Well Struck Sire !

A chord, a note, a high C, a low G, maybe a composition and usually taboo in polite company ? Well let's start at the beginning and try and take it from there...


This weekends riding was tremendous fun and included two new routes for me - An 80km loop on Saturday out to the Ruins and a 100km ride on Sunday out towards Irene with Anton from Summit Cycles. I guess that's one of the benefits of having such a great training group. On Saturday at around 06:30am we headed off into the blue yonder for a 80km ride with back packs.

The trail wound its way through and around various small farm holdings, up a very loose rocky trail to a spot referred to as 'the Ruins' and from there down a steep decent into 'The Cheese Shop' (literally) somewhere in the Hennops River area where a meal break next to an Aga did the business as far as sustenance and warmth was concerned.

And yes, a regular feature of our riding seems to be halfway stops for food, tea and coke in my case. Well being a cheese shop meals included fried Haloumi salad with freshly baked wholewheat farm bread and preserves, toasted cheese samies and of course some of the boys opted for 'Russian' sausages and chips for breakfast.

Badger of course had nothing but a banana (recall his 2L box contents) - far too much discipline that boy !

Might sound rather strange, but I know from my own experience that hard riding brings about the weirdest cravings and unless you're a world class competitive athlete, indulging those cravings isn't a bad idea - and why not, after all it's good practice for those packed lunches we're going to get when doing the Freedom Challenge !

Well now, as you can imagine all that food and drink and all those fantastical tonics and protein/carbohydrate mixes in the water bottles plus other food items consumed along the way can only make for an interesting ride home especially when one is confined to alot of single track flanked by tall thatching grass where not even a field mouse could squeeze itself through.

I have often observed slightly pained expressions (myself included), particularly on the faces of those boys riding in close proximity to our mother, Queen Bee.
Under no circumstances is a chord, a note and heaven forbid any kind of composition allowed within earshot of one's mother ! This is simply just not cricket, so trying desperately to drop off to the back of the group, out of range and preferably sight of our mother has become somewhat of an unspoken art form.

After all, the 'art of dropping a dart' must be practised with some decorum as well as the right posture (note: this is also a dead give away) to avoid the dreaded 'burn'.

Boys will be boys, so next time you're out riding the range and one of your mates let's rip, just remember your manners with a dignified: "Well Struck Sire !" Heaven forbid that it should ever happen, but if you're in polite company and there's an incident involving a lady in the riding group an equally dignified "Well Chimed Madam ! " may well save the day !