South Africa

We are pretty excited to have some new sponsors on board for our team this year! The big addition is Bell Equipment, who have come on as a title sponsor. A big thanks to them for their support so far and their enthusiasm!

We also would like to welcome Motorex, Powasol and Bud Racing to the team, as well as a big thank you to KTM, Alfie Cox Racing, Mitas, Hyde and Polisport for their continued support through 2012.

Comsol Bell enduro team is set for good things this year we reckon!

... Other stuff gets done. Brad, our new team mechanic, and I went up to Iain's to start preparing the new workshop. Part of that involved finding a frog in a tyre and another on the engine?! Dom popped round to help and we spent some time going through parts orders, race prep for this weekend, and eating all of Mon's food!

Here we are, back in SA! I've been doing pretty much nothing in the way of riding or training lately, which is why I haven't updated the site ... having a broken ankle really slows you down! But, I had my cast off on Tuesday, flew on Wednesday, and already have my foot out of the moonboot and am able to walk on it and do exercycle training.

Today we caught up with Scott and Dom, my team mates, for some light training - in the form of mini golf, and took advantage of the sunny day and discussed team stuff for the year.

Unfortunately Alfie Cox and Jurgen Schroeder had really bad luck in day 1 when their car caught fire. They escaped uninjured thank goodness but such a shame that their Dakar 2012 is over so soon.

Roof of Africa 2011 was probably the best Roof I have done. It was hard, but enjoyable, we had a great team to help us finish, and we all had a great time.

What a day ... hot, long, no de-controls (for Kiwis, that means all service points were flat out!!). A GREAT pit crew thanks to Comsol Alfie Cox team (and Mon, hmm guess who's doing this entry...)

Had quite a few gnarly passes in today, I managed to stick with Jade and Jarvis for the majority of the day, and took advantage of a navigational error on Jarvis's part to claim first today. Very stoked, am HOPING I can keep the lead tomorrow but we will see, the Gold loop is said to be extremely tough so I will just have to do my very best and see what happens!

Last minute Roof prep for me involves:

A quick ride, now three days off the bike

Lots of Mon's yummy food (as much as she can force feed me!)

Final prep of E95 who will be just '1' for the Roof

Washing of helmets, boots, neckbraces

Labelling of tyres and mooses

Investigating what is in the team trailer and cleaning everything out

In the background you can just see the Comsol Sprinter, we have had three team vehicles wrapped this week so you can spot us at the Roof very easily!

While we are all frantically getting ready for the Roof of Africa, there is still heaps of things to do to get organised for 2012.

Our biggest news is that we are stoked to announce that we have a new team member for 2012 - Scott Bouverie. Scott recently came 3rd in the 200cc class in the SA national enduro champs this year, not to mention finishing the Roof of Africa in 2011. He is a very promising rider and we are delighted to have him on Team Comsol.

Us Kiwis went to Kokstad this week for last minute Roof training. We had an awesome time, even though by the last day most of us had ridden 6 out of 7 days so we were pretty knackered and started doing silly things ...

it was ridiculously hot, so hence the jumping in the river pics! I have no idea how my bike got up that bank ... Darryl wasn't around so it wasn't him ...

Thanks to everyone who came to the 'Spot the Dog' ride yesterday. It was a good day out, thanks to Will for his time as well. Spot has had her operation and we raised enough money to cover it. Now Dom owes us big time ... bike washing at the Roof, thanks mate!