LAST Saturday, 4 February saw about 20 Amanzimtoti Cycling Club Mambas converge at Virginia Farm for another great club ride.
The club has three devoted groups, each to cater for the different levels of fitness: ‘MTB buddies’ for the racing snakes, ‘Slipstream’ for those who aren’t as fast as the racing snakes but can still climb at a decent pace and cover decent distances and ‘Fattis and monis’ for the beginners. Each group sets off in high spirits, each going their separate routes and distances.
Fattis and monis had a group of eight riders, three of whom hadn’t ridden for a while. It was extremely hot on Saturday but as a group, the Fattis and monis decided to do an extra 5km loop to give them more distance. At the end of this loop, two of their riders decided to take a shortcut back as they could see heat coming and they didn’t want to hold up the group. Virginia Farm is an excellent place to ride. It has all that a mountain biker enthusiast demands, but it is also a working farm. They had been logging in one part of the forest section and had forgotten to mark a detour route, which resulted in Fattis and monis taking the long and difficult route back.
The sun was blazing, water was running out and one rider was cramping and dehydrating badly.
After a lengthy rest, they managed to get to the bottom of Umdoni Valley where, by pure luck, farmer Malcolm saw them and took the rider back to Virginia Farm. All riders managed to replenish their bottles with water and it wasn’t long when a new rider in the group got ahead of the leader and missed a turn. They say one is only lost if one doesn’t like where one is. What was supposed to be a 25km ride turned out to be 40km but all ended well and the club treated all the riders to a tasty, cooked breakfast.
One way to get fit is to ride on the manicured 6km track at Hutchison Park. You get a great workout and everyone, regardless of fitness, is welcome to try the new trail. It can be ridden anytime but the Mambas meet every Thursday evening from 4pm to 6pm.
Mambas also meet every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 4.30am at the Engen Garage (corner of Rockview and Kingsway roads).
The next club ride will be at iNsingezi this coming Saturday at 6.30am. Anyone interested in joining, can call Shaun Heinze, MTB captain, on 074-848-7405.
