Archive for February, 2008

It was my privilege to speak at a BNI International Networking week recently held in Westville.

It was invigorating to meet and rub shoulders with other focused and passionate business owners and their associates.

BNI “The Business Referral Organization” as they are better Known offers professional people an unprecedented opportunity to NETWORK! thank you Yvonne Duke ,Ilse Morris and BNI professionals.

We Hosted this one day team development workshop at Emoyeni in camperdown .

Our Breakaway day consisted of a series of interactive relationship building exercises ,team work activities and the indoor motivational session ” Moving Beyond Excuses” .It was a time to learn,laugh and reinvent ourselves in order to tackle the challenges that lie ahead in 2008.

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Thank you Sherry and your team.  Brett , Ryan and Brenda

We left at approx 8:15am and proceeded the 16 kms to Boarder post ( lots of washaways ,lose rocks and general lose stuff on the way up to the boarder.) The track obviously starts to challenge one right away you start the accent from the SA border post ( summer rains have created lots of deep ruts,big stones scattered across track) and notably one has to work hard to stay rolling and find the rhythm after each of these many challenging sections. Alan (normally so strong )started feeling poorly about a km after the border +- 17 kms in , after a short discussion It was agreed I would press on and return to meet up with him after topping out etc Our initial plan per your suggestion was to attempt to ride to Blackmountain +- 15 kms further on from the Sani top.

I was feeling good and managed to ride at a reasonable pace all the way until after the second hairpin( 1.5 kms from the top)as you know at this point the heart rate is off the chart and the throbbing in the temples starts, this along with an impossibly rutted ,lose and rocky track seemed well beyond both my physical or technical ability.I pushed from here and after Lesotho boarder post ,headed for the Top chalet pub and a quick social with the delightful hosts ( incidentally he freelances for My Photo and turned out to be the photographer on the first bridge stair section of Jeep H2H)

The weather was low cloud with a fresh cool wind and low dark cloud threatening inland ( i guess unsupported it might have been unwise to carry on ) I must admit I was a little concerned descending as to how brakes and handling would be, as the track was wet,with big lose rocks and bad ruts etc. On descending and approx 500 mts from the top- who should I meet but “Alan” the tough lad had sucked it up and was heading topside.( I waited for him in a semi sunny corner ,trying to stay out of the wind until he joined me after summating/ Lesotho passport control etc) After that our decent was fast and fun with no hassle at all. ( This lose rocky and rutted decent is hellish Hard on a Hard tail /I look forward to the future ownership of a dual susp)

My take on the ride is : Tough climbing but fun descending,enjoyed the technical stuff coming down ( not sure that I would want to schedule this as a monthly ride). Also ideally one needs to carry extra gear like rain jacket ,leggings extra bars and gels etc ( there is lots of water in summer,if you need) A great experience! one I think every Mnt biker should set up on his/her ride calendar at some stage.

Notes:

49.5 km return trip ( from Lodge)

Up: 3:30 hrs

Down:1hr

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