South Africa

Went well in time trial today, think 4th (provisional) about 3 minutes behind first, top 10 or so all pretty close, will be interesting to see what the next two days of 432kms of riding the Lesotho mountains will bring!

Pretty hot here in Lesotho, but am coping, bike is handling well, have a great pit crew (Uncle Rod, Wacker, Mon plus everyone else!) so am feeling good.

Traditional early start tomorrow - 5:30am bikes on the line for 6am kick off...

Taking the folks off to Lesotho today! So yes, I am also joining the pre-Roof herds of KTMs into Lesotho, but with my mum on the back of KTM's 990 (thanks guys) and my Dad on Alfie Cox Racings 950 (thanks guys).

We delayed the trip by a day to give us a chance of some not quite so awful weather, we will see. On the menu tonight is tuna pasta a la Chris. It should be a fun three days.

If you don't see any posts for a while, it means we are lost in Lesotho and please look out for us at the Roof!!

Just a week after we got back from Canada my parents arrived, so that's why we have been a bit quiet here! We shot up to Nelspruit for a couple of coaching days - thanks to the Hyde's for helping with the organisation and the de Beer family for making it so welcoming. 

Then we took my folks to Kruger Park for two days - they really enjoyed it and were impressed by how smart Mon and I sounded when talking about animals ... who knows how much we knew vs made up ... 

Well it was supposed to be the 5th round of the WFO this weekend but there weren't enough entries so it was cancelled. Pretty disappointed but oh well. Ryan from Bell Equipment, one of our team sponsors, had done a lot of work on the track so we headed down there anyway on Friday and rode the track on Saturday.

On the Friday first Ryan took us on a tour of the Bell plant which was pretty cool, and for a spin in the helicopter - I got to have a turn of steering, it was awesome.

Mon and I spent a week down on the Eastern Cape, doing some coaching, riding, bike prep, mountain biking, and tourist sight seeing!

We spent a day in Grahamstown on a game farm for a day of coaching, which was an awesome venue. Then we did a day in the rain coaching in Port Elizabeth - well done to the guys for turning up despite the slight drizzle.

I spent a day getting my KTM ready for the Winterberg enduro - this took a whole day but was worth it, as it meant I could relax for a few days.

Another thing to do when it snows ...

We have had huge snow at our South African home, well huge by African standards. A lot of the roads have been closed and we have had no power for the last few days. I did the only logical thing and fired up the 300.