Sunday, 11 August 2013 - This post is all about Paulatjie!
Well as I mentioned in my previous blog post, it has been years of banter and begging before Paula finally decided to come mountain biking with us. I lowered myself to even ride and buy a road bike and she still didn't budge, but as soon as Bron convinced Karen to come along she was up for it. I e-mailed Paula to invite her along and when she replied with, "Thanks for the email and your thoughtfulness!" I expected something along the lines of BUT I have to train for the Haute route. Instead she replied with, "Yes, that sounds like a great plan!" I could not believe what I was seeing in black on white.
We had a whole build up to the actual ride, I told Paula that mountain biking is like the surfing of cycling and that she will have to blend in with the cool kids.
So yes Paula finally joined the cool mountain bike crowd on her inaugural ride.
As there were engineering works on the train lines, we went down to Peaslake with the cars and did loads of single track.
We were a group of 16 all competent riders even though some joined for the first time ever. Albert invited a few old faces along and it was great to have a more people than what I expected.
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Gill, Jason, Jono, Bryan, Simon, TC, Paula, Glen, Louis, Annelize, Pokkeltjie, Albert and Nathan
Unfortunately Bron, Kyle & Duncan was fixing Duncan's flat |
We took Paula first to the legendary and well known Yoghurt Pots. She was right behind me the first time and it was an absolute priceless event. She recently got the nickname, Scrat, as in the squirrel from Ice Age. It was hilarious hearing her go, Ehhhh or Uhhh at the top of every dip on Yoghurt Pots. I was constantly looking back to check if she was still on her bike. She looked and rode like a potential very good mountain biker! :)
Some of us did Yoghurt Pots four times before we decided to carry on to Barry Knows Best. Jono's phone unfortunately dropped out of his saddle bag and fell somewhere on the trail. After a lot of uhmmming and ahhing and faffing with the app, locate my phone we were going to leave him there and meet up later. I suddenly just thought this is NOT going to work, no cellphone coverage and someone who potentially don't know where they are or where they need to go, so I made the executive decision that we are all going to look for the phone.
Typically mountain bikers our efforts were a bit useless as we were too selfish to push our bikes and walk and look under ferns. I was riding my bike while dialling Jono's number constantly. We gave up and just as we were about to leave Jono behind with Albert's phone Kyle saved the day.
He was on his way down Yoghurt Pots when he pulled over to let a speedster pass him. As he jumped into the bush he saw Jono's phone and Bron even picked up a pound that fell from his saddle bag too. Jono was so relieved and rewarded Kyle with the pound!
We went over to Barry Knows Best and down to Peaslake and up through the Walking Bottom parking lot over to Christmas Pudding and Carpet Land. The trails were dry and running smoothly.
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| Coming down Carpet Land, Nathan, Bron, Jason & Liezl |
We went back up on the tar road to do Secret Santa. As Paula was cycling up she got into road cycling mode and brushed wheels with Jono and fell on the tar. I helped her to get her chain back on and ran some water over her elbow before we went on to Secret Santa. We were all amused that she came off on the road and not on the trails. :-) Hope your hand heals quickly!
We did Secret Santa before we head back to Peaslake for a well deserved cup of tea and famous cheese straws!
Thank you Paula for finally joining the cool kids. You were styling! Also thank you to Glen our first Aussie, Nathan, Duncan and Gill, the Newbies who joined us for the first time!
Starring Paula & Karen Rutherfoord.
