday - I will get one eventually (woman, not Teddy bear lion - Andrej wants Teddy bear lion). There is television man phil illegitimate who want to use computer, he get a lot of women for old man. Sexy time all - here is me supporting team up mountain in Alps."

THE BLUE OYSTER CULT

sorry fans, but there's no time to report on the stuff going down. Far
too busy with shucking to get near a pc, sit this week out and prepare
for the mayhem that is the crab's creek after party......

It's nice, neh?!

Team Deep South has a rough 10 days ahead planned. We've co-ordinated the festivals correctly this time (see the last codensa), and will be throwing name at the Knysna Oyster Festival. Lots of stuff planned...even some snowboarding and this meneer of a race below, so watch this space

Americas Cup ACTION

UNBELIEVABLE!

After about a billion dollars worth of investment, we got our moneys worth at the final race of the America's Cup. Sitting on match point at 4-2 in the best of 9 series Alinghi the Swiss defender just had to land the killer blow to complete a bathotisimal sporting week for New Zealand. Of course no-one is forgetting that skipper Brad Butterworth is calling tactics, Warwick Fleury on the main sheet, Simon Daubney trimming the genoa, Dean Phipps working the pit or Murray Jones up the mast, in his wind-spotting role. After all, this is the core group of New Zealanders who Russell Coutts asked to follow him to Alinghi from Team New Zealand seven years ago. It’s a group who have won three consecutive America’s Cups. The daggers were out in 2003, as the nation of New Zealand lost the Cup to these traitors who put money before country, but its on much equal terms that the two met for the 32nd America's cup Regatta.

Alinghi seemd to have a marginally quicker boat, but had just managed to pull a few breaks their way so far to be 4-2 up. They both pulled off the line on starboard in the 15kts sea breeeze with nothing in it, the Kiwis managed to sneak a boatlength ahead, but Alinghi remained on the starboard track of the course. After a few Lee-bow tacks, the Kiwi's just couldn't get past or force it to the starboard layline. They had to settle for the to a fetch out to port and wait for the Swiss move, despite being ahead on the course. Once they were both on port, one quick luff put the nervous Kiwis into irons and a lead change saw the Alinghi squeeze round with a tiny 5 second delta. Heading down to the bottom mark it was gung-ho as ETNZ got their wind shadow onto Alinghi, two collapses of the big white kite and Barker pulled NZ-92 back into the lead! Being ahead, they had the choice of which gate to round, and in a critical decision took the easier drop but would be once again on the port side of the track.


In a repeat of the leg 1, the Kiwis did not have enough to cross ahead and Alinghi made a gain on every lee-bow tack that forced them to the right. Terry Hutchinson on NZ-92 made the call to drag it out to port and hope to beat them on boatspeed alone. This is where the modern race coverage gets brilliant, skipper Brad Butterworth clearly calls for a 'dial-down' as an attacking move at the layline. Once forced past the line, Barker tacks onto port, to find Alinghi heading below course and coming straight for him on starboard. NZ-92 gets round SUI-100's stern, but evasive action is taken and Butterworth pulls up his protest flag. Alinghi slams onto port and gets round the mark ahead anyway with an overlap. The double blow comes when the umpires correctly give a penalty to ETNZ.

The game is now dead and buried, Alinghi are 100m ahead on their way to the finish and the Kiwi's still need to do a 360' penalty turn. Or is it? Three-quarters of the way down, the beak blows on Alinghi's pole and Barker pulls ahead with this lucky break. Crucially a windshift allows Alinghi to reach through to the line, and the Kiwis struggle with their rounding. It comes down to a dead heat, with NZ-92 battling to regain speed after the turn. After 90 minutes of intense sparring Alinghi take the gun to raptuous celebrations, the delta is a paltry one second. Podcasts are well worth watching here



Valencia will be waking up to a massive hangover today, it's probably a good thing having the cup in Europe again, and we can only wait for the 33rd edition of sports oldest contest - will Shosholoza be there?